Florence Figols

It’s after having flirted with chemistry that Florence decided to pursue in vivo her experiences on the matter that moves us as a choreographer and researcher. Her fields encompass sensory connections, stage presence, micro-politics of the dancing body and memory-identity. Recipient of many grants, Florence’s choreographic works have been presented on national and international dance platforms.

In 2000 she completed her Master’s degree in Dance exploring the creative process through the sensorial relationship of the moving body with the planet/environment and others. Since then she continues to explore that «chemistry of the senses» through her choreographic works and research. With her creation mute / sense veu / en silence – named Best Choreography 2006 by Hour’s Best - she uses the map of her political origins as a metaphor to investigate different methods of communication with her dancers. Since then, other creations include in-perfections – solo sans territoire, the choreographic installation Transparent Shift that invites the audience to view the dance from under a plexiglass stage; the conference-performance Isabel de Mariani – walking affects where every step was modulated by the inflexion of the voice of a testimony. More recently she is unfolding and working on her project Choreo-Haptic Encounters to revisit notions of identity-alterity through a sensory perspective. It includes amongst other Poetica de la Relacion performed in the interior patio of El Arsenal Museum (San Juan, Puerto Rico), the participative installation Café haptique / Haptic Café (Montreal), and Embodying In-Betweeness (Montreal, Vienna, Sao Paolo).

Since 2010, she has been sharing her sensory research giving workshops and presentation in international seminars (North/South America, Asia and Europe) unfolding and questioning the practice and sensory knowledge from an embodied and socio-political perspective. In July 2017 she pursued investigations and exchanges with the Embodied Research Working Group in Sao Paulo, with the Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani in BuenosAires, promoting inter-disciplinary dialogues between the artistic and the academic, and ended her South America journey in Brasilia working and giving professional workshops with the theatre company Teatro do Instante. More recently she shared in practice Haptic Encounters: Embodying Reciprocity in Santa Barbara during the Body-Mind Centering Conference.

She has also collaborated in theatre as a performer and choreographer. She has been teaching since 1999 in the Contemporary Dance Department of her Alma Mater Concordia University. As a teacher, she is more concerned with informing than forming; she tries to build through her classes a "body of experiences and embodied knowledge" as much as a “body of awareness/consciousness” through practice in motion and in writing.

Florence wants to give a deep and very special thanks to the Professional Development Grant program from CUPFA that has given her on-going trust and the opportunity to pursue and disseminate her research-creation on various platforms as well as meeting and pursuing long-term relations with artists, academics and research-groups around the globe since 2006. Florence is a board member as well as a session organizer of the thematic group Senses and Society since 2012.