09/12/2026
This is an article about our dear friend Yves Musard. REST IN DANCE!
This is Gemini translation
Here is the English translation of the article published by Les Humanités:
Yves Musard Stops Dancing
By Nicolas Villodre 9 min read
Yves Musard in New York, 2008. Photo: Keri Pickett
Dancer, choreographer, and "rare artist," Yves Musard passed away on August 19 in a Marseille hospital. Trained in New York in the wake of Merce Cunningham and John Cage, he traversed three decades of contemporary dance with a kindness and freedom of movement that remain, today, without a direct heir. Nicolas Villodre traces this singular journey, from Grenoble to Manhattan, marked by milestone creations such as Obsolete Paul or Antipodes.
Dance is space and nothing else. Well, that’s not entirely true. It is also time. Space-time. Ma (間), as the Japanese say. Less a separate space or time than the meaningful interval connecting them: a distance, a pause, a silence, an active void, a rhythm. From this perspective, what lies "between" things fully participates in the experience and the form. Everything else is mere chatter—even if chatter can be important too, as one must tell stories to pass the time.
Yves Musard was an artist of Ma. In everyday life, he liked telling stories. And listening to them, too. In the performance of dance, he told no stories; he danced, plain and simple. He danced the dance, just as it came to him.
Yves Musard’s worst performance occurred on August 19. It will also be his last. On that day, Yves Musard closed his eyes for good in a Marseille hospital. As Nicolas Villodre writes, on that day, Yves Musard "stopped dancing." After giving so much to it, without expecting fame or honors in return—even though it would not have been unfair had he benefited from them more.
But Yves Musard was a rare artist. A dancer, choreographer, and equally a poet of spaces, a sculptor of time. Before embracing dance for good, he had produced an ephemeral art magazine in Grenoble at the very beginning of the 1980s called Détails, "to crystallize a surface that transports different territories, and to take prints of these territories." That says it all; need anything more be added?
Yes, more should be added. To speak, for example, of Yves Musard's extraordinary kindness, unmotivated by any career plan—unlike so many others today who have become unwitting liberal-capitalists in the performance market. To say, too, that with the passing of Yves Musard, we are not only orphaned of his smile and benevolence, but also of what he represented. For space-and-time wanderers like him, hardly any remain.
— Jean-Marc Adolphe
"There is a certain self-evidence in my shows, which is not tied to a concept or a narrative"
"I always had a desire to dance, but it was meeting Jean-Claude Gallotta and Mathilde [Altarraz], and our three-year friendship, that really shaped what I do now. Michel Hallet, who was working with them at the time, had fairly precise notions and values about dance, which also influenced me and directed me toward the work of Cunningham and Cage," confided Yves Musard in an interview with Jean-Marc Adolphe published by Pour la danse in November 1984, reflecting on his beginnings.
He was introduced to the Cunningham technique by Mirjam Berns and Sheela Raj in 1976. In 1978, he made a trip to Sainte-Baume, where he attended a three-week workshop with John Cage and was seduced by the heroes and heroines of modern and postmodern dance before making the journey to New York. The Grenoble native performed Cage-Cunningham’s Variations IV alongside Gallotta.
In 1979, he settled in New York for several years, living off odd jobs, dancing constantly in the most diverse locations—from trendy or underground spots like The Kitchen, PS 122, Dance Theater Workshop, Franklin Furnace, The Pyramid Club, The Limbo Lounge, Fashion Moda, and 8BC, to minimalist art galleries, or completely stripped-down environments like downtown streets.
He honed his Cunningham technique at Cunningham’s studio with Douglas Dunn. In 1984, he practiced Contact Improvisation with its creator, Steve Paxton, as well as at Open Movement with Margaret Craske, Peter Saul, and Diana Byer. He attended workshops led by Dana Reitz, Simone Forti, and Valda Setterfield. Concurrently, he created numerous pieces—mostly solos—with musicians Z'ev (Stefan Joel Weisser), Fast Forward (Paul Wilson), and Rhys Chatham, sculptor John Henninger, as well as video projects with Charles Picq, Arpad Dobridan, Berlin Raw, and Penny Ward.
He performed in various capitals: Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Münster, Enger, Paris, Lyon, Basel, Zurich, Geneva, London, and Newcastle. In Paris, he was welcomed by the Théâtre de la Bastille, Théâtre d'En Face, Théâtre 18, and La Ménagerie de Verre, faithfully supported by Marie-Thérèse Allier.
Notable works from this period include: Motive (1981), Green (1982), and Between (1982)—a choreography for four dancers accompanied by live music by Z'ev and polyester sculptures by John Henninger. He collaborated with Fast Forward for a year and a half to develop two works he considered major achievements: Obsolete Paul (1983) and Rotorblade (1984), both featuring costumes by Gabriel Berry. With Rhys Chatham, he created Journey I-III (1984) and Waterloo (1984), scored for four trumpets and percussion.
Yves Musard and Fast Forward in Obsolete Paul, 1984. Photo: Keri Pickett
In Pour la Danse (November 1984), Alain Foix wrote:
"Calm and serene, Fast Forward's face contrasts strangely with the relentless and abrupt pounding of his mallets against the steel surface of the steelpan. The sound, delivered in metallic bursts, splatters across the space and weaves a dense, complex auditory net through which Yves Musard moves as if in his natural element. His head, remarkably mobile, quick, and light, seems—like terrestrial birds—to hover far above the density of his body."
