company – Vlovajobpru

Cecilia Bengolea

Cecilia Bengolea’s practice is focused on anthropological and urban dance forms and their relation to nature, the elements and figuration. She perceives dance and performance as animated sculpture and welcomes the fact that these forms allow her to become both object and subject at the same time.

She studied Philosophy and Art History at Buenos Aires University and followed the choreographic master Ex.e.r.c.e. by Mathilde Monnier in Montpellier.

Bengolea’s video installations and performances have been exhibited at the Gwangju Biennial (2014), Biennale de Lyon (2015), The Tanks and Tade Modern (2015), Faena Arts Center, Buenos Aires (2015 and 2017) Fig-2 25/50 at ICA, London (2015), Dia Art Foundation (May 2017), Tokyo Spiral Hall, Biennale de Sao Paulo (2016), The Infinite Mix, Hayward Gallery London (2016), Elevation 1049, Gstaad (2017), Palais de Tokyo (2015 and 2018), Art Night, ICA London (2015), Fiorucci Art Trust, Stromboli, Dhaka Art Summit (2018), TBA21, Venice (2018), Art Basel Miami Beach (2018), E.A.T (2019), Centre Pompidou (2010 and 2016), Engadin Art Talks 2019, Desertx 2019.

Bengolea has collaborated with François Chaignaud since 2005. Their collaborative work Pâquertte (2005-2008), Sylphides (2009) won the Award de la Critique de Paris and the Young Artist Prize at the Gwangju Biennal in 2014. They have co-created dance pieces for their company as well as for the Ballet de Lyon (2013), the Ballet de Lorraine (2014) and Pina Bausch Tanztheater Wuppertal (2015).

François Chaignaud

Born in Rennes, François Chaignaud studied dance from the age of six. He earned a diploma in 2003 from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Danse de Paris, collaborating soon after with several choreographers, notably Boris Charmatz, Emmanuelle Huynh, Alain Buffard, and Gilles Jobin. From He’s One that Goes to Sea for Nothing but to Make him sick (2004) to Думи мої (2013), he has created performances in which dance and singing intersect, in a wide variety of environments and at the meeting points of many inspirations. From this tension, the possibility of a body takes shape, inhabiting the space between the sensual rigour of movement, the evocative power of singing, and the convergence of heterogeneous historical references — from erotic literature (Aussi Bien Que Ton Cœur Ouvre Moi Les Genoux, 2008) to sacred art. Also historian, François Chaignaud published L’Affaire Berger-Levrault: le féminisme à l’épreuve (1898-1905) with PUR. His curiosity for history has driven him to initiate various collaborations, notably with legendary drag queen Rumi Missabu of the Cockettes, cabaret performer Jérôme Marin (Sous l’ombrelle, 2011), artist Marie Caroline Hominal (Duchesses, 2009), fashion designers Romain Brau and Charlie Le Mindu, visual artist Théo Mercier, photographer Donatien Veismann and videast Cesar Vayssié. Chaignaud has been commissioned to create a film installation for 24 FRAMES per second in CarriageWorks Sydney.

In collaboration with artist Nino Laisné, he has created a piece entitled Romances inciertos: un autre Orlando, bringing together four instrumentalists around various ambiguous motifs of genre from the choreographic and vocal Iberian repertoire. The piece has been shown as part of the 2018 programme of the festival d’Avignon. In 2018 François Chaignaud also choreographed Soufflette, a piece for the Carte Blanche Ballet (Norway) in collaboration with Romain Brau premiered in May in Studio Bergen.

His latest creation Symphonia Harmoniæ Cælesitum Revelationum is a research on the Antique Christian song repertoire as well as Hildegard Von Bingen conceived in collaboration with Marie-Pierre Brébant. The show premiered in May 2019 at the Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels. His upcoming projects include collaborations with notably: Akaji Maro, Dominique Brun and Les Siècles orchestra and a new collaboration with Geoffroy Jourdain and vocal ensemble Les Cris de Paris.

Compagnie Vlovajob Pru – François Chaignaud & Cecilia Bengolea

Cecilia Bengolea and François Chaignaud have been collaborating since 2005. Together, they created Pâquerette (2005-2008), Sylphides (2009), Castor et Pollux (2010), Danses Libres (2010), (M)IMOSA (with Trajal Harrell and Marlene Monteiro Freitas, 2011), altered natives’ Say Yes To Another Excess –TWERK (2012), Dub Love (2013), DFS (2016). In 2014, the Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon commissioned them to create a ballet for seven dancers on pointe shoes, set to Toru Takemitsu music composition How slow the wind. In 2015, Bengolea and Chaignaud were commissioned by the Ballet de Lorraine to produce a new work set to Devoted, a music by Philip Glass. On the same year, they premiered a new piece, entitled The Lighters’ Dancehall Polyphony for Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal. The performance Sylphides, written for vacuumed bodies in latex fetish envelopes won the Award de la Critique de Paris in 2009 and the Young Artist Prize at Gwangju Biennial, Korea in 2014. Over the past few years, they have presented work at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, The Kitchen in New York, Tokyos Spiral in Japan, the Biennale de la danse de Lyon, at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London, the Faena Art Center in Buenos Aires, of fig-2 at ICA, London, at the Festival d’Avignon, the Festival d’Automne à Paris, Montpellier Danse, ImpulsTanz in Vienna, deSingel in Antwerp, the Teatro de la Ribera in Buenos Aires, at the Panorama Festival of Rio de Janeiro, at the Centre National de la danse in Pantin, SESC in Sao Paulo and most recently at Kyoto Experiment, the Kyoto International Performing Arts Festival in October 2018.