Deep Water
Grégoire Schaller, Arthur Hoffner
In 2023, Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels is supporting the Ménagerie de verre for the staging of Deep Water by Grégoire Schaller and Arthur Hoffner, as part of Les Inaccoutumés Festival 2023.
In a space resembling a cross between home and a dance studio, a weightlifter practices his amateur workout routines. In the course of the performance, he sets in motion a series of fountains composed of rainwater collection barrels, offering viewers a flowing, cascading spectacle. Surrounded by his weightlifting trophies, posters displaying his image and that of his athletic idols, gleaming pipes, natural and artificial sponges, as well as a pile of pumice, he fashions his body as an object. Within his “water closet,” he lifts, manhandles and embraces the maternal contours of his vessels, all the while wielding accessories linked to the water circuit: funnels, tubes and baby bottles. And as the show unfolds, he ultimately becomes a fountain himself.
Photo: © Philippe Lucchese
About the Artists
Grégoire Schaller
Grégoire Schaller is a visual artist, choreographer, performer and doctoral student in the field of philosophy of aesthetics. He designs multidisciplinary performing arts projects at the crossroads of dance, stage art, visual art and scientific research, highlighting the links between the body and specific sites or objects.
In 2017, he partnered with Anna Chirescu to found the dance company Anna & Grégoire, which serves as a vehicle for their choreographic work.
Photo: © Grégoire Schaller
Arthur Hoffner
Arthur Hoffner is a visual artist whose work spans the disciplines of craftsmanship, sculpture and industrial design. Fascinated by chronicles of artistic techniques and the forms they generate, he seeks to fuse ancient and emerging techniques. His most recent projects, exploring the theme of water, reflect this concern for synthesis by blending the fountain, as a primordial object, with the triviality of its contemporary household equivalent.
Photo: © Arthur Hoffner
