The CCN in Grenoble will host " JEM – Jeudis en Mouvement ," organized by Cité Danse, in its studio from January through June 2026. These workshops, open to professional dancers and students, take place on Thursdays from 10:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., with a different instructor for each session.
Laura Faguer offers a workshop centered on the concepts of “doing” and “letting go,” with the goal of discovering the minimal momentum needed to enter into dance by using body weight effectively. Improvisations will explore this theme, leading into technical work.
A dancer and co-founder of Cie Méduse, which develops multidisciplinary site-specific projects blending dance, music, lighting, and visual art, Laura Faguer has performed for Michèle Murray and Isabelle Blanco. She has performed at the Bains Numériques festival. A holder of a DE (Diplôme d’État), she has taught at the CRR in Grenoble since 2011.
Joseph Aka’s movement style draws its roots from traditional African dances, which are deeply imbued with meaning. The movements are disrupted and distorted to create a refined form attuned to the emotions of his own era, yet grounded in the traditions of his ancestors.
Trained in traditional dance from childhood, Joseph Aka began his career as a dancer and teacher, performing in shows across Africa. Discovered by Rhéda in the 1990s, he moved to France and trained in contemporary dance at the Nancy Conservatory in 2001. A performer for several companies, he is also deeply committed to passing on his art.
This session will focus on our connection to the floor: how to approach it, immerse ourselves in it, and lift off from it. We’ll develop our movements by treating the floor as a partner. In particular, we’ll use techniques and movements from breakdancing to better understand the floor and develop our footing.
Léo began with music before venturing into dance. Initially drawn to Hip Hop culture, professional training in Clubbing, contemporary dance, and theater opened up new horizons in movement for them. Today, they work with various companies (dance, music, theater), teach, and also create in other art forms such as painting and video.
Tom Decocco suggests using the fundamentals of breaking to initiate and develop floor work. The idea is to explore how to use the floor to push off, lift oneself, and move—while remaining aware of one’s footing and weight. Participants will approach this work in several ways: by experimenting with height, energy, and points of contact with the floor, while also taking the time to perform more technical movements and, perhaps, a choreographed sequence.
Thaïs Weishaupt invites participants to explore Laban kinesthetics—a system for analyzing and notating movement—as a tool for structuring the workshop. Participants will explore one of the core concepts of this language: support and gesture. Building on these principles, they will dance: experimentation, analysis, and improvisation will shape the session. Directly linked to these concepts, specific relationships to rhythm and space will also be brought into play.
Danae Papadopoulou, a Greek dancer and choreographer based in France, invites the audience to explore various choreographic elements used in the creative process of her work-in-progress, ThRACES. This solo piece examines inherited movements and their transformation through a body seeking a connection to traditions and a fading gestural and sensory memory. Participants are invited to explore certain foundational movements drawn from traditional Greek dances of the Thrace region and to deconstruct them through a free and improvised dialogue with contemporary dance.
Bruno Maréchal invites participants to engage in a practice that blends grounding, mobility, and the musicality of movement. Through a variety of physical explorations, the focus will be on finding strength, fluidity, and momentum within the body and in space, with particular attention to rhythm and the relationship to the floor. The session will combine floor work, muscle tone, relaxation, movements through space, and a significant amount of improvisation.
Dance Your Story. This workshop offers an immersion into the world of Krump, an urban dance style that originated in Los Angeles and is fueled by the raw expression of emotions. The goal is to explore storytelling through movement: every gesture becomes a word, every rhythm a narrative. The workshop alternates between learning the technical basics of Krump (stomps, chest pops, jabs, arm swings...) and guided improvisation exercises. Participants are invited to draw on their own experiences to create a personal dance, rich in meaning and intensity, in order to tell their story through the body. This workshop fosters individual expression, self-confidence, and listening to others within a powerful collective energy.
An exploration of physical and sensitive dance, where the body becomes a terrain for exploration. The work focuses on the transformation of movement: shifts, density, release, and micro-variations. A keen attention to breath, weight distribution, and bodily states guides the emergence of movement. We explore the interstices, transitions, and zones of resonance between two states. Bodies coexist and respond to one another, creating a polyphony rather than a unified gesture. Each participant develops a personal physicality in dialogue with the space and others. Objective: to deepen presence, expand the body’s vocabulary, and invent a dance in constant transformation.
