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, Anaïs Wenger, published by art&fiction publications, 2026

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

• Page à la main – Lucinda Childs et les pratiques de danse lettrée, by Lou Foster, published by 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, Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie de Besançon

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

• Lieux et milieux des arts vivants – Performer l’institution, edited by Anne Bénichou, Les presses du réel, 2024

• Travaux pratiques, Portrait de Jean-Frédéric Schnyder, by Fabienne Radi, published by art&fiction, 2026

• Dance First Think Later – Le corps pensant entre danse et arts visuels, vol.1, 2024 et vol.2, 2026, edited by Olivier Kaeser, published by 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 (in a pre-recorded video), on the same book and Lieux et milieux des arts vivants
  
• Rachel Maeder, on the book Life-Performance sammeln

• Sabine Gebhardt Fink, Andrea Saemann, on the book 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, lecturer, director of FRAC Lorraine from 1993 to 2015, on the collection of this FRAC, focused on immaterial works and protocol-based works, and open to performance and dance

• Cécile Mahiou, on the book Poétiques du quotidien

• Paul Briottet, artistic associate of the director, BOZAR, Brussels, on the project PIT – Perform Inform Transform. Participatory Performance in Art Museums

• Fabienne Radi. Reading of 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 vol.1 et 2

A detailed program will be announced soon.