Interview of Julien Bruneau by Anouk Llaurens
Anouk Llaurens: Hi Julien thank you for taking the time to respond to my questions. To begin with, could you talk about your field of practice and explain how it relates to dance, choreography or instant composition?
Julien Bruneau: My artistic work revolves mainly around dance, choreography and performance. Whether as a dancer, choreographer, or instigator of collective projects, but also sometimes as a playwright. I also do some drawing, some of which is rather private, but some of which is integrated into my dance work. Finally, I also do some writing and editorial work, which leads me to work on texts by other authors.
Anouk Llaurens: When did you encounter Lisa Nelson's Tuning Scores? And in what context?
Julien Bruneau: I'm not sure anymore. Did I hear about it first or read something? In any case, a good twenty years ago, when I was nineteen or twenty, I saw a public opening at the end of one of Lisa's courses at L'L in Brussels. I immediately grasped the idea of calls and naively appropriated it for the first time for an end-of-year project at the art school where I was studying. I wanted to do a performance, and I liked the idea of influencing its development through operations inspired by video editing. Much later, I discovered more about Tuning Scores when you invited me to a week of work at DansCentrumJette in Brussels. It was with a group that practised regularly in Brussels and was joined for a few days by Lisa and Scott Smith. That's when I was really exposed to the work in a more rigorous and consistent way. In the meantime, I had also read the book Vu du corps published by Contredanse.
Anouk Llaurens: So, in fact, you never did a workshop with her directly?
Julien Bruneau: Yes, but a little later, and quite briefly. I did a master's degree in choreography in Amsterdam and in the second year, she was invited to give a workshop, but only for three days. A few years later, I occasionally joined workshops she was giving at a.pass in Brussels. So, in the end, I didn't learn much from her. But on the other hand, there's all the work we did at the beginning of phréatiques when I invited you to teach us the Tuning Score practice – well, certain aspects of the Tuning Score.
Anouk Llaurens: What aspects of tuning particularly appeal to you and which ones have you worked with? You already mentioned your interest in calls... Can you tell us about this period of phréatiques?
Julien Bruneau: phréatiques [1] has been a term used to describe my work for over ten years. But originally, it was the name I gave to a five-week research laboratory where I wanted to observe what would happen if three collective composition practices [2] were brought together in a cross-disciplinary exploration. The first practice concerned the field of verbal thought and borrowed a method developed years earlier by a group led by philosopher Isabelle Stengers [3]. The second practice consisted of an approach to collective drawing [4] that I had begun to develop a few years earlier. For movement and performance, I turned to Tuning Score, relying on the transmission that you were able to provide us with.
The idea behind this workshop was to first spend time familiarising ourselves with these distinct practices – we had three weeks dedicated to this. Then we had another two weeks to learn from bringing these three practices together. Observing how they overlapped, how they differed... and that obviously made us want to formulate new proposals for practices that could span these different fields of verbal thought, drawing and movement.
Anouk Llaurens: I find it interesting that you chose those three practices. So the common thread is ‘collective composition’, but were there any other aspects that led you to choose those practices in particular?
Julien Bruneau: Essentially, a certain approach to collective composition that is always based on a score. In other words, a set of clear constraints and rules through which the composition emerges, transcending the sum of its individual parts. Subjectivity and personal intuition are present, but they are not the guiding principle. They are put at the service of something broader, more transversal.
Anouk: Going back to the Tuning Score, what aspects of it particularly appeal to you?
Julien Bruneau: There is a whole aspect of Tuning Score that is like a preliminary to the scores themselves and is based on a practice of attention. It involves long, detailed explorations of touch, sight, how these senses set the body in motion, how the body organises itself around its perceptual appetites... The emphasis on sensoriality approached through rigorous investigation is an approach I had already worked on before, mainly in Body Weather, where it is also very present. So, this is certainly a first element: roots in the study of sensoriality.
What also interested me greatly was the relationship between the organic nature that comes from listening closely to perceptions, sensations and the environment, and this system of calls that leads us to rework, deviate, replay or challenge this organic nature as we make our compositional choices. This is the second point that interests me greatly. This kind of tension between a flow that unfolds and develops gradually and tools that explicitly mark the fact that you are composing. I like the way Tuning Score emphasise these two aspects and make their interaction transparent.
Anouk Llaurens: When you put “organicity” and “composition” in tension as you do, how do you see the difference between the two?
Julien Bruneau: It obviously depends on what we mean by composition. Because ultimately, we can interpret as composition what emerges from the relationship between the two poles I mentioned: organic development and the intervention of calls. Perhaps we need another term than ‘composition’ that would contrast with this idea of organicity... In my opinion, it's useful to place two poles like this, to create a certain tension, but in fact, it's more complex than that. For example, by paying attention to composition, I become sensitive to the micro-composition that is constantly taking place.
If I now close my eyes and touch the blanket I am lying on, I let myself be carried away by its texture, the tactile curiosity it arouses... [he closes his eyes and touches the blanket]. This exploratory flow is infused with micro-compositions that emerge from a multitude of micro-choices. I constantly feel that my hand could go this way or that way. At any given moment, I have the option of focusing on the weight of the fabric, its folds, or the sensation of the wind caressing the back of my hand. Micro-compositions are constantly being made because one path is chosen over another.
