Geneva, 29 March 2012. The first Collide@CERN-Geneva1 prize in Dance and Performance was today awarded by jury2 to the 47-year-old Swiss-born dancer and choreographer Gilles Jobin3 for his proposal to explore through interventions and dance the relationship between mind and body at the world’s largest particle physics laboratory.
"When I walk in the street, I don't feel my body that much," explained Jobin in his proposal. "Like a CERN physicist, I can walk and think, I can drink a coffee and think, I can run or drive a car and think. But when I dance, I must try to be one body and soul: I become a thinking body. Do physicists think with their body too?"
In making the award, the jury recognized Jobin for “his intense interest in CERN4, and his increasing and evolving fascination with science, as shown by his most recent work Spider Galaxies which used data from the LHC to generate music and movement. “
"We're delighted to announce our second artist in the Collide@CERN programme, and are very much looking forward to seeing how CERN's thinking on space, time and gravity – three fundamental forces in both physics and dance – inspire an artist who's work is internationally recognized," said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer.
Gilles Jobin is expected to start his residency in May 2012, and be largely based at the laboratory, whilst also engaging with touring commitments. He is the first winner of the Collide@CERN-Geneva Award, the second strand in the Collide@CERN Artists Residency programme launched by CERN in 2011.
There is an interesting personal note to Gilles Jobin's residency: one of the most significant figures in physics taught his uncle to ride a bicycle in 1933 in the Belgian city of Ostend.
"That was an amazing and very personal peculiarity," he explained. "How many probabilities are there for someone at CERN to have had an uncle who learned how to ride a bike with Albert Einstein?"
The Dance and Performance residency will be based at CERN for three months. The artist will choose a science inspiration partner for the duration of his residency. The artist and his mentor will participate in a creative blog by which the public can follow the creative process. The artist will have an office on site at CERN and hold six lunchtime workshops for the CERN community. At the start and end of the residency period, the artist will give a joint lecture with his science inspiration partner at the Globe of Science and Innovation. The residency is funded thanks to the City and Canton of Geneva working in partnership with CERN. All artists insurance is exclusively sponsored by UNIQA SA.
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CERN press office, press.office@cern.ch
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Ariane Koek, ariane.koek@cern.ch
Cultural specialist, CERN