Danced self-portraits

Danced Self-Portraits was a project for high school students that took place between 2015 and 2021.

The participating middle and high schools brought together students from a range of socio-economic backgrounds, many of whom did not attend any cultural venues.

For many students, attending the theater as part of the project is their first experience, and they are unfamiliar with the “codes” of being a spectator. Most are also largely unfamiliar with museums and exhibition spaces.

The goal of the project is to introduce students to different forms of artistic and performative expression in which the body plays a central role.

Students are invited to observe and compare bodily, visual, and/or textual modes of expression, and to reflect on how the body—live or on screen—as well as text and language, can express and evoke a wide range of emotions.

The body is not only the seat of our emotions but also a tool for communication. In a society saturated with images, it shapes how we see ourselves and how we are seen by others. The body carries history and memory—how then, can we come to understand our bodies as essential to the construction of self?

Through performances, exhibitions, and shared experiences, students are encouraged to express and exchange their emotions, opinions, tastes, and perspectives.

The project also aims to foster dialogue, the exchange of viewpoints, and collective practice within the group, ultimately leading to the sharing of an artistic form born from this lived experience with a wider audience.

Warm thanks to all the teachers involved in the project: Laura Castellon, Cédric Michaud, Claire Olivier, Pascale Huberson, and Amandine Jaubert from the MAC of Créteil.

In 2020–2021, it took the form of a CREAC project titled “Crossed Portraits: Tell Me Who You Are,” led by the MAC of Créteil in collaboration with several high schools in Créteil. Between 2015 and 2017, the project was carried out as part of classes à PAC, also led by the MAC of Créteil, in partnership with the DAAC.