GEISHA FONTAINE
A choreographer, dancer, and dance researcher, Geisha Fontaine began her career at the age of sixteen as a classical dancer at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse. She then trained in contemporary dance with Merce Cunningham and Alwin Nikolaïs in New York, and with Hideyuki Yano in Paris. She went on to found the contemporary dance center Le Dansoir in Toulouse and performed with several companies.
In 1998, she co-founded Mille Plateaux Associés with Pierre Cottreau. Their creations continually question, often with humor, the art of dance, which deeply inspires them. In 2010, Geisha Fontaine was awarded the Villa Médicis Hors-les-Murs residency in Japan.
Holding a PhD in philosophy of art from Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, Geisha Fontaine has authored Les 100 mots de la danse (PUF, “Que sais-je?” series, 2018; reissued in 2023), Utt, Ko Murobushi, Carlotta Ikeda (Nouvelles Éditions Scala and micadanses, 2025). She also wrote Les danses du temps (Centre national de la danse, 2004; translated into Spanish in 2012), Tu es le danseur and Là (micadanses editions, 2008 and 2009). She contributes to several journals and collective publications, notably with CNRS Éditions. Together with Giuseppe Burighel and Aurore Desprès, she co-edited issue no. 12 of the journal Recherches en danse, dedicated to the voices of dancers (2023). She is regularly invited as both an artist and researcher to universities and art centers in France (Bordeaux, Paris) and internationally (Japan, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Turkey, etc.).
She collaborates with the Centre national de la danse on projects aimed at developing choreographic culture; in particular, she serves as artistic and scientific advisor for the exhibition La danse contemporaine en questions, co-produced by the Centre national de la danse and the Institut Français, for which she also wrote the accompanying guide. She also gives lectures and leads workshops combining practice with the exploration of aesthetic issues.
She is a member of L’Ensemble La Critique en danse, which examines how choreographic works are approached in the media: is there still space and time for dance criticism—for art criticism more broadly?
PIERRE COTTREAU
A graduate of La Fémis, Pierre Cottreau began his artistic career as a film director and director of photography.
Also trained in art history, he engages in experimental work on image and film at the crossroads of several artistic fields: cinema, dance, and photography.
Together with Geisha Fontaine, he develops the various choreographic projects of Mille Plateaux Associés, notably Gazing & Dancing, a European project bringing together artists and researchers around the theme of the gaze in dance.