JULIEN-HENRI VU VAN DUNG
LYON, FRANCE
Originally from Le Havre, Julien-Henri Vu Van Dung trained in contemporary dance at the Conservatoire National Supérieur Musique et Danse de Lyon before joining the MAD company directed by Sylvain Groud.
During this period, he also assisted Thierry Thieu Niang on an intergenerational creation. As a performer, he has worked with Carolyn Carlson, Thomas Lebrun (Avant Toutes Disparitions, Où Chaque Souffle Danse nos Mémoires, Les Fêtes d’Hébé, What You Want evenings), Daniel Larrieu (Romance en Stuc), and continues to collaborate with Sylvain Groud at the Centre Chorégraphique National de Roubaix, with La BaZooka (Pillowgraphies, Le Bal Fantastik), and with Michèle Murray (Duos – Collision et Combustion, Empire of Flora, Time).
Holder of the French State Diploma in Contemporary Dance Teaching (2019), he teaches professional and pre-professional dancers at the CCN of Roubaix, Micadanses, the CNDB in Bucharest, LAC Roubaix, as well as in various institutions in Düsseldorf and Dresden.
For more than ten years, he has been deeply involved in mediation and transmission work, notably alongside Sylvain Groud, whom he assists on participatory creations and community projects in partnership with social centers, hospitals, nursing homes, and schools. He also leads much of the outreach related to the pieces in which he performs.
Since 2019, he has been mentoring high school students in the dance option in designing their choreographies for the baccalaureate exam in Le Havre, in partnership with the CCN of Le Havre.
Starting in June 2025, he will serve as a member of the jury for the dance baccalaureate examinations.
In 2022, he founded Compagnie Balsamaire, initiating its first creation Homer Guelem, while simultaneously developing community-based projects involving amateur participants. The company’s DNA lies in making choreographic tools available in the service of creative and social engagement.
For the past two years, he has been engaged in community-based work with a variety of audiences, notably at La Ferme du Buisson, where he recently completed a residency cycle with a group of women supported by the CAF of Noisiel. He has also offered several workshops around Homer Guelem, mainly for adult participants.
For the 2024–2025 season, Julien-Henri Vu Van Dung is a laureate of the Unternehmen Start mentoring program, initiated by the Institut Français of Germany and the Goethe-Institut of Paris, with his project We, Mutants, which aims to explore and share his artistic practice on a European scale.
In October 2025, Julien-Henri Vu Van Dung will join the Phare program of the Récif Karukera Ballet initiative.
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SABBAT (NEW CREATION)
After Homer Guelem, my first creation entrusted to a performer who explored the mutating creature, the one undergoing transformation. Sabbat is a solo that I will dance. In it, I continue my research into METAMORPHOSIS AS AN ACT OF RESISTANCE, as an infinite territory for experimentation. At the center: THE WITCH. The project is based on two concepts: CABARET and SABBATH. Both are SPACES OF TRANSFORMATION WHERE IDENTITIES, APPEARANCES, AND CONVENTIONS ARE PLAYED OUT. Cabaret, like the sabbath, brings together marginalized bodies, acts of resistance, and metamorphosis. These are places of gathering and freedom, where transformation
becomes an act of emancipation
The Sabbath is a nighttime gathering of magicians, wizards, and witches who dance and perform rituals. It is a hidden place, a meeting place; no one really knows what goes on there. It is a place of fantasy, a space of imagination for those who have never been there.
The principles of metamorphosis and transformation have always been with me. From the creative freedom they offer in my career as a performer to the imagination they require, they now form the foundation of this solo piece. SABBAT IS A REVUE PERFORMED BY A SINGLE PERSON: A WITCH, A COMPOSITE FIGURE THAT I EMBODY, BOTH REVUE LEADER AND MASTER OF CEREMONIES. SHE WELCOMES THE AUDIENCE, ORGANIZES, SUMMONS, AND GATHERS, JUST LIKE IN A SABBATH, THE CHARACTERS WHO WILL APPEAR THROUGH HER METAMORPHOSIS. EACH NUMBER BRINGS FORTH A DIFFERENT ENTITY. THESE CHARACTERS ARISE FROM MULTIPLE PLACES: FIGURES LINKED TO THE WORLD OF WITCHCRAFT, SILHOUETTES SHAPED BY GERMAN EXPRESSIONIST DANCE, INVENTIONS BORN FROM ICONOGRAPHY AND ARCHIVAL MATERIALS, AND CHARACTERS IMAGINED BY OTHERS. SABBAT IS A PLACE OF CELEBRATION AND PASSAGE, LIKE AN IMPOSSIBLE GATHERING OF CHARACTERS BROUGHT TOGETHER FOR ONE NIGHT.
At a time when bodies are facing new forms of pressure and normativity, I believe it is essential to create spaces for resistance and expression. This is what I am trying to do with Sabbat: a space for freedom, play, and transformation, where movement becomes an act of affirmation.
La Cie Balsamaire reçoit le soutien de :
