Jérôme Bel
Jérôme Bel
One of the most renowned French choreographers of his generation, Jérôme Bel, born in Montpellier, turned to creating dance performances after studying dance at the National Center for Contemporary Dance in Angers. As he says, he was inspired to do so in 1983 by the performance Nelken (Carnations) by the legendary German choreographer Pina Bausch.
Numerous events that shook and marked French society—and indeed the whole world—in the 1980s, including the AIDS epidemic, which first confronted the choreographer with the tragedy of death and loss, influenced Bel’s exploration of his own dance poetics over time. Nevertheless, his work has always strived to remain principled and uncompromising—a lasting critique and a stark reminder of popular culture on one hand and mass consumerism on the other.
In his performance, or rather self-portrait, titled Jérôme Bel, which fully adheres to the principles of sustainable theater—utilizing only a single performer, minimal stage equipment, and energy-efficient technology of the local theater—Bel takes us on an intriguing and provocative journey through nearly three decades of his professional and creative career as a dancer and choreographer. Over the course of just over an hour, he reflects on his own ideas, infused with French (post)structuralism, particularly the concepts of Roland Barthes and Guy Debord’s critique of the society of the spectacle.
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