Symposium

Organisation
Arta Sperto and Jérôme Leuba, artist

How does a performance or choreographic work come into being? How can it be transmitted, collected and documented? By considering what happens before and after the time of the performance, this symposium will seek to address these questions, which concern the creative process and which most often unfolds on paper.

The symposium draws on scores, notations and other forms of documentation related to the performances programmed as part of DFTL26 and presented in the exhibition at Le Commun. It offers an overview of these questions by bringing together researchers and practitioners—artists, art historians, curators, etc.—who have been involved, in particular, in several publications, most of them published recently.

On the occasion of the publication of the following books:

• Il y a plusieurs manières de traverser une gare – Récits de performances infiltrées dans l’espace public, by Jérôme Leuba, with texts by Anne Bénichou, Alain Freudiger, Camille Paulhan and Anaïs Wenger, art&fiction publications, 2026

• Life-Performance sammeln. Ein Handbuch zur Handhabung flüchtiger Kunst, Peter Lang Verlag, 2026. Research project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation – Hochschule Luzern HSLU, directed by Rachel Maeder and Wolfgang Brückler, 2026

• Revolving Histories on translocal performance art Switzerland, edited by Andrea Saemann, Chris Regn, Lena Eriksson, Margaret von Büren, Muda Mathis and Sabine Gebhardt Fink, ATLAS + READER, Vexer, 2026

• Page à la main – Lucinda Childs et les pratiques de danse lettrée, by Lou Foster, Macula, 2026

• Chorégraphies. Dessiner, danser (XVIIe-XXIe siècles) – Chorégraphies, écriture et dessin, signe et image dans les processus de création et de transmission chorégraphiques (XVe-XXIe siècles), edited by Pauline Chevalier and Amandine Royer, co-published by INHA, Liénart, and the Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie de Besançon

• Poétiques du quotidien – Le parti-pris du non art, by Cécile Mahou, Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2023

• Recréer / scripter – Mémoires et transmissions des œuvres performatives et chorégraphiques contemporaines, by Anne Bénichou, Les Presses du réel, 2015

• Dance First Think Later – Le corps pensant entre danse et arts visuels, Vol. 1, 2024 and Vol. 2, 2026, edited by Olivier Kaeser, Arta Sperto, distributed by Les Presses du réel

Speakers:

• Alain Freudiger, Jérôme Leuba and Anaïs Wenger, on the book Il y a plusieurs manières de traverser une gare

• Anne Bénichou, on the same book and Recréer / scripter

• Rachel Maeder, on the book Life-Performance sammeln

• Andrea Saemann and Sabine Gebhardt Fink, on Revolving Histories

• Lou Foster, on the book Page à la main and the three-part exhibition Lucinda Childs – Danser page à la main, 2026

• Pauline Chevalier, on the book Chorégraphies. Dessiner, danser (XVIIe-XXIe siècles)

• Béatrice Josse, curator, researcher and lecturer, notably director of FRAC Lorraine from 1993 to 2015, whose collection is particularly significant for its focus on immaterial works and works based on protocols, as well as its engagement with performance and dance

• Cécile Mahou, on the book Poétiques du quotidien

• Paul Briottet, Artistic Associate to the Director, BOZAR, Brussels, on the project PIT – Perform Inform Transform. Participatory Performance in Art Museums

• Fabienne Radi (tbc), reading excerpts from Travaux pratiques, Portrait de Jean-Frédéric Schnyder, Éditions art&fiction, 2026

• Jérôme Leuba, battlefield #168, living sculpture, 2026

• Olivier Kaeser, on the books Dance First Think Later – Le corps pensant entre danse et arts visuels