Alice Chauchat

Alice Chauchat, a French choreographer and performer based in Berlin, is interested in the politics of dance performances as social events. She choreographs mostly in collaboration with other artists and has been touring internationally since 1999.

After studying in Lyon's Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse and at P.A.R.T.S., Brussels, she co-founded the collective B.D.C. together with Tom Plischke, Martin Nachbar and Hendrik Laevens. They created and toured Events for television (again), Affects and (Re)sort between 1999 and 2001. In 2001 Alice presented the solo Quotation marks me and continued collaborating with e.g. Anne Juren for J'aime, Alix Eynaudi for Crystalll or Frédéric Gies for The Breast Piece (praticable). Her works have been presented in France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, the United States of America, Croatia, Slovenia, Poland, Estonia, Austria, Iceland and Sweden.

Other activities include artistic assistance, participating in projects by other people (e.g. Xavier Le Roy, Jennifer Lacey, Mårten Spångberg, Juan Dominguez), writing, teaching and mentoring.

Teaching and leading research processes is a central part of Alice's artistic practice; she has been teaching in various universities and artist-run organizations in New York (USA), Stockholm (SE), Berlin (DE), Vienna (AT), Giessen (DE), San Sebastian (ES),  Istanbul (TR), Zagreb (HR), Rio de Janeiro (BR), Tachkent (UZ), Strasbourg (F), Cergy (F), Odense (DK), Skopje (MK).

Throughout the years, Alice has taken an active part in the shaping of the European dance landscape, developing numerous choreographic projects and platforms for knowledge production and exchange in the performing arts, such as the informal institutionPAF (Performing Arts Forum), initiated and run by artists, theoreticians and practitioners in the French countryside (pa-f.net), the on- and off-line discursive platform in the performing arts everybodys (everybodystoolbox.net), the European project for discursive and performative practices Special Issue (specialissue.eu), the open collective praticable, etc. 2010-2012 she was co-director of Les Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers, a centre for artistic research in the outskirts of Paris.

Eroca Nicols

During her residency, Eroca Nicols, aka Lady Janitor, will be working on solo called Truthteller featuring:

feats of fear facing and concentration, questions and answers, calling on and calling out the past, present and future, conversation, aquatechnics, live lifelong lasting body alteration, sweating, movement and yes, truthtelling.

And be sure to check out and tell all your NYC selves and friends about the workshop, Democratic Body: what would the community think?, that she is teaching Sundays March 15 - 29 at The School of Making Thinking in NYC. 

Bio less formal...

Eroca Nicols is an international performance art and body nerd. Her alter ego and company, Lady Janitor, combs the globe looking for places to incite radical moments of art chaos, consume massive amounts of coffee, wear amazing unisuts and confer with movers and thinkers of all varieties. Eroca is currently known a dancer/choreographer but her artistic background stems from a family of semi-mystical nomadic trailer people, years working as a janitor, and a BFA in video/performance art and sculpture from California College of the Arts (formerly and Crafts.) Her teaching and training are deeply influenced in her continued study of the Axis Syllabus.

She is super stoked to be all up in the United States this spring as Teaching Artist in Residence at The Whole Shebang in Philly and at The School of Making Thinking in NYC.

More formal. 

After earning her Honors BFA in Film/Video/Performance and Sculpture from California College of the Arts (San Francisco, CA), Eroca Nicols’ artistic practice shifted to the body. She studied in professional programs in Canada at both Ballet Creole and The School of Toronto Dance Theatre before pursuing further training in functionally based and improvisational forms. She is currently a Toronto-based but nomadic artist, curator and educator. Her company and alter ego, Lady Janitor, has presented work in Canada, USA, Europe, and the UK. Eroca has performed with around the planet alone and with others  and is co-founder of the arts advocacy and professional training provider, the Toronto Dance Community Love-In.  Eroca’s commitment to community based arts engagement has led her to create platforms for presenting both her own work and the work of fellow emerging artists—DIMBY (Dance In My BackYard) and Badass Dance Fun (a mini festival at Toronto's Harbourfront Centre) are among these projects, as is the Love-In. Eroca teaches partnering and contemporary dance including workshops in UK, Europe and North America. Her teaching and training are deeply influenced in her continued study of the Axis Syllabus and she is currently in the AS certification process.