Elsa Wolliaston

A dancer, choreographer and actor, Elsa Wolliaston has studied, choreographed and taught classical, improvised and ancestral dances all over the world. Her atypical career has been characterised by curiosity, experi- mentation and collaborations. For fifty years she has been traveling the world, from the US to France, where she is based, and from Africa to Asia. She is a forceful woman who uses the unknown and improvisation to better understand rites and traditions. Elsa Wolliaston also works in cinema, theatre and opera.

The body’s musicality
In this workshop, Elsa Wolliaston explores the musicality of the body through warm-ups on the floor, in silence, then rhythmic warmups to music, upright, through the spinal column. She offers a collective improvisation in space: movements inspired by rites, traditional dances and initiation, everyday African expressions and gestures, and various forms of dance from African to contemporary.