In “La Peau de l’Espace”, Yasmine Hugonnet returns to solo performance to focus on a new type of study: the body in its spatial context. She harnesses proprioception or “the sixth sense”, which is familiar in the world of dance, to guide her perception of her own body moving through space, her gestures and poses. Her movements are accompanied by vocalisations she calls “anatomical fictions”. Rather than telling a story, however, she invites the audience to share in the thoughts and motivations behind her choreography and experience a form of empathy. Like most of her pieces, “La Peau de l’Espace” is also about physical presence – in this solo work, specifically where form begins and ends in dance. It premièred at Lausanne’s Théâtre de Vidy in November 2021. In addition to theatres, the work is also performed in museums, such as the Plateforme 10 complex in Lausanne.
Yasmine Hugonnet was born in Montreux in 1979 and lives in Lausanne and Paris. She grew up in Mali between the ages of three and six. She took ballet lessons on returning to Switzerland and, while still an adolescent, moved to Paris to study contemporary dance at the Conservatoire National Supérieur. She has a keen interest in contact improvisation, Butoh and composition. Her work for the Master’s programme Dance Unlimited in the Netherlands (2003–2004) centred on the theme of presence. She founded the dance company Arts Mouvementés in 2009 and has created a number of solo pieces, including “Le Récital des Postures”, which received a Swiss Dance Award in the Current Dance Works category in 2017. Her works have been co-produced by Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne since 2018. Yasmine Hugonnet / Arts Mouvementés currently has a three-year contract with the City of Lausanne and the Canton of Vaud.
“La Peau de l’Espace” is the work of a performer who plays with tension, resonance, intuitive consciousness and a captivating imagination. Yasmine Hugonnet invites us to reflect on how our sense of being is rooted in our experience of gravity and proprioception despite a cultural hierarchy of senses that privileges the visual. The power of her intense concentration, painstaking attention to detail and skill draws the audience in to engage with images, memories and emotions. Yasmine Hugonnet uses her voice, her body and the space around her with great precision and control, shedding light on the space between the virtual, the potential, the anticipated and the realised.
