Frédéric Flamand (born 1946 in

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

) is a Belgian actor, director, and

choreographer Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which Motion (physics), motion or Visual appearance, form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A chor ...

Biography

Flamand founded the Plan K

contemporary dance Contemporary dance is a genre of Concert dance, dance performance that developed during the mid-twentieth century and has since grown to become one of the dominant genres for formally trained dancers throughout the world, with particularly stron ...

company in 1973. From 1979, it occupied a former sugar refinery in

Molenbeek ( French, ) or ( Dutch, ), often simply called Molenbeek, is one of the 19 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium. Located in the western part of the region, it is bordered by the City of Brussels, from which it is separated ...

. He was interested in interdisciplinary work and hosted artists such as Bob Wilson,

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, Decouflé, Marie Chouinard,

Joy Division Joy Division were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Salford in 1976. The group consisted of vocalist, guitarist and lyricist Ian Curtis, guitarist and keyboardist Bernard Sumner, bassist Peter Hook and drummer Stephen Morris (musici ...

, and the

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. As director and choreographer, Flamand worked with many architects, including Fabrizio Plessi,

Elizabeth Diller Elizabeth Diller, also known as Liz Diller, is an American architect and partner in Diller Scofidio + Renfro, which she co-founded in 1981. She is also an architecture professor at Princeton University. Life Elizabeth Diller was born in 1958 in ...

, Ricardo Scofidio,

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Jean Nouvel Jean Nouvel (; born 12 August 1945) is a French architect. Nouvel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a founding member of ''Mars 1976'' and ''Syndicat de l'Architecture'', France’s first labor union for architects. He has ob ...

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, and more recently,

Dominique Perrault Dominique Perrault (born 9 April 1953 in Clermont-Ferrand) is a French architect and urban planner. He became world known for the design of the French National Library, distinguished with the Silver medal for town planning in 1992 and the Mies v ...

and the Campana brothers, working to connect the dancer's body to the surrounding architecture. Flamand was appointed head of the former Royal Ballet of

Wallonia Wallonia ( ; ; or ), officially the Walloon Region ( ; ), is one of the three communities, regions and language areas of Belgium, regions of Belgium—along with Flemish Region, Flanders and Brussels. Covering the southern portion of the c ...

in 1991 and renamed the company Charleroi / Danses. It became the first contemporary dance company in Belgium, and Flamand made the company well-known in Belgium and internationally. On February 28, 1998, Maurice Bejart was condemned by the Belgian courts for his choreography of ''Presbytery'', which plagiarized an extract from Flamand's 1989 "The Fall of Icarus''"''. The work has a winged dancer crossing the stage wearing video monitors as shoes. In September 2004, Flamand was appointed manager of the

Ballet National de Marseille The Ballet National de Marseille is a dance company based in Marseille, France. The company combines modern dance and classical ballet. Overview The Ballet National de Marseille was founded by the dancer and choreographer Roland Petit in 1972. T ...

and the Marseille National School of Dance. Eric Vu-An has been his assistant since 2005. He was appointed the artistic director of the International Dance Festival of Cannes for the years 2011-2013.

Selected works

;With Theatre Laboratoire Vicinal 1972: "Lunapark" and "Tramp" (went on tour and performed at

La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club (sometimes abbreviated as La MaMa E.T.C.) is an Off-Off-Broadway theater founded in 1961 by African-American theatre director, producer, and fashion designer Ellen Stewart. Located in the East Village neighborho ...

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) ;With Plan K 1980: "Quarantine" 1984: "Scan Lines" 1987: "If Pyramids Were Square" 1989: "The Fall of Icarus" with Fabrizio Plessi ;With Charleroi / Danses 1992: "Titanic" with Fabrizio Plessi 1994: "Ex Machina" with Fabrizio Plessi 1994: "Hull and Machinery" 1996: "Speed and Memory" 1996: "Moving Target" with Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio 1998: "EJM 1 and 2" 'with Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio 1998: "Gender" 2000: "Metapolis" with

2000: "The Future of Work" with

2001: "Body / Work / Leisure" with

2003: "Silent Collisions" with

2005: "Eight" in collaboration with Marion Ballester ;With the Ballet National de Marseille 2005: "The Radiant City" with

2006: "Metapolis II" with

2007: "Metamorphosis" with Humberto and Fernando Campana 2009: "The Trouble of Narcissus" 2010: "The Truth 25 times a second" with

Ai Weiwei Ai Weiwei ( ; , IPA: ; born 28 August 1957) is a Chinese contemporary artist, documentarian, and activist. Ai grew up in the far northwest of China, where he lived under harsh conditions due to his father's exile. As an activist, he has been ...

References

External links

*Frédéric Flamand interviewed by Susanne Franco. L'Epos. Palermo, 2004.
Flamand's page on La MaMa Archives Digital Collections
{{DEFAULTSORT:Flamand, Frederic 1946 births Living people Male actors from Brussels Belgian male actors Belgian male dancers Belgian dancers Belgian choreographers Belgian theatre directors