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Blumenthal Bud

Blumenthal Bud

Bud Blumenthal is an American-born choreographer. Since 1992, he has been producing his Works in Europe where he settled in 1988 to become part of the Plan K Company, headed by Frédéric Flamand. He danced in Michèle Noiret’s “L’Espace Oblique”(1993), in “Tollund” (1993-94), and in “In Between” (2000).


His background is eclectic – he practiced sport intensively before exploring the techniques of yoga, tai chi chuan and improvised dance. His encounter with Michèle Noiret, in Belgium, marked the beginnings of his career as a choreographer, in the duet Louisiana Breakfast (1991) that they created together.


Since his appearance at Avignon in 2000, with 24 Haïkus (solo, 1996) and Noeud de Sable (duet, 1997), and in the Festival des Hivernales 2001, with the production of Les Entrailles de Narcisse, his choreographies have met with growing interest, notably for his way of conjugating poetry and fluidity of movement with new technology. This approach is used in River Tryptych, which brings together the duet Rivermen (1999), the solo Les Entrailles de Narcisse (2001) and the trio Red Cliff (2002) benefiting from the valuable support of the Forum, Scène conventionné of Blanc-Mesnil (France).


In 2002, he created Phantom Limbic for the Ballet de Lorraine, a tribute to Loïe Fuller that includes computer-generated images and special effects. Besides these investigations, he sometimes explores hybridizations of style in his pieces, notably Spledge (2000, mixing hip hop, club style and contemporary dance) and with African dance in the duet Groundscape (for the Festival Africalia 2003).


In 2004, for the Charleroi/Danses Biennal, Bud Blumenthal presented an ambitious production with extensive technological systems based on Homer’s Odysseus and James Joyce’s novel: Les Reflets d’Ulysse. This work was the subject of a preliminary gestural and technological study, the solo Les Sentiers d’Ulysse. Another invention “the active whisper” was made for the video and sound installation Ulysses Roaming in 2005 for the festival Equilibrio in Rome. In 2006 the solo Po’s Vague combined computer animation and remote sound projection.


In 2007, he founded Standing Wave, dance quartet with original broadcast audio and music signed Walter Hus and a string quartet on stage. Also the same year, he created the masculine duet made with Hayo David DoWhileLoop became the elaborated DoWhileLoopS.


With Into The Riff, in 2008, he explores the mixture of improvised dance and music in the company of trombonist Garrett List and its musicians riffing Society. 2009 sees the creation Beatrix//Beatrice, female duo combining voice, movement and technology to music by George De Decker.


It is also this year that Bud Blumenthal launches major project DANCERS!, monumental installation honoring the dancers by a collection of sequences of 2-minute impromptu dancers of all technical and from the four corners of the planet!


Finally, 2010 and 2011 are marked by the development project DANCERS! and the creation of a new duet with Spanish choreographer Manuel Nogales, Dentro por Fuera, Fuera por Dentro.


On a spiritual and physical quest, in 2014 Bud Blumenthal and a crew of 8 technologists invent an immersive interactive stage performance PERFECTIØN.
Using 3D volumetric cameras, both on stage and suspended as well as wrist-band motion detectors, the project breaks limits in interactive 3D animation and computerised scenic control.
The knowledge and methods acquired and developed form the basis of the techno/ecological group work LEAVES OF GRASS.

Cie Bud Blumenthal/Hybrid is subsidized by the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Service de la Danse.