Foofwa d’Imobilité
Outstanding Male Dancer 2013
Born Frédéric Gafner in 1969, Foofwa d’Imobilité studied at the Ecole de Danse de Genève and was a member of the Ballet Junior. He danced with the Stuttgart Ballet from 1987 to 1990 and was a key member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in New York from 1991 to 1998. He then began his solo career and in 2000 founded Neopost Ahrrt in Geneva. As part of this organisation, he produced solo performances, group pieces, video works and educational projects. Foofwa d’Imobilité has won a number of international dance awards, including a bronze medal at the International Dance Competition in Jackson, Mississippi back in 1986, the Professional Level Prize at the Prix de Lausanne in 1987, New York’s coveted Bessie Award in 1996 for his exceptional artistic achievement in Merce Cunningham productions and the Swiss Dance and Choreography Prize in 2006.
Foofwa is one of Switzerland’s most technically accomplished dancers and continues to inspire the contemporary dance scene in a variety of ways. He has a superb command of many dance languages, ranging from classical ballet to modern forms. This comes to bear not only in his own works, but also in his “Histoires Condansées”, wherein he uses dance demonstrations to trace the history of dance through the 20th century. His dancing always incorporates a refreshing touch of humour, not least in the stage name he chose back in the 1990s, which plays on the French words fou – meaning crazy – and immobilité, i.e. the opposite of movement (dropping the second “m” as part of the joke).
