CPPM GUEST ARTIST

Clément Layes

PUBLIC IN PRIVATE

Germany

Workshop “Dancing the Creature”
24.-29.11.2025

Open class
29.11.2025 19:00
EMTA black box

Clément Layes

Clément Layes, born in France in 1978, studied art history and philosophy before receiving dance training at the Conservatoire National de Région (CNR) and the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Lyon (CNSMD). During this time, he also studied at the Lyon Circus School. From 2004, he began his artistic career as a performer and author, working with choreographers such as Odile Duboc and Boris Charmatz. In 2008, he co-founded Public in Private with Jasna L. Vinovrški in Berlin.

His first work was the solo Allege (2010), which was invited to numerous theatres and festivals in Germany, across Europe, Canada and the Americas. He received the Jury Prize at the INFANT Festival (Novi Sad, Serbia) and was honoured with the Prix Jardin d’Europe in 2011. Many further productions followed, often in co-production with Sophiensaele Berlin and various European platforms. In 2018, Clément Layes was invited by the Venice Biennale of Theatre to present a retrospective of his body of work. Throughout his career, he has developed a distinctive working method that brings together choreography, visual art, and conceptual thinking, focusing on the everyday object as a field of artistic research. His methods have been discussed in several publications, most recently in Martina Ruhsam’s book, Non-Human Bodies in Contemporary Dance, which was awarded the NRW Dance Science Prize in 2021.

Since 2014, Layes has engaged critically with the role of theatre as a space for presenting dance, particularly in an internationally oriented city like Berlin. Alongside other choreographers, he co-founded the platform How Do We Work It to examine and reimagine the conditions of art production in Berlin. Building on this initiative, he and Vinovrški launched the 3 AM event series at the Flutgraben, where hundreds of artists performed and thousands of spectators participated between 2014 and 2017. This was followed by Flutgraben Performances and the residency program Flutgraben Residencies in 2019, further establishing the Public in Private Studio and Flutgraben Atelierhaus as key alternative venues for dance and performance in Berlin. In 2017, for Kunstencentrum BUDA in Kortrijk (Belgium), Layes curated an accompanying festival program and developed the concept of The Fantastic Institution. That same year, he became co-organiser of The Watch, a collective of artists repurposing the former border guard tower in Berlin’s Schlesisches Feld for artistic use.

Layes regularly teaches at art academies and leads workshops. Since 2014/15, he has been a guest lecturer and mentor at the Inter-University Center for Dance (HZT) Berlin.

Public in Private

Public in Private is a Berlin-based dance company that serves as the umbrella organisation under which the works of Clément Layes and Jasna L. Vinovrški are produced. Since its founding in 2008, the company has collaborated with hundreds of venues across Europe and North America, including some of the most renowned, such as Théâtre de la Ville (France), Kaai Theatre (Belgium), Walker Art Centre (USA), and the Venice Biennale (Italy).

In Berlin, they have collaborated with Sophiensaele, Tanzfabrik, and Tanznacht, and have performed in Potsdam, Bremen, Hamburg, Chemnitz, and numerous other locations throughout Germany. Since 2012, Public in Private has been supported by the Berlin Senate and the Capital Cultural Fund (HKF) for dance projects, including Things That Surround Us, Dreamed Apparatus, Allege, Modal Verbs, and Healers.

In 2011, the company also established a dance studio at Flutgraben, the PIP Studio, which is used for rehearsals but has also, together with other Flutgrabena spaces, become a venue for events and residencies for other artists. Projects such as 3AM, Flutgraben performance, and Flutgraben residency emerged from this (supported by the Berlin Senate). Both artists regularly teach in Germany and in international contexts.

Workshop: Dancing the Creature

Dancing the Creature is an immersive and cross-disciplinary workshop that invites participants to explore performance at the intersection of dance, theatre, circus, visual arts, and somatic practices. Based on Clément Layes’s twenty years of artistic research, the workshop provides playful and poetic frameworks for exploration, encouraging participants to engage with movement, objects, and conceptual ideas beyond artistic categories. At its core, the workshop examines the physicality of the body and the agency of objects, recognising both human and non-human elements as essential collaborators in performance. Through a developing practice that combines object play and bodily awareness, participants are encouraged to sense and uncover the usually invisible networks that shape creative expression.

This is not a linear or instructional training, but rather a shared journey of experimentation and discovery. Participants are encouraged to develop their own approaches within proposed frameworks, engaging in group discussions, installations, physical tasks, and practices that support nervous system regulation. Whether dancing with dreamlike objects or giving form to internal contradictions through movement, the workshop provides tools to access imagination, vitality, play, and altered states of consciousness. Humour, repetition, and failure are embraced as meaningful parts of the creative process. For artists interested in rethinking how we create, collaborate, and connect both on and off stage, Dancing the Creature offers a rich and embodied space for exploration.

Professional Development Workshop

This workshop is open to external participants as part of the CPPM Professional Development series, and artists from all fields of the performing arts are warmly invited to join, to deepen their practice, refresh their creative tools, and connect with an international artistic community.

You will participate in the workshop alongside students of the MA in Contemporary Physical Performance Making (CPPM) at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre (EAMT). Upon successful completion, you will receive a certificate of attendance issued by EAMT, which will specify the workshop title, tutors, and the total number of contact hours completed.

Please note that places at this workshop are very limited, so we strongly recommend applying early. You can find the full list of all available workshops along with details about the application process on our Professional Development website.

Workshop Details

Dates: 24.-29.11.2025
Location: Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre | Tatari 13 Tallinn 10116 Estonia (map)
Duration: 1 week | 6 days | Monday to Saturday | 38 contact hours 
Fee: 500 EUR

Workshop Schedule