artistic education
Considering artistic creation and culture as sources of social and economic innovation, the Compagnie Humaine accompanies its creative work with multiple actions towards the public, with particular attention to the youngest and the people in precarious social situation, like those under criminal justice control. The actions are carried out by the company’s artists, technicians and administrative staff in a wide variety of forms: public rehearsals, workshops, creation projects (choreographic pieces, performances, films), master classes, internships, education, training, conferences and debates, exhibitions, screenings, etc.
The tackled themes are primarily related to the company’s current events. They deal with topics that echo the company’s current creations, whether artistic or societal, and all the contemporary individual and collective issues surrounding the body.
These projects are notably the result of cross-partnerships with the French National Education system, the State, the Sud-Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Region, Arsud Agency and local authorities. They also open up opportunities for collaboration with other artistic organizations and fields on our territory, in France and abroad.
artistic & cultural
education
school projects
prisons projects
patron of culture ambassador students for Versailles Academy
dance for all
projects in schools
In founding the Compagnie Humaine, Éric Oberdorff felt it was essential to build bridges between artistic creation and the public, particularly schoolchildren, with a particular focus on young people in socially vulnerable situations.
Combining research and creation, dance encourages reconnection with and respect for the body. Its practice enables participants to become involved, to find their bearings, to give meaning, to verbalise and to conceptualise on the basis of experience. It stimulates the ability to seek out, produce and invent possibilities through movement, giving full rein to the sensory, emotional, symbolic and imaginary. It helps to build and develop a genuine poetic language. Pupils are able to express themselves powerfully, interpreting and exchanging ideas in a way that connects them to the group in a positive and rewarding way.
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main projects 2024/2025
actions all year around
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choreographic workshops for nursery and primary schools in Nice as part of the ‘100% culture at school’ programme
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workshops and teaching for secondary school students in the Dance Art optional speciality in partnership with the Théâtre de Grasse, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Education Office in Nice
specific actions
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series of workshops for nursery and primary schools in the town of Mougins, in partnership with Scène 55, Art & Creation national theater
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series of workshops for day nurseries, nursery and primary schools as part of the 2024/2025 On-Site Young Audience Season organized by the City of Gennevilliers, in partnership with the Conservatoire Edgar Varèse.
projects in prisons
Since 2014, Éric Oberdorff and the Compagnie Humaine have been developing multi-disciplinary artistic projects for prisoners, combining choreographic practice and creation with film, photography and the visual arts to develop a dance approach within the prison environment, a place that symbolises imprisonment as much as reconstruction/mutation and the possibility of a new beginning.
The works created are presented both in the prison environment for prisoners and staff, and outside to the general public in France and abroad, including schoolchildren, in order to encourage and nurture the dialogue between inside and outside
main projects since 2014
Cycle TRACES (2014-2018)
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Corpus Fugit (photos and film - 2014) - Prison of Nice / Women's section
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On my Skin [Sur ma peau] (photos and film - 2016) - Prison of Nice / Women's section
Cycle UTOPIAS (2018-2023)
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My Dreamed Life (solo/ dance piece - 2020) - Prison of Grasse
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Our Dreamed Lives (photos and film - 2022) - Prison of Grasse
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In the Name of the Dream [Au nom du rêve] (participatory dance piece - 2023) - Festival Vis-à-vis Prison of Nice + Prison of La Farlède / Toulon
élèves ambassadeurs culture
In 2021, the National Education Office of Versailles has designed the ‘Cultural Ambassador Student’ programme. The aim is to support each pupil in developing diversified and autonomous artistic and cultural practices, and to give them a sense of responsibility in the artistic and cultural life of their school. It makes it possible to learn about the Cultural Pass device as an individual, by developing dialogue between peers and encouraging collective artistic and cultural practices and lasting links with the Office's cultural partners involved in implementing EAC (Artistic and Cultural Education programme).
Between September 2022 and June 2024, Éric Oberdorff was designated associate artist with this programme and patron of the high school and middle school Cultural Ambassador Students.
For the 2022/2023 academic year, Éric has chosen ‘the body’ and ‘creation’ as thinking and research topics for the 2'000 Cultural Ambassador Students, under the motto ‘creative minds & intelligent bodies’. Accompanied by artists from the Compagnie Humaine, he was artistic director of the 2nd Cultural Ambassadors Students' Congress which took place in Paris at the Louvre Museum on 8 June 2023, and got more than 300 students dancing and singing.
For the 2023/2024 academic year, 2'672 Cultural Ambassadors Students have volunteered, including 1,574 middle school students. Eric invited them to discuss and question new digital uses, the place of images, artificial intelligence, virtual or augmented reality and immersive cinema experiences in contemporary creation, as well as their influence on artistic creation and the cultural practices of pupils.
For the 3rd Congress at the Forum des images in Paris, Éric proposed a collaborative dance film project entitled ‘Dreams Smugglers’, based on images filmed by the students themselves, highlighting the hybridisation of so-called ‘sensitive’ artistic practices. For the performance with 300 students as spokespersons, he was accompanied by his partner artists Cécile Robin-Prévallée, Emma Lewis, Mélissa Cirillo, Luc Bénard and musician Delphine Barbut.​
dance for all
In response to climate change, economic and social issues, and the current period of absolute uncertainty, our essential need to preserve our ability to dream, collectively and individually, is being exacerbated. Questions about the body and freedom of movement (individual and collective, in private and public spaces) are at the heart of everyone's preoccupations today: the issues of the universal body, the free body, the intimate body, the body of memory, the committed body, the body as receptacle and vector of emotions.
The expertise of the Compagnie Humaine and its team in this area is widely recognised, far beyond the territory in which it is based, and we are developing artistic and cultural education projects from Nice to Roubaix, from Togo to Lithuania
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main projects 2024/2025
actions all year around
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regular dance training in Nice for professional and semi-professional dancers, actors and circus artists
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creative workshops for the participatory piece In The Name of The Dreams [Au nom du rêve #1]
specific actions
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training workshops for elementary and nursery school teachers in partnership with Scène 55, Mougins
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series of ‘creative process’ workshops for adult DE students at the RIDC - Rencontres Internationales de Danse Contemporaine, Paris
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series of ‘creative process’ workshops for 30 professional Lithuanian dancers in Nida, Lithuania
