Mycelium / BIPED
Christos Papadopoulos
Merce Cunningham
With Lyon Opera Ballet
© Agathe Poupeney
In 2024, Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels is supporting the Romaeuropa Festival for the presentation of Mycelium by Christos Papadopoulos and BIPED by Merce Cunningham in a double bill.
The protagonist of the Romaeuropa Festival’s opening is the prestigious Lyon Opera Ballet which brings together over twenty dancers, with two different choreographies: Mycelium by Christos Papadopoulos, which is inspired by the natural world and invites us into its perceptive atmosphere of sounds and hypnotic movements; BIPED by the great Merce Cunningham- widely considered the father of contemporary dance - which is a pioneering dialogue between dance and technology to the tune of Gavin Bryars and his Ensemble.
About the artists
Christos Papadopoulos
Born in 1982 in a small village in the Peloponnese (Greece), Christos Papadopoulos studied dance and choreography at SNDO (School for New Dance Development) in Amsterdam, theatre at the National Theatre of Greece Drama School (GNT Drama School) and political science at Panteion University (2000). His unique choreographic style is characterized by a highly developed visual dimension, a particularly close relationship between body and space or movement and music, and the importance of the choral group.
Nature never ceases to invent a profusion of forms, movements, and structures, the observation of which is a source of inspiration. Fascinated by the creativity of natural processes, Greek choreographer Christos Papadopoulos has devised an organic dance that transforms how bodies interact and organize themselves - broadening our perception of how they relate to each other. Drawing on the simple movements of the human body, he develops trance-like experiences, involving all the senses in a multi-dimensional aesthetic immersion.
Since 2003, he has taught movement and improvisation at the Athens Conservatory Drama School. After working as a choreographer assisting various directors, his first works in 2016 and 2017 quickly earned him national and international recognition.
©Elina Giounanli
Merce Cunningham
Merce Cunningham (1919 – 2009) was a leader of the American avant-garde throughout his seventy-year career and is considered one of the most important choreographers of our time. With an artistic career distinguished by constant experimentation and collaboration with groundbreaking artists from every discipline, Cunningham expanded the frontiers of dance and contemporary visual and performing arts. Cunningham’s lifelong passion for innovation also made him a pioneer in applying new technologies to the arts.
Cunningham began his professional dance career at 20 with a six-year tenure as a soloist in the Martha Graham Dance Company. In 1944 he presented his first solo show and in 1953 formed the Merce Cunningham Dance Company as a forum to explore his groundbreaking ideas. Together with John Cage, his partner in life and work, Cunningham proposed a number of radical innovations, chief among them that dance and music may occur in the same time and space, but should be created independently of one another. They also made extensive use of chance procedures, abandoning musical forms, narrative, and other conventional elements of dance composition. For Cunningham the subject of his dances was always dance itself.
Photo : © Annie Leibovitz
