Contemporary dancer in many dance companies in France and Europe, Gilles Viandier develops as a choreographer within the generic #Number# project, an evolutionary investigation at the crossing of performance, dance, installation and architecture, in echo to an architect’s diploma in 1997, questioning the urban and artistic conversion of industrial wastelands in Europe. He creates projects that combine bodies into play, social responsibility, sustainability, respect and dialogue with the environment. In 2018, he followed the Choreographer <> Composer education program at the Royaumont Foundation (Paris, F).
Linked to the context, the history and the identity of every city, #Number# questions the urban perception, the movement and commitment of the body, the representation in general and realizes performative in situ devices (including Street Pantone variations), based on the apprehension of the public space, its diversion and spectator’s role. These attentions to the inhabitant, to the passer-by, to contact in general, to the involvement of physical commitment questioning the ordinary, to conscious breathing, have led to the development of pedagogical actions with various audiences.
#Number# project : bodies and contexts
#Number# project started in Montpellier/France around the concepts of limits (margins, presence of nature, privatisation, urban paradoxes), of convergence (streets, squares, rivers, public, art of walking…), of scales (from human to monumental), of urban harvest (waste, signals, symbols, perceptions…), flow, movement in posture and discontinuity in dynamics, in the form of choreographic palimpsests. #Number# enters into variations during Montpellier Dance festival in 2008, at the Improspekcije festival in Zagreb, along the canal in Brussels, in Skopje/Macedonia for the project of the Biennial of Young Creatives of the Mediterranean See, in various performances in Berlin, invited by Jeremy Wade or Peter Stamer (The Village, Tanznacht 2010), and in Paris during the Danse élargie 2010 contest organized by Boris Charmatz.
Within various artistic residencies at Trafó theatre in Budapest (Hungary, 2012), with the Council of Architects of Transylvania in Cluj-Napoca (Romania, 2014), in Ujgorod (Ukraine, 2013), at the Antigel Festival in Geneva (Switzerland, 2016), with [AADK] Spain in Blanca (Spain, 2017) and at the Prague Quadrennial/PQ (Czech Republic, 2015), #Number# continues to explore and question engaging the body, the paradoxes of the window-city and its realities, safety and mobility, changing flows, invisible borders and elasticity of the urban fabric.
In the collection of choreographic and scenic materials, the appearance of the colour takes a particular place. Since 2015, Street Pantone, performative installations with 3 x 30 meters monochromatic lycra fabric, have been presented in many festivals, galleries and events (Heritage Days, Mouth of architecture, vernissages…). After some scenographic creations for theatre companies, and the original creation of gardens, he rethink the urban scenography of Mimos festival in Périgueux (F) driven by the Théâtre de l’Odyssée in 2020-21 : general survey, signages, flows between the different venues, manufacture and implementation of scenographic elements.
In 2022, a new creation, Sinople (generic term for all types of green in heraldry) approaches a choreographic, ecological, pictorial and literary research around our relationship to the colour green, its future in the city, its average place in the visible spectrum, on the globe, and complementary to our skin-self. In 2023-24 Rain-Bow Variations and OPTICKS open different projects based on the reunion of the 7 colours, about diversity, carnival and queer gestures.
In Marseille where he lives since 2021, different projects are developed with Karwan, Lieux Publics (Cité des arts de la rue), Museum Borély, and festivals as Préavis de désordre urbain, Red Plexus, Les Plus Belles de Mai (Ornic’art), Avant le Soir (Mairie du 1-7), Parc Bougainville (Mairie du 2-3), the Pride2weeks (Centre LGBTQIA+) and workshops mixing children from elementary schools from the city’s northern and southern districts in Le Grand Bain project (CitizenCorps).
26th Centenary Park, Marseille (F), 2023
Tribute to Gabriel Orozco’s Asterisms – Libreville, Gabon 2020
ABOUT
For the artist, it’s a question of “weaving with” the world around him, just as contexts weave and reweave reality. ——— Paul Ardenne, A Contextual Art
Choreographer, architect and pedagogue
Contemporary dancer in many dance companies in France and Europe, Gilles Viandier develops as a choreographer within the generic #Number# project, an evolutionary investigation at the crossing of performance, dance, installation and architecture, in echo to an architect’s diploma in 1997, questioning the urban and artistic conversion of industrial wastelands in Europe. He creates projects that combine bodies into play, social responsibility, sustainability, respect and dialogue with the environment. In 2018, he followed the Choreographer <> Composer education program at the Royaumont Foundation (Paris, F).
Linked to the context, the history and the identity of every city, #Number# questions the urban perception, the movement and commitment of the body, the representation in general and realizes performative in situ devices (including Street Pantone variations), based on the apprehension of the public space, its diversion and spectator’s role. These attentions to the inhabitant, to the passer-by, to contact in general, to the involvement of physical commitment questioning the ordinary, to conscious breathing, have led to the development of pedagogical actions with various audiences.
#Number# project : bodies and contexts
#Number# project started in Montpellier/France around the concepts of limits (margins, presence of nature, privatisation, urban paradoxes), of convergence (streets, squares, rivers, public, art of walking…), of scales (from human to monumental), of urban harvest (waste, signals, symbols, perceptions…), flow, movement in posture and discontinuity in dynamics, in the form of choreographic palimpsests. #Number# enters into variations during Montpellier Dance festival in 2008, at the Improspekcije festival in Zagreb, along the canal in Brussels, in Skopje/Macedonia for the project of the Biennial of Young Creatives of the Mediterranean See, in various performances in Berlin, invited by Jeremy Wade or Peter Stamer (The Village, Tanznacht 2010), and in Paris during the Danse élargie 2010 contest organized by Boris Charmatz.
Within various artistic residencies at Trafó theatre in Budapest (Hungary, 2012), with the Council of Architects of Transylvania in Cluj-Napoca (Romania, 2014), in Ujgorod (Ukraine, 2013), at the Antigel Festival in Geneva (Switzerland, 2016), with [AADK] Spain in Blanca (Spain, 2017) and at the Prague Quadrennial/PQ (Czech Republic, 2015), #Number# continues to explore and question engaging the body, the paradoxes of the window-city and its realities, safety and mobility, changing flows, invisible borders and elasticity of the urban fabric.
Tat Vam Asi, You Are That, Budapest 2012: https://www.numberproject.net/tat-vam-asi-that-is-you-en-vagyok-az-budapest-hu/
Urban scenographer in relation to colours
In the collection of choreographic and scenic materials, the appearance of the colour takes a particular place. Since 2015, Street Pantone, performative installations with 3 x 30 meters monochromatic lycra fabric, have been presented in many festivals, galleries and events (Heritage Days, Mouth of architecture, vernissages…). After some scenographic creations for theatre companies, and the original creation of gardens, he rethink the urban scenography of Mimos festival in Périgueux (F) driven by the Théâtre de l’Odyssée in 2020-21 : general survey, signages, flows between the different venues, manufacture and implementation of scenographic elements.
In 2022, a new creation, Sinople (generic term for all types of green in heraldry) approaches a choreographic, ecological, pictorial and literary research around our relationship to the colour green, its future in the city, its average place in the visible spectrum, on the globe, and complementary to our skin-self. In 2023-24 Rain-Bow Variations and OPTICKS open different projects based on the reunion of the 7 colours, about diversity, carnival and queer gestures.
In Marseille where he lives since 2021, different projects are developed with Karwan, Lieux Publics (Cité des arts de la rue), Museum Borély, and festivals as Préavis de désordre urbain, Red Plexus, Les Plus Belles de Mai (Ornic’art), Avant le Soir (Mairie du 1-7), Parc Bougainville (Mairie du 2-3), the Pride2weeks (Centre LGBTQIA+) and workshops mixing children from elementary schools from the city’s northern and southern districts in Le Grand Bain project (CitizenCorps).
Tribute to Gabriel Orozco’s Asterisms – Libreville, Gabon 2020