BIOGRAPHY
Gilles Jobin is a choreographer living and working in Geneva whose productions have been performed all over the world since 1995. Based in London from 1997 to 2004 he created the groundbreaking pieces A+B=X (1997), Braindance (1999), The Moebius Strip (2001) and Under Construction (2002), relying on choreographic language outside of established aesthetic frameworks that included forays into visual arts and live art. In 2003 he created TWO-THOUSAND-AND-THREE for the 22 dancers of the Ballet of the Grand Théâtre de Genève for a performance that “transcends both classical and contemporary dance” (Libération).
In 2015, he received the Swiss Grand Award for Dance from the Office Fédéral de la Culture in honor of his career to date. Beginning in the 2010s, he broadened his creative field, exploring particle physics with QUANTUM (2013), following a residency at CERN in Geneva. Starting in 2015, the company began its digital experiments, with the stage duo Força Forte (2015), which included a first sequence in motion capture, the stereoscopic (3D) film WOMB in 2016, and VR_I, a location-based piece in immersive virtual reality.
His creations are being presented in major film festivals such as the Sundance Film Festival (2018, 2020 and 2021) and the Venice Film Biennial (2018 and 2020), leading dance festivals such as the Lyon Dance Biennial (2018) or BAM (2019) in New York or museums such as Haus For Electronishe Kunst / HEK in Basel. With the same creative team and dancers behind Magic Window (2019) and Dance Trail (2020), two augmented reality dance pieces, followed by La Comédie Virtuelle a multiuser VR piece and La Comédie Virtuelle – live show a real time multiuser performance in VR. In 2021, he created Cosmogony a dance piece motion captured live in the company’s studios and streamed in real time globally and in 2024, RESET! Beasts and Demons a hybrid choreographic creation, both scenic and digital.
With the COVID pandemic, Gilles Jobin and his company focused on technology and innovation for real-time, remote performances. The creator of several groundbreaking projects, Gilles Jobin is recognized as one of the leading creative forces in the world of XR (extended reality). Gilles Jobin is regularly invited as an international speaker on dance and technology in Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
AWARDS
– 1998: Bourse du Fonds d’encouragement à la création chorégraphique et musicale awarded by Société Suisse des Auteurs (SSA) for Braindance.
– 1999: ZKB Prize by Zürcher Theater Spektakel Festival for Braindance.
– 2000: Bourse du Fonds d’encouragement à la création chorégraphique et musicale awarded by Société Suisse des Auteurs (SSA) for The Moebius Strip.
– 2000: Winner of the Young Authors Prize by Fondation Vaudoise pour la promotion de la création – artistique.
– 2001: New Choreographic Talent Prize, awarded every year by SACD (Société des Auteurs et des Compositeurs Dramatiques, Paris/Brussels/Montreal).
– 2004: Leenaards Foundation Cultural Prize for his work.
– 2012: Collide@CERN-Genève Prize.
– 2015: Swiss Grand Award for Dance, awarded by the Swiss Federal Office of Culture (FOC) “for his contribution to the development of contemporary dance in Switzerland and beyond the country’s borders.”
– 2017: Innovation award and the People’s Choice award at the Festival du Nouveau Cinema, Montreal, for VR_I.
– 2017: Best Art and Experimental Film award at the San Francisco Dance Film Festival for WOMB.
– 2021: NUMIX 2021 Prize in the International – Interactive XR Experience category for his play La Comédie Virtuelle.
– 2022: Most Innovative Use of Technology, Filmgate Festival Miami for Cosmogony.
FILMS
Films and documentaries focusing on Jobin’s work have been, and are still shown in many film festivals (e.g. The Moebius Strip and Braindance, directed by Vincent Pluss and the documentary Le Voyage de Moebius, directed by Luc Peter). In December 2002 during Dance Screen 2002, the International Dance Film and Video Festival held in Monaco, The Moebius Strip by Vincent Pluss received the Award for Best Camera Re-Work. It also won First Prize at the Cinema d’Arte di Bergamo Festival and was nominated at the 2004 On Camera Festival, which was held at the Lincoln Centre in New York.
In the autumn of 2016 Jobin unveiled his first film as filmmaker, WOMB, a 3D dance work which earned him an award at the San Francisco Dance Film Festival. Since its premiere the film has been screened more than 200 times in more than 15 countries.