Michèle Anne De Mey

This has been a fantastic year for her. Kiss & Cry, an original stage object summoning up object theatre, music, words and nanochoreographies for four hands and dealing with the memory of feelings of love, has won unanimous international acclaim. People have emerged from the show overwhelmed and talking about their own emotional stories. She and Jaco Van Dormael have created it with a group of artists, making it a very personal experience since feelings of love, this thread running through her work, are in a way sublimated here: the film-maker is none other than her partner. Powerful music, telling of the affair from its fickle beginnings to the final split, is another constant in her work and woven into her choreographic universe: Beethoven’s 3rd Symphony in Sinfonia Eroica, the 7^th in Neige and the Lamento d’Arianna in her latest piece, a solo she is creating specially for one of her faithful performers. All in all another declaration of love.

2011

2013

Michèle Anne De Mey (Brussels - 1959) is a Belgian choreographer and former student at Mudra (from 1976 to 1979), the school founded by Maurice Béjart (Brussels).

She pointed contemporary dance in a new direction with her first choreographies : Passé Simple (1981) and the duos Ballatum (1984) and Face à Face (1986). At the same time, she worked with Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker for six years on the creation and interpretation of several of her choreographies, namely Fase (1982), Rosas danst Rosas (1983), Elena’s Aria (1984) and Ottone, ottone (1988).

Although special consideration is always given to the relationship between dance and music, the choreographic structure of Michèle Anne De Mey’s creations cultivates a strong theatrical content and places the dancer in a specific and innovative relationship between stage and audience. 

In 1990, she founded her company on the occasion of Sinfonia Eroica. Following this, there were 15 other creations which met with international acclaim, among them Raining Dogs (2002), Utopie (2001), Katamenia (1997), Pulcinella (1994), Love Sonnets (1994), Châteaux en Espagne (1991), Cahier (1995), etc.

Her pedagogical contribution has also been significant (in Amsterdam, at INSAS in Brussels, CNDC in Angers and École en Couleurs). For three years, she worked with the children at École en Couleurs on the elaboration of Sacre en Couleurs, a creation presented on the occasion of Bruxelles/Brussel 2000.

Her choreographic work has been the starting point for several films, such as Love Sonnets and 21 Études à danser by Thierry De Mey, and Face à Face by Eric Pauwels. Using the force of music to create her choreographic universe, she worked with the renowned composers Thierry De Mey, Robert Wyatt and Jonathan Harvey. For several years, she has been working in close collaboration with other artists such as artist-scenographer Simon Siegmann and the filmmaker-composer Thierry De Mey.