December 15, 2016

Jérémy Tran

We had a chat with Jérémy Tran. He told us his story.

I am a 24-year-old multidisciplinary artist and project manager, graduated from the Lyon CNSMD and from Lyon's University with a master in Development of International Artistic and Cultural Projects. After starting classical dance at the age of 8 at the Regional Conservatory of Lille, I decided in 2009 to turn towards contemporary dance. I joined the Lyon CNSMD in 2010 to become a professional dancer and in 2014 obtained the Diplôme National Supérieur Professionnel de Danseur, the ADAMI scholarship and the Prodij talent trophy from the city of Lyon. All this led me to a career as a dancer-performer.

At the same time, I directed many short films including Artificial Landscapes, gathering 140 people, which I presented in September 2014 at the Dance Biennale in Lyon. In April 2015, the short film Dissection was part of the official selection of the 60secondsdance international festival in Denmark. I was subsequently selected to participate in the Watermill Center Summer Program in New York where I was able to work as a videographer and documentalist alongside director Robert Wilson. I also choreographed Lagune, a performance in collaboration with the visual artist Denis Savary in the fall of 2015. This year I obtained a Master in Development of International Artistic and Cultural Projects and I recently worked as Project Monitoring Officer at the National Center of Dance.

"I never wanted to categorize or define myself.
I go where instinct takes me and it is for me
a luxury and a great freedom."

I soon felt the need to associate other disciplines with dance, to associate mediums like photography, video, architecture, scenography. Being multidisciplinary is something that is important to me and that I feed on every day. The artistic encounters that I do also lead me in this direction. I never wanted to categorize or define myself. I go where instinct takes me and it is for me a luxury and a great freedom.

Classical dance carries within it a codified language, rigorous, technical, not to say compartmentalized, which I take great pleasure in watching, but which, I believe, leaves little room for improvisation, ardor, weakness and errors. I found in contemporary dance a tremendous opportunity to affirm my personality, my identity, a diversity of forms and an incredible freedom of expression. Perhaps the main difference between these two dances resides in the notion of "beauty" and in the forbidden words. The narrative and dramaturgic stakes are not the same.

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Artificial Landscapes is the largest project I have carried out so far. It is both a 25 minute short film, but also photographic exhibitions, video projections, performances and lectures. It is a project that I call "total", multidisciplinary, which brought together 140 people including 82 dancers from France, Switzerland and Spain.

By creating this project I wanted to gather people widely around dance. The idea was to get amateurs, professionals and non-dancers to dance together, in atypical and exceptional places. The short film is only a final rendering, a pretext. The main challenge of this project lies in the performance of this extraordinary adventure, bringing together diverse sensitivities, skills, social environments and different profession around the same goal. We shot in three historic places: the railway rotunda of Grigny, the stables of the company "Petits Champs" in Beaumontel and the Citroën Garage in Lyon.

"I always try to induce envy, enthusiasm and
include each person according to his/her area
of competence, while leaving everyone a
great freedom of speech and exploration"

I always try to provoke envy and enthusiasm and include each person according to his/her area of competence, while leaving everyone a great freedom of speech and exploration. What I seek above all else is the flourishing of my collaborators, their authenticity, because that is what inspires me the most and what allows me, allows us to question ourselves to go beyond our limits and to produce sensitive and human projects.

In Artificial Landscapes the part of improvisation is great. This was essential for me, for the purpose of the project and for the meaning of the work. It required freedom of expression at all levels for dancers, but also for cameramen and technicians. The only part that was written is the common choreography at the end of the film, where the performers dance in unison. However, this freedom was made possible thanks to a framework that was very precise, well written and set up. The organization of Artificial Landscapes was extremely precise. The music, composed by Valentin Hadjadj, was not broadcast while recording. It was added in post-production. The music broadcast during the shootings were mainly stimulants for the dancers, a support to allow them to improvise.

Photo: Maud Regnault

I am at the confluence of dance, performance, contemporary art, photography and video. My artistic work tries to grasp and amplify the energy of the body, based on a choreographic and plastic research. I also pay much attention to the experience of the spectators, which I wish to be immersive. As project manager, I am eager to develop high-profile events that are accessible to all, contributing to the general interest and emancipation.

I take photographs the way I create a choreography. I work mainly with dancers with whom I experiment and seek leitmotivs, emotions, forms, attitudes. After collecting a database, I create a series, a story, selecting some of the photos and associating them with each other. The photos that make up a series have a meaning only through the others and function by association of ideas. I therefore always start with the sensations, the instinct, the authenticity of the models / performers, and then try to decipher the content of what I wish to convey to the audience.