Denise Luccioni

Having met inventors in dance and music at the Fêtes musicales de la Sainte-Baume, from 1976 to 1980 (founding choreographers of the Judson Dance Theater – Trisha Brown, David Gordon, Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer – and Simone Forti, composers – John Cage, Robert Ashley, then David Tudor, Takehisa Kosugi…), Denise Luccioni gradually transformed these objects of passion into experience and knowledge. With the help of the times (the 1970s), she learned by doing. In Paris, she moved from Bénédicte Pesle’s Artservice International office to the start-up of the Cinémathèque de la danse, from the programming of the Théâtre de la Bastille to that of the American Center in prefiguration and the Esprit du Nomade at the Fondation Cartier, while continuing her partnership with artists (Trisha Brown, Richard Foreman, Grand Magasin, François Verret, Jean-Marie Patte…), as assistant, producer, salesperson, tour organizer, “outside viewer”… She then naturally moved on to lecturing and translating shows (Richard Foreman, Big Art Group, Richard Maxwell, Robert Ashley/Steve Paxton, Robyn Orlin… ) and books on dance (Terpsichore en baskets by Sally Banes, Merce Cunningham, Un demi-siècle de danse by David Vaughan, Material for the Spine and La gravité by Steve Paxton, Le Corps pensant by Mabel Todd, Mouvements de vie by Anna Halprin – the latter two with Élise Argaud – and Danser la vie on Anna Halprin, Un Manuel de chorégraphe by Jonathan Burrows). She is currently producing a series of audiovisual essays, whose “working title” Dansez, neurones. Laugh, cells! is about to be replaced by Histoires d’archives [working title].