CPPM at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre in Tallinn continues its commitment to high-level professional development by welcoming its next guest artist, Clément Layes, for the workshop Dancing the Creature, starting today. Layes, a renowned choreographer, conceptual performance-maker and co-founder of the Berlin-based company Public in Private, brings to CPPM more than two decades of artistic research integrating contemporary dance, physical theatre, circus, visual arts and philosophical inquiry. His internationally acclaimed work has been presented at leading venues and festivals worldwide, including Théâtre de la Ville, Kaai Theatre, Walker Art Center and the Venice Biennale.

The workshop Dancing the Creature invites participants into a playful, poetic and cross-disciplinary exploration where the body encounters objects, imagination and conceptual thought. Rooted in somatic attention and the agency of both human and non-human bodies, the workshop opens pathways into altered states of creativity, object play, sensory fine-tuning and installation-making. Participants explore humour, repetition, failure, and the subtle architectures of attention that support artistic vitality. Rather than a linear technique class, the process unfolds as a shared journey, offering performers tools to expand their physical performance language and rethink collaboration, presence and creative development within contemporary dance and performance making.

The workshop runs throughout this week, and CPPM warmly invites everyone to an Open Class on 29 November at 19:00 in the EMTA Black Box, where the participants will share insights and outcomes from their intensive research with Layes. This workshop forms part of CPPM’s broader mission to create world-leading training opportunities and international masterclasses that support postgraduate education, artistic innovation and the evolving landscape of contemporary physical performance in Tallinn and beyond.