Jean-Claude Gallotta

French Dancer And Choreographer Jean-Claude Gallotta Following a lengthy stay in New York at the end of the 1970s, during which he met Merce Cunningham and discovered the world of post-modern dance (Yvonne Rainer, Lucinda Childs, Trisha Brown...), Jean-Claude Gallotta returned to Grenoble and, with Mathilde Altaraz, founded the Groupe Émile Dubois, which in 1981 took up residence in the Maison de la Culture de Grenoble (House of Culture). In 1984 it was named a National Choreographic Center, one of the first of its kind in France. With his first ballet, Ulysse, in 1981, his international reputation was assured. Other works followed, including Daphnis é Chloé (1982), Hommage à Yves P. (1983), Mammame (1985), Docteur Labus (1988), Presque Don Quichotte (1999), and Trois générations (2004). Between 1997 and 1999, he directed a Japanese dance company in Shizuoka, Japan. Over the years his choreographic creations – over 90 to date – widened to embrace other arts: cinema (he has two feature-length films to his credit), video, literature (les Larmes de Marco Polo (2000), l’Etranger (The Outsider, 2015) and Comme un trio (Like A Trio, 2018), based on Françoise Sagan’s novel Bonjour Tristesse), classical music – (Bach danse experience (2008), l’Amour sorcier (2013), working with the stage director Jacques Osinski and the orchestra conductor Marc Minkowski; and le Sacre et ses révolutions (2015) performed at the Paris Philharmonia); original music – working with composers such as Henri Torgue, Serge Houppin and Strigall; and even pop music, thereby expanding the frontiers of contemporary dance deemed somewhat elitist. In the pop music register, working with the singer Olivia Ruiz, he created Volver, presented at the Biennale of Dance in Lyon in 2016. His additional work in the genre includes his triptych My Rock (2004), l’Homme à tête de chou (Cabbage Head Man , 2009 reprised in 2019), and My Ladies Rock (2017). The French Ministry of Culture has recognized the Groupe Émile Dubois as a dance company with national and international impact. The company is now resident at the MC2: Grenoble. Jean-Claude Gallotta is also an associate author at the Théâtre du Rond-Point in Paris. He is currently working on his latest creation, Le Jour se rêve (The day dawns, the day dreams) which will be created in the fall 2020. For this project he collaborate with musician and composer Rodolphe Burger and visual artist Dominique Gonzales Foerster.