So very quickly, when we study the issue, these poles become more nuanced and complex. In the same way, calls can sometimes become the result of an organic emergence. So, we no longer feel that we have chosen a call, but that it is the situation itself that has called for it.
Anouk Llaurens: For me, these calls, which are potentially ‘non-organic’, can be a way of rediscovering organicity. It's a bit paradoxical. At times, it's as if subjective will had lost its organicity and that working with calls – and doing so collectively – made things more alive. I associate organicity with life, and it's interesting to see how a rigorous system that may seem restrictive can actually breathe new life into things.
I also wonder if there are any Tuning Scores that particularly affect you?
Julien Bruneau: I know a few, but without having really practised them in depth, I don't know if I can say which one I prefer... What's the name of the one where you observe space?
Anouk Llaurens: The Single Image Score.
Julien Bruneau: Single Image Score, yes, that's right. In phréatiques, we perhaps spent a little more time on that one. Because it also has to do with my interest in giving the initiative to the environment, to space. Often when we dance, we simply use space as a stage that allows us to be seen. But I'm interested in those possible moments of transition where the dancer allows us to see and feel the space. The attention that the dancer captures is redirected towards the environment. And that's the basis of Single Image.
Anouk Llaurens: … Showing the potentiality of the space to each other.
Julien Bruneau: Giving ourselves the opportunity to recognise how space moves us, calls to us, affects us. Showing it or letting us feel it. In its initial formulation, the Single Image emphasises looking at space. Where I am in my work, I am more interested in feeling space without privileging the gaze, trying instead to cultivate a tactile approach to space.
Anouk Llaurens: It's as if you've made an adaptation, because the Single Image Score remains quite visual. Even though Lisa's work is still multi-sensory – the senses are interconnected and you can't work on vision without working on touch, hearing, etc. In your work, how does this tactile relationship apply to space? Perhaps you could give an example of a practice inspired by the Single Image?
Julien Bruneau: It's difficult to say to what extent it was inspired by Single Image or not, but in any case, I can talk about a case of resonance with this score. It's a practice that forms the basis of my most recent choreographic work, a performance that we perform in domestic settings called Genius Loci [5] It consists of ‘inviting the space to invite me’... This involves formulating this invitation experientially. So, if I do this practice, I am in a place, standing up, and I make myself available to be invited here or there in the room. I try not to favour any sensory modality. So, I won't respond to an invitation that is specifically visual, nor will I move in response to a particular sound, or even to meet a texture that might attract me. Instead, I cultivate an a-modal or trans-modal relationship with the experience of the place, which ultimately takes the form of a kind of tactility. Touch is, of course, one of the sensory modalities, but as you sometimes say, touch is the mother of all senses. Ultimately, everything is touch. To hear, the waves travelling through the air must touch the eardrum. To see, light must touch the retina... Ultimately, suspending the privileged relationship with one sensory modality or another leads to the emergence of a form of tactility that does not require the body to physically touch this or that element. This leads to experiencing oneself as completely immersed in the environment. It is global, like a primary, undifferentiated sensitivity. Multi-directionality is important here. We allow the experience to unfold in all directions, including those that escape the gaze.
Anouk Llaurens: You mentioned the issue of collective composition through a score in phréatiques, and the issue of showing or conveying a sense of place in Genius Loci. Are there other aspects of Tuning Score that still resonate with your work?
Julien Bruneau: At the beginning of phréatiques, we applied certain elements of the Tuning score more explicitly by combining them with other forms – drawing and verbal thought. We explored the idea of calls a little. But we kept very few of them and sometimes gave them a different meaning. For example, we observed the dance with the idea of being able to return to the blank page, as we did with drawing. For this, we used the call ‘next’. The call did not invite us to interrupt or even modify the continuity of the dance movements, but to divide them into chapters, inviting us to refresh our attention. We said “next” to suggest looking at what was happening in front of us as a new beginning. Next meant ‘next page’.
The principle of "report" was also used extensively. Here, it was in the encounter between certain principles of Tuning Score and the collective thinking process. We engaged in sensory explorations and reporting back encouraged us to verbalise our experience, as is sometimes done in Tuning. But we took it further by seizing opportunities to develop a real reflective dimension. By being surprised by what I feel, how I feel it, how I feel it... By also being surprised by the ways of naming all this... We worked with an explicit desire to question and to allow this questioning to blossom into reflections.
We called it the collective sensing-thinking score. Each of us engaged in sensory exploration using one of the methods proposed by the Tuning Score. Either through tactile exploration with our eyes closed or, conversely, by working with our gaze and observing how visual curiosity sets bodies in motion. Little by little, each person began to put into words what they were perceiving, feeling and observing. Everyone spoke quietly, more to themselves than to others, without raising their voices, but still audible if someone nearby wanted to listen.
Then, while continuing to explore and talk, I tried to formulate a specific question or statement that could be deduced from my sensory exploration. As a result, the exploration gradually became less open-ended and disinterested. As time went on, an issue emerged and an investigation took shape within the sensory experience. Initially, this wasn't necessarily deliberate, but we realised that this process of verbalisