Helen PARIS | MaCI - Université Grenoble Alpes

Helen PARIS

Helen Paris is artistic director of Curious theatre. Curious has produced interdisciplinary devised performance since 1997 at venues and festivals including the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, International Theatre Festival, Taiwan, the Pompidou Centre, Paris, London’s Cultural Olympiad, the Sydney Opera House and the Edinburgh Festival. From 2010-2018 Dr Paris was a professor of performance at Stanford University. Paris is a novelist, published by Penguin, represented by Greene&Heaton, London.

► Project :

"Shift in perspective"

Paris is engaged in an interdisciplinary program of work that connects across three areas of experimental and experiential research in the arts that are a focus at the MaCI: performance studies, health and medical humanities, and creative writing. This research will result in the creation of a novel, currently titled The Moment I Saw You I Knew I Could Love You… which tells the story of two octogenarian dancers and how their encounter with dance saves them both in very different ways as they find themselves on a European tour with an experimental performance art company... The story is about desire and dance, intergenerational relationships and the enduring power of live performance. The research will also provide the foundations for building a creative writing, performance practicum, (working title) Creating through Change which will employ different theatre, performance and writing techniques to enable artistic expression and a sense of individual and collective well being. Paris will feed this back to the Sidney De Haan Center for Health and Arts research where she is an associate researcher.

Whilst at MaCI Paris will connect with relevant organisations in France who are interested in the intersection of art and health such as the work done at Louvre-Lens. She will also connect with the research of Living Well Ageing Well as a continuation of her interest in looking at arts, health and aging.

The arts are our universal language. They unite us, heals us, remind us who we are and who we can be. So much over recent years whether within or without of our control has been about erecting borders and keeping us apart. What continues to bring communities together in these times of grief, fear and rupture is the enduring, suturing and connective power of the arts.

This project is about the intrinsic value and importance of the arts and humanities at a moment then they are being significantly devalued. It is also about the enormous benefits of arts to mental health.

At the heart of this project is this question: What is the piece of art (performance, music, dance, image) that has saved you?

Website: www.curiousperformance.com

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Funded by the French government's Programme d'Investissement Avenir and implemented by ANR France 2030