Julien Prévieux en

Biography

For the past ten years, Julien Prévieux (FR, 1974, based in Paris) has been researching patents, filed with an American agency and he has been composing “an archive of future gestures”. The movements enacted by the six performers in What Shall We Do Next ? (Séquence # 2) derive from this collection of phantom acts, sometimes stillborn, conceived before the machines which will decide their function have even been put together. Ticking over in a series of rhythmic sequences, they interweave the world of dance and its history. The script-based origin of these controlled gestures recalls the work of Rudolf Laban, inventor of a famous system of movement notation. Meanwhile their probable functional purposes bring to mind American postmodern dance, inspired by Anna Halprin’s ideas on the expression of everyday gesture.

Julien Prévieux was awarded the Prix Duchamp in 2014, followed by an exhibition at Centre Pompidou, Paris in 2015. In 2019, his exhibition Mordre la machine, was presented at MAC, Marseille. His project Lettres de non motiviation, published by Zone éditions, was adapted for theatre by the director Vincent Tomasser. Julien Prévieux has produced one further piece for theatre, On Balls, books and hats, presented at the Festival Actoral, Marseille (2018), at Etrange Cargo Ménagerie de verre, Paris, and at T2G, Gennevilliers (2019).