Anna Kisselgoff, the critic for The New York Times, described Yves Musard's performance at the Middle Collegiate Church on 7th Street:
"Antipodes, Part II, a solo Mr. Musard created on commission for Jean-Marie Serreau's Théâtre 14 in Paris, could serve as a signature piece for the French choreographer. By his own admission, he is interested in extremes. The surprising and the grotesque are not foreign to him (...) He is equally interested in exploring new ways of moving. Antipodes, Part II is thus characterized by extreme tension in the movement's quality (...) Mr. Musard seems to run in place, kicking with his right leg while his left leg moves as well. He then leaps and repeats the sequence at such speed that it is difficult to grasp visually (...) He dances while a celebratory choir resonates over a sound collage by Eve-Marie Breglia (...) The rest is a solo of remarkable and often captivating tension, in which Mr. Musard holds in an energy on the verge of exploding, yet controlled by a discipline that vibrates every fiber of his being."
In his interview with Jean-Marc Adolphe, Yves Musard observed:
"I believe there is a certain self-evidence in my shows, which is not tied to a concept or a narrative; it is a shape that comes out of nowhere, that exists, that makes sense even though there is no meaning. We realized this by performing in all kinds of contexts: everywhere, something resonates. You feel an equilibrium of forms, an equilibrium of structures, and that’s what we try to find—even if this structure emerged from nowhere, there is a rightness to the form."
Around the same time, Marie-Christine Vernay noted in Les Saisons de la danse:
"This strange bird with a large nose and delicately shaped ears did not seek to create an illusion through spectacular gadgets either. He made choices based on his means. (...) He developed a dance marked by the presence of the stage character and his work on rhythm. At times playing on outgrowth—a hump on the back—at times abandoning a part of his body—a dangling arm, a dragging leg—he choreographs movements resembling a man running, only to ultimately miss the bus."
In March 1985, Joan Acocella devoted an article in Dance Magazine to Rotorblade by Yves Musard and Fast Forward:
"You won't find a dancer with a more unusual appearance. With his aquiline face, piercing black eyes, and closely cropped hair—leaving only a skullcap-shaped tuft at the top—he looks like a figure straight out of an old Dutch painting (...) His vigorous body is fitted in a royal blue unitard adorned with incongruous fringes, colored velvet patches, and a scarlet ribbon tied around his right thigh. The music is by Fast Forward, featuring a punk haircut and a communist worker’s outfit (...), playing on a steel drum. (...) Musard, highly expressive, traverses a full range of emotions, from the enigmatic to the hilarious and the intense. He moves from side to side, does push-ups, jumps on the spot, and comes back down like a pogo stick. (...) His hands morph into strange creatures, detached from the body, moving with mechanical dynamism. (...) [Musard and Fast Forward] sought to offer 'nothing other than layers of sound and energy that would produce a certain intensity and drama.'"
Christine Rodès described Musard's work in February 1986 in Pour la danse:
"He forged a technique and a body language entirely on his own—a concrete philosophy, a way of being and dancing. He belongs to those solitary species whose 'difference' is precious. If you have seen his pieces (Vert, Obsolete Paul, or recently Dix huit cent quinze, his first trio at TCD), you know their hallmarks: 'ceaseless poses'—a high-speed freeze-frame technique—the precision of a graphic, compact, and flexible body, the flat and tilted torso always ready to slice through space, unusual spirals and inversions, circular runs pushed to the point of momentum exhaustion, the violent percussions brought forth beneath his footsteps with their rhythmic shifts and relays, the freedom of the joints, and the springiness of his gestures..."
In 2009, the Cinémathèque de la Danse, supported by La Passerelle in Saint-Brieuc, produced a video montage edited by Xavier Baert titled The Man Who Believed He Could Move: A Danced Portrait of Yves Musard. Screened at La Ménagerie de Verre and currently available at the CND, it illustrates these descriptions by highlighting sequences from the choreographer’s major creations: Between, Part 1 (1982), Green (1982), Obsolete Paul (1983), Antipodes (1984), East River Dance (1986), Parts of Battle Human Scale (1987), Pump and Circumstances (1987), On Monday We Will Eat Rice and Beans (1988), The Man Who Believed He Could Move (1988), Ellipse (1992), Promenade (1992), Impressions d'un homme dehors (2003), Galaxy Pearl (2004), and Impressions d'un homme dehors, répercussion (2007)—visual proof of Yves Musard's originality.
— Nicolas Villodre
IN VIDEO
Steel / Spirit (2013). Yves Musard / Richard Serra. Film by Keri Pickett.
A short film exploring the interaction between dance and sculpture. Yves Musard, dancer and movement artist, performs alongside sculptor Richard Serra's work Inside Out (2013), exhibited at the Gagosian Gallery in New York. Serra’s massive weathered steel sculpture fills the light-filled space of the Gagosian Gallery on 21st Street. Yves Musard's site-specific choreography explores the environment created by Serra. Moving with concentration and curiosity around the ribbons of steel, Musard explores the sculpture both literally and metaphorically to heighten the viewer's awareness of the sculpture's dynamics within the gallery space.
By combining movement and still photography, director Keri Pickett creates a short film about time and perspective. Tamara Douglas-Morris composed a contemplative score to accompany Musard’s simple vocalizations.
Richard Serra (born November 2, 1939) was an American minimalist sculptor and video artist known for his large-scale sheet metal assemblies and involvement in the Process Art movement.
Yves Musard was a movement artist whose work focused on site-specific performances and spatial explorations, inside and outside museums and galleries, consisting of exploring, reacting to, and interacting with pathways, communities, or situations. Working as a solo artist while frequently collaborating with musicians and other artists, his unique approach to movement within surrounding spaces gave rise to a deep perception of place, detail, and people
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