DANCEGROUND by Boris Charmatz

DATE Sat.-Sun. 5-6 Sept. 16h00
PLACE Ofelia Plads, Kvæsthusbroen, Cph. K – SEE MAP
WHAT Dance
FREE – just show up

 

An open-air dance floor for everyone

Visionary French choreographer Boris Charmatz transforms Ofelia Plads into a living dance floor.

As a celebration of the power of dance and movement, he has created a spectacular outdoor programme especially for Copenhagen, bringing together excerpts from some of his most iconic creations.

Here, dance is virtuosity, community and celebration, joy and togetherness. For the first time, Boris Charmatz visits Denmark with a large-scale event that freely blends genres and eras into a vibrant encounter of choreography and collective experience.

A programme of infectious energy, traditional and contemporary dance, and mole DJ’s

Known for dissolving the boundary between performers and audiences, Charmatz naturally begins by inviting everyone onto the dance floor for a collective warm-up for all bodies.

From there, 50 Copenhageners sweep us into their interpretation of Charmatz’s work Levée des conflits. Having inherited a repertoire of 25 movements, they now pass them on to us. Like a dancing mirage, bodies gather, disperse, and reform in ever-changing patterns.

Charmatz’s Terrain dancers then open a unique museum of dance—without display cases or artefacts, but animated by living bodies. As we wander among them, they bring iconic and forgotten solos from 20th-century dance history back to life, from Charlie Chaplin to William Forsythe, Carlotta Ikeda and Ko Murobushi.

A visit from the underworld launches the party when director Philippe Quesne’s giant DJ moles take over the square, inviting us into their enchanting cave universe filled with punk and techno energy.

Finally in herses, duo, Boris Charmatz and dancer Johanna Elisa Lemke meet in a sculptural duet – a hypnotic utopia of connection and symbiosis.

Duration: 3 hours
Suitable for all ages

ABOUT BORIS CHARMATZ

He has created works for renowned venues and festivals such as MoMA in New York, the Festival d’Avignon and Festival d’Automne in France, or Tate Modern in London. 2022-25, he served as artistic director of the iconic Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch. www.borischarmatz.org

CREDITS

Conception: Boris Charmatz
With: Magali Caillet Gajan, Boris Charmatz, Olga Dukhovna, Mai Ishiwata,
Johanna Elisa Lemke, Filipe Lourenço, Fabrice Mazliah
and The Moles by Philippe Quesne: Marc Chevillon, Léo Gobin, Thomas Suire (DJ set)
Costumes The Moles: Corinne Petitpierre
General stage manager: François Aubry aka Moustache
Sound: Sacha D’Enfert
Thanks to Carnets Bagouet, William Forsythe
Production and touring: Terrain
Deputy Director: Hélène Joly
Production team: Lucas Chardon, Briac Geffrault, Martina Hochmuth, Lola Serre

Terrain is supported by Ministère de la Culture – DRAC Hauts-de-France, and Région Hauts-de-France. Boris Charmatz | Terrain is associated with Maison de la Culture d’Amiens.

DANCEGROUND is supported by Knud Højgaards Fond.

DANCEGROUND includes:

Warm-up
With Boris Charmatz

Levée
Workshop with Boris Charmatz based on his piece Levée des conflits (2010) and the Terrain dancers Magali Caillet Gajan, Olga Dukhovna, Mai Ishiwata, Johanna Elisa Lemke, Filipe Lourenço, Fabrice Mazliah together with 50 local participants

20 dancers for the XX century
Concept: Boris Charmatz
With: Magali Caillet Gajan, Olga Dukhovna, Mai Ishiwata, Johanna Elisa Lemke, Filipe Lourenço, Fabrice Mazliah

The Moles (DJ set)
Concept: Philippe Quesne / Vivarium Studio
With: Marc Chevillon, Léo Gobin, Thomas Suire (DJ set)
Costumes: Corinne Petitpierre

herses, duo
Choreography: Boris Charmatz
With: Johanna Elisa Lemke, Boris Charmatz

BIOGRAPHIES

Boris Charmatz

Dancer, choreographer, and creator of experimental projects, Boris Charmatz emerged in 1993 as a major figure in French contemporary dance with À bras-le-Corps, a duet created with Dimitri Chamblas.

From 2009 to 2018 he was the director of the CCN de Rennes et de Bretagne, which he transformed into Musée de la danse, an experimental space to rethink the relationship between the public and the territories of art. Pieces like Aatt enen tionon (1996), enfant (2011) created for the Cour d’honneur at the Festival d’Avignon, or 10000 gestes (2017) have been shown around the world. His work has been the subject of retrospectives at MoMA (New York), Tate Modern (London), Festival d’Automne (Paris).

Since 2019, he has ceaselessly been questioning the foundations of his discipline with his company Terrain. From 2022 to 2025, Boris Charmatz was the director of Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch and developed, with Terrain, an artistic project between Germany and France.  In 2024, he was the “Artiste Complice” at the 78th Festival d’Avignon. In 2026, he creates Muette, his new solo piece.

20 dancers for the XX century:

Magali Caillet Gajan
After making her debut in cabaret and French television in the 1980s, Magali Caillet Gajan began performing in 1989 for Angelin Preljocaj, Philippe Decouflé, Mathilde Monnier, Odile Duboc, Carnets Bagouet and Boris Charmatz. She danced in the re-creations of Meublé sommairement directed by Fabrice Ramalingom, Jours Étranges (1990) and So Schnell (1992) directed by Catherine Legrand, three pieces by Dominique Bagouet, and for Ashley Chen in Unisson (2018) and Distance (2020). She has worked with choreographers Olivia Grandville, Maud Le Pladec, Fabrice Ramalingom, Phillip Connaugthon and director Myriam Marzouki. She is Boris Charmatz’s assistant on numerous projects. At Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, she assisted him on Wundertal / Sonnborner Strasse, Liberté Cathédrale, and CERCLES.

Interpretation: Mon truc en plume (1961) by Zizi Jeanmaire, theme from Champs-Elysées (1988), souvenirs from Noces (1989) by Angelin Preljocaj, Publique (2004) by Mathilde Monnier, Jeux olympiques and Shazam by Phillipe Decouflé, extracts from Jours étranges (1990) by Dominique Bagouet and Levée des conflits (2010) by Boris Charmatz.

Olga Dukhovna
recycles dance as others recycle objects: she recovers, transforms and diverts. Born in Ukraine and trained between Brussels (P.A.R.T.S.) and Angers (CNDC), she joined Boris Charmatz’s projects as a performer straight after her studies before developing her own work, fusing forgotten folklore with contemporary dance. Her pieces (Swan Lake solo, Korowod, Hopak, Crawl or a lecture performance on author rights) deconstruct existing dances to reveal their political charge.

Interpretation: material inspired by Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936), Buster Keaton’s Grand Slam Dance (1936), Ukrainian folk dances, Anna Pavlova’s The Dying Swan (1905), and a secret bonus dance.

Mai Ishiwata
studied dance at the Conservatoire national Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Paris. In 2007, an encounter with choreographer Cécile Loyer introduced her to butoh, which she went on to explore with Ko Murobushi and Carlotta Ikeda, joining their company, Ariadone. She became involved in the field of psychiatry through her work with Claire Durand-Drouhin, and continued this work with children suffering from motor disorders alongside Eric Minh Cuong Castaing and his project _p/\rc__. She has collaborated on performances, installations and operas with Ashley Chen, Lilo Baur, Massimo Fusco, Jonathan Drillet and Marlène Saldana, as well as Olivia Grandville.

Interpretation: Utt (1981) solo by Carlotta Ikeda, co-created by Carlotta Ikeda and Ko Murobushi, transmitted to Mai Ishiwata by Carlotta Ikeda in 2014.

Johanna Elisa Lemke
was born in Berlin and studied dance in Berlin and Amsterdam. She works as a choreographer, dancer, performer and actress in various art, film, music, theater and dance projects. In theater, she has choreographed alongside Rebekka David, Nora Abdel-Maksoud for works by Falk Richter, Thomas Ostermeier, Katie Michel and Wojtek Klemm. As a performer and dancer, she currently works with Boris Charmatz and Solène Wachter. Her creation PunkDrumLove premiered in November 2024 at DockArt. Collaborations with artists from different fields further include Ayat Najafi, Constanza Macras, Jeremy Shaw, Katie Mitchell, Ms-Schrittmacher, Club Guy and Roni, Marco Santi, Jens van Deale, Sultans Court, Felix Ruckert, Tino Sehgal, Isa Melzheimer, Frank Willens, Justin F. Kennedy and Emma Waltraud Howes, battle Royal, Helgi Jonsson, Robert Lippok, Bernadette la Hengst, the members of Team Volume and Guests.

Interpretation: Dances inspired by cult films and TV series from the 80s and 90s: Fame (1980), Flashdance (1983) and Twin Peaks (1990).

Filipe Lourenço
Dancer, choreographer and musician, Filipe Lourenço first trained in Andalusian Arabic music, playing with the El Albaycin orchestra for several years. At the same time, he practiced and taught traditional Maghreb dances. In 1997, he joined the Centre national de danse contemporaine d’Angers, and then began a collaboration with choreographer Catherine Diverrès. He has also worked with Georges Appaix, Michèle Noiret, Christian Rizzo, Boris Charmatz and Olivier Dubois. In 2016, he and his company signed his first creation Homo Furens, followed by Pulse(s) in 2018, Gouâl in 2021 and Chebin in 2023.

Interpretation: excerpts from his solo Pulse(s) (2018), based on traditional dances of the Maghreb.

Fabrice Mazliah
trained in Geneva, Athens and Lausanne and then danced at the Nederlands Dans Theater before joining William Forsythe in 1997 at the Ballett Frankfurt and then the Forsythe Company until 2015. His own works (Eifo Efi in 2013, with the MAMAZA collective In Act and Thought in 2015 for the Forsythe Company, Sheela Na Gig for the Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon in 2021, The Manufactured Series Duets #1-6 Symposium in 2022,The Ends of Things; The Things of Ends for the Theater Basel in 2024…),are presented throughout the world, and he also collaborates with many other artists. At the same time, he teaches a practice based on his research and improvisation.

Interpretation: extracts from Sider (2011), Anguloscuro (2010), I don’t believe in outer space (2008), Heterotopia (2006), The Defenders(2007), NNNN (2002), 7 to 10 passages (2000), Die Befragung des Robert Scott (1991) and The Returns (2009) by William Forsythe.

 

Photo: Barbara Braun (1,4), Alain Monot, César Vayssie, Martin Argyroglo