Jean Baptiste André
Born in 1979. A circus artist whose productions focus on the cross-over between artistic genres as a galvanising force in research and creation. After starting out as a gymnast, André began his training in the circus arts. He subsequently devoted a year to advanced literature studies before changing track and switching to a formal training course in circus arts in the Centre National des Arts du Cirque (CNAC), where he specialised in hand-balancing and clown performing, and was graduated summa cum laude.
During his training and since 2001, André conceived and produced several modules with different thematic approaches. In 2002, he founded the Association W dedicated to examining the circus arts through the prism of contemporary creation. In 2004, he produced his first original-concept creation, intérieur nuit, a hybrid circus-and-digital arts concept that toured in France and abroad, that has been followed by a second solo comme en plein jour in 2006. In 2005 he became the first circus artist to get a 'Villa Medicis Hors Les Murs' AFAA grant . He travelled to Japan and built up a collaboration with 2 Japanese artists. Thanks to the support of the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media, they created the piece 'Hidden Faces / Faces cachées / Kakusareta men'.
He also embarked on a performing career alongside the choreographers Philippe Découflé, Gilles Baron, Christian Rizzo, Herman Diephuis, François Verret, Rachid Ouramdane. He turned his attention to collaborative projects with stage directors, choreographers, musicians and visual and graphic and kept on working in other artistic fields. André met Robin Rhode (drawer and plastician artist) and started to collaborate as an performer for Robin's productions. In 2010, he produced a new pièce Qu'après en être revenu, for 3 acrobates dancers and one musician on stage. In 2011, he choregraphed the creation of Arnaud Meunier '11 septembre 2011', produced in the Théâtre de la Ville of Paris. With the french author Fabrice Melquiot they created two performances, S'enfuir (2011) and L'espace (2012), exploring the links between words and movement.
André recently presented a new work, pleurage et scintillement, a duet with Julia Christ, that starts its tour.
