Grand Prix Performing Arts – Visually powerful, precise, rebellious: Award for Cindy Van Acker

The Swiss Grand Prix Performing Arts / Hans Reinhart Ring is the most important Swiss award in the field of stage arts. This year the choreographer Cindy Van Acker will receive it. Rightly so.

Cindy Van Acker is one of the most outstanding choreographers in Switzerland. For years she has been creating works in the independent contemporary dance scene that have received great attention here and internationally.

What is characteristic of the artist is that she has created her own style over the years and at the same time has never stopped questioning and developing her own choreographic vocabulary.

Van Acker’s works have a clear personal signature: she builds her choreographies strictly formally and precisely, even in the smallest movement. Body, space and music work together as equal elements and penetrate each other. What seems cool at first glance gradually develops a fascinating stage pull.

Van Acker’s work often shows a “rebellious side”: many of her choreographies are socially critical and aim against commerce, conventions and convenience.

Classical training meets contemporary dance

Cindy Van Acker originally comes from classical ballet. She was born in 1971 in the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium. After classical ballet training in Antwerp, she danced with the renowned Ballet Royal de Flandres.

In 1991 she joined the Ballet du Grand Théâtre in Geneva as a dancer. At some point, as she once said in an interview, she had exhausted the classic movement language. She began to engage with contemporary dance and sought, initially as a soloist, for new forms of expression that suited her. In 2002 she founded her own company, Cie Greffe, in Geneva.

Into the international spotlight

On her artistic path she repeatedly encountered artists from other disciplines. An important artistic companion was the Finnish electronic musician Mika Vainio.

Legend:

The body is not limited to its external form, is the message of Cindy Van Acker’s performance “Corps 00:00”.

Cie Greffe / Isabelle Meister

Music is the most important source of inspiration for Van Acker’s choreographies. To this day she also has a close collaboration with the director Romeo Castellucci. She created the choreographies for many of his productions. In 2005 the Italian brought her to the Venice Biennale with her solo “Corps 00:00”. This performance suddenly catapulted the choreographer into the international spotlight.

From success to success

That same year, Van Acker presented her first group piece “Pneuma”. Many works, including for a large ensemble, followed. The artist has already been honored twice at the Swiss Dance Awards: in 2013 for “Diffraction” and in 2019 for “Speechless Voices”.

Legend:

Sit, stand or walk? Scenes from Cindy Van Acker’s work “Without References”.

Cie Greffe / MAGALI DOUGADOS

She realized her latest creation with her company Cie Greffe and a stage design by Romeo Catellucci. “Without References” takes place in a kind of waiting room. People stand and wait while an old television is playing in the middle of the room.

This work is also strictly formally composed by Van Acker; every gesture and movement is clearly chiseled out. The atmosphere is shimmering and conveys something mysteriously underground. This is not easy to read; But if you get involved with it, new areas of experience open up.

For this ability to create powerful visual worlds and thus touch them – and has done so for many years – Van Acker rightly receives the Hans Reinhart Ring.