The University of Wisconsin–Madison has a new International Visiting Artist Program (IVAP) courtesy of the Division of the Arts and the International Division. This partnership will support short-term residences for international artists on campus for three years. Funding is provided by the International Division.
Visiting artists can expand students’ horizons and facilitate opportunities for future collaborations and careers abroad. Their visits will enrich the arts landscape at UW–Madison, including through collaborations with the Division of the Arts’ programs. These programs include the Wisconsin Film Festival, Madison Early Music Festival, Interdisciplinary Artist Residency Program and The Studio.
The first residency brings Belgian dancer, choreographer and teacher Sandra Vincent to campus Sept. 16-22, 2019. She will teach and meet with students in the Dance Department (supporter) and The Studio. She is joined by guest artist Benjamin Francart.
Vincent maintains her studio in Brussels, where she conducts research in dance, voice and performance and is the founder and director of Playsure Company and of ALMA, an extended program of artistic development that cultivates body and voice practices. She collaborates with multidisciplinary artists and creates staged works with a mix of amateurs and professionals. She has taught workshops about her research and creative process for over 20 years.
Sandra Vincent’s work in the tradition of Anna Halprin gives her a unique connection to UW–Madison. Revolutionary postmodern dancer Anna Halprin is a very influential alumna of UW’s Dance Department. Halprin’s artistic lineage directly connects back to Margaret H’Doubler, the pioneering faculty member who founded the first undergraduate dance major in 1926. This fall, the department installed an exhibition documenting and celebrating the “Radical Pedagogy” of Margaret H’Doubler and Anna Halprin.
BIOGRAPHIES
SANDRA VINCENT | www.playsurecompany.be
Belgian choreographer, performer and teacher Sandra Vincent has studied dance all her life. She maintains her studio in Brussels, where she conducts research in dance, voice and performance and is the founder and director of Playsure Company. Vincent invites collaborations with multidisciplinary artists. She creates staged works where amateurs and professionals join in her “art-life,” questioning the invisible through dance. She has taught workshops about her research and creative process in Belgium and abroad for over 20 years and considers the transfer of knowledge to be integral to her artistic practice. In 2017, she launched ALMA, an extended program of artistic development that cultivates body and voice practices.
Vincent is a certified practitioner of Anna Halprin’s Life/Art Process® through the Tamalpa Institute in California. Both through her work at Tamalpa and through studies of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen’s Body-Mind Centering®, she deepened her connection with the body as a whole. With a background in philosophy, Vincent lives thought through movement. She is passionate about improvisation, instant composition, collective intelligence and about the way in which a person’s creative expression can impact their sense of personal freedom.
BENJAMIN FRANCART | bfkn.wordpress.com
Belgian experimental musician Benjamin Francart began his solo concerts in 1998 under the name of Benjamin Franklin, in reference to the politician and inventor. His repetitive, poetic and carnivalesque music is highly improvised. He specializes in interdisciplinary collaboration with theatrical and movement artists. Francart was recognized by the Belgian recording label and concert organizer KRAAK for his experimental work, which led to him performing all around Western Europe.
Since 2000 he has regularly collaborated on sound for author Clément Laloy’s theatrical work and has participated in improvisation collectives R.O.T. and Buffle, most recently forming the duo Gangalai & Gourabai with artist Christophe Piette. Choreographer Sandra Vincent approached Francart in 2007 to collaborate on her experimental body voice dance piece “La Forêt.” Their other collaborations include: “La mort de Didon,” les pratiques exploratoires, ALMA and Playsure Company’s latest work in progress “Peace Piece.”