Exploring the dance of the past and the future with the BNP Paribas Foundation

Numeridanse, a visual heritage of 10 years of dance

Numeridanse celebrated its 10th anniversary with a 100% digital, eclectic and free festival that took place from 10 to 17 November 2021. Previously unreleased dance films, adaptations of plays, performance archives, interviews and master classes including some still available for replay. 

Cédric Klapisch, the event’s sponsor, gave one of the most popular master classes of the festival: “Framing the Frameless”. Relive this experience on the art of filming dance. 

“Today, the BNP Paribas Foundation supports projects that leverage digital technologies to imagine new forms of creation and dissemination of dance. We support Numeridanse.tv’s ambition to broadcast quality, innovative content, to share our passion with as many people as possible”. Adeline Jacques, in charge of performing arts partnerships at the BNP Paribas Foundation

Numeridanse is a video library of artistic dance performances created in 2011 at the Maison de la Danse in Lyon. Its aim is to transmit, share and inspire.

New technologies are transforming our society, and the cultural sector is no exception. The Covid-19 crisis has pushed the cultural sector to adapt to new forms of interaction with others and with art. 

Dansathon, the first European “dance hackathon”, is one of the forums for these reinventions, an event initiated and supported by the BNP Paribas Foundation. Combining artistic and technological creation, this event is an opportunity to focus on contemporary concerns, such as ecology and social inclusion.

Three major European dance institutions came together for this collaborative, interconnected and European experience: the Théâtre de Liège, which hosted the event, Sadler’s Wells in London and the Maison de la Danse in Lyon.

How can dance be part of a society in transition? Augmented or diminished human? Energy-generating dance? Green dances? Social distancing dancing? From 19 to 21 November 2021, 48 participants (dancers, choreographers, coding specialists, UX designers, etc.) answered these questions and presented their prototypes.

The 2021 jury chose to award two teams. The performances ‘Where We Meet’ and ‘The Living Room’ reinvent our way of being together. “Where We Meet” offers a new way of meeting and experiencing each other through dance, in an interactive dialogue. “The Living Room” created a whole environment, sensitive to movements thanks to several types of sensors, where each single gesture generates stimuli for the participants in the experience. 

With these prototypes, the winners demonstrate their interest and involvement in a very topical issue: the desire to live together.The two winning teams received an endowment of €10,000 each and the possibility of a residency, to continue their creation.

“When dance and digital technology, as a means of expression serving the major challenges of tomorrow, merge to imagine the future of dance, to enrich creation and social interaction, the BNP Paribas Foundation, at the heart of humanity and innovation, is more committed than ever! Our purpose is to encourage the avant-garde by enabling artists, who are rooted in society, to express themselves through their talent!” said Isabelle Giordano, Head of Corporate Philanthropy for the BNP Paribas Group and General Delegate of the BNP Paribas Foundation.

As a patron of contemporary dance for nearly 40 years, the BNP Paribas Foundation is committed to identifying, nurturing and supporting talent in contemporary dance and circus. 

Its role is to give dancers and choreographers the means to develop their projects, to share their creations and their talent with the general public. 

The support of the BNP Paribas Foundation for the Dansathon and Numeridanse, since their creation, is a proof of the pioneering and innovative dimension of its cultural patronage.