Christine De Smedt is a Belgian dancer and choreographer. Her artistic work is situated on the boundary between dance / performance, choreography, artistic coordination and artistic projects of various kinds.
Education
After completing her studies in criminology, Christine De Smedt became interested in dance and performance and began to study different techniques for motion research.
From 1991 to 2012, Christine De Smedt was a member of les ballets C de la B, the Ghent dance company founded by Alain Platel, which was also home for a long time to Hans van den Broeck, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Koen Augustijnen. She danced in Mussen and was assistant director on How to approach a dog. From 2003 to 2005 she was the artistic coordinator of les ballets C de la B. In 2010 she initiated the first Summer Intensive, a residence in studio 3 at les ballets C de la B.
In 1992, Christine De Smedt was part of the interdisciplinary SKITE project in Paris, where her first artistic encounter with the American choreographer Meg Stuart took place. She also collaborated with Meg Stuart and her company Damaged Goods between 1995 and 1999. In 1996, she danced in the remake of Stuart's debut choreography Disfigure Study, and assisted the choreographer as a coach for this remake. In addition, she worked as a dancer on No One's Watching and Splayed Mind Out. Together with Meg Stuart and choreographer / dancer David Hernandez, she initiated the multi-disciplinary improvisation project Crash Landing.
Christine De Smedt started her own work in the period when she was a member of les ballets C de la B. Her debut was the dance solo La force fait l'union fait la force. One of her best-known projects from that period is 9x9, a large-scale choreographic project that was realized in 15 different cities in Europe and Canada. The starting point for the project, in which the choreographer was working with participants of diverse backgrounds such as elderly, young people and photographers, was the human mass. Another well-known production by Christine De Smedt is Untitled 4, based on four interviews with the choreographers and dancers Alain Platel, Jonathan Burrows, Eszter Salamon and Xavier Le Roy, and in which she increasingly becomes at the same time the portrayed persons themselves. For the festival Dansand! II in Ostend, she created in 2010 together with Mette Edvardsenthe mass choreography The Long Piece. Together with Eszter Salamon, she created the duet dance#2, and with Myriam Van ImschootPickUpVoices, that mixed historical research with performance.
Other collaborations as a dancer
As a dancer, she also collaborated on Gerhard Richter, une pièce pour le théâtre, Oidipous, my foot, Artificial Nature Project, Project, Low Pieces, Temporary Title, nvsbl and dance#1/Driftworks. Furthermore, she collaborated on the video installation Dead Reckoning by Philipp Gehmacher and Vladimir Miller.
Research projects
With Eszter Salamon, Christine De Smedt developed in 2009 Transformers, a research project for a group choreography through workshops and artists' residences in Brussels, Madrid, PAF-St. Erme, Mexico City, Vienna, Tokyo and Stockholm. In May 2014, she collaborated on Spatial Confessions, a four-day program of Bojana Cvejic in Tate Modern, which examined through choreographic experiments publicness in places exhibiting contemporary art.
Collaboration with P.A.R.T.S.
Christine De Smedt was Pedagogical Coordinator of the Training Cycle 2013-2016 at P.A.R.T.S., the International School of Contemporary Dance in Brussels.
