WINTER '25 INTENSIVE
[ FEBRUARY 24-28 2025 ]
FOR ANY INQUIRIES OR QUESTIONS REGARDING THE PROJECT, DON’T HESITATE TO CONTACT US AT: CONTACT@GRAHAMFOREUROPE.COM
WINTER INTENSIVE 2025
📍Micadanses, Paris (Studio Biped)
LEVEL: Open to amateur and professional dancers with prior experience in dance technique (not suitable for beginners).
Minimum age: 15 years old.
February 24-25-26: Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday
Graham Technique 2-4pm / Butō 4-6pm
February 27-28: Thursday-Friday
Butō 2-4pm / Graham Technique 4-6pm
The guest artists will award several scholarships:
• 1 Scholarship for a Martha Graham School intensive in New York City (Winter Intensive 2024 or Summer Intensive 2025)
• 2 Scholarships for a Graham For Europe event in Paris (cross-practice weekend / Winter Intensive / Spring Intensive 2025)
GRAHAM TECHNIQUE
"The body is shaped, disciplined, honored and, when the time comes, trusted. Movement becomes clean, precise, eloquent, truthful. Movement never lies" (Graham, 1952)
Developed by Martha Graham, a pioneering American dancer and choreographer, this modern dance method is based on the principles of contraction and release of the body. The use of breath enables the body to be fully felt and used in dance.
The session is generally divided into three phases: on the floor, standing and through space. Graham enables dancers, or more broadly anyone with a passion for dance, to explore deep emotions.
Butō
a dance celebrating « the permanent transformation of a body that has emptied itself » (Hijikata and Ohno)
Butō, a Japanese body art form, emerged in the 1950s in the studios of Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno. It is considered not only as a dance, but also as an exploration of the human soul, an act of self-transformation, and initially an artistic revolt in reaction to the just-concluded Second World War. Its development was influenced by European avant-garde movements (surrealism, impressionism), and by a rejection of traditional Japanese dance forms in a Japan undergoing deep transformations. Every gesture and expression carries an intense emotional significance, supported by a striking aesthetic - white makeup, slow movements -, which have become the signatures of butō, in the absence of strict codification, leaving dancers free to interpret.
Classes will focus on exploring the two techniques side by side, to uncover their links, connections and echoes.
FACULTY
Lorenzo Pagano
Lorenzo Pagano is an internationally award-winning contemporary performer whose career has spanned across Concert Dance, Theatre and Opera. He is currently performing with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet in the productions Ainadamar (Deborah Colker) and Anthony and Cleopatra (Annie-B Parson).
He started his career by joining the Martha Graham Dance Company in 2012 and becoming a Guest Artist and Assistant Rehearsal Director in 2023. He has embodied the most iconic male roles of the repertory and originated starring roles for new works by Lucinda Childs, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Nacho Duato, Andonis Foniadakis, Pontus Lidberg, Hofesh Shechter, Pam Tanowitz among others.
In 2024, Pagano was part of the original cast of the musical GATSBY choreographed by Sonya Tayeh, directed by Rachel Chavkin with music by Florence Welch and Thomas Bartlett.
He has been a Guest Artist for the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, La Compañia Nacional de Danza de Costa Rica and he is part of Unveiling choreographed by Sonya Tayeh with music by Moses Sumney.
He has danced with Paris Opéra former Étoile and Artistic Director Aurélie Dupont in Martha Graham’s Lament and was appointed Assistant Choreographer for the Holiday Event in collaboration with Christian Dior and Martha Graham Company at Sack’s NYC in 2023.
Mr Pagano was honored with the Italian International Dance Award as “Male Rising Star” in 2016 and the Premio Nazionale La Sfera d’Oro in 2022.
Hélène Barrier
Hélène Barrier is a multi-disciplinary artist blending butō dance, textile design, and visual arts to explore space, form, and the boundaries of the body. With over 30 years of butō practice, she delves into themes of metamorphosis and the connections between body, imagination, and environment. Her creations include objects manipulated in performances—costumes and prostheses—that transform into extensions of the dancing body, challenging notions of identity and materiality.
Inspired by artists like Hans Bellmer and Louise Bourgeois, Hélène’s research examines the relationships between matter, body, and identity, pushing them toward fragmentation and reinvention. By merging textile design and ceramics with dance, she constructs poetic and experimental spaces where movement, space, and materiality converge. Each object reshapes the body and redefines the stage as a site of transformation.
For Hélène, dance is a realm of perpetual metamorphosis, adapting to environments and resonating with other artworks, as seen in her solo with Brancusi’s La colonne sans fin at the Centre Pompidou.
She leads butō and drag king workshops, fostering empowerment through collaboration with the Jerk Off Festival. Her Minotaur project, a male alter ego expressed through masks, embroidery, sculpture, and film, stems from residencies supported by the Institut Français.
Grounded in an eco-feminist ethos, Hélène prioritizes transmission and experimentation as central to her artistic vision.
COST OF THE INTENSIVE [ 2025 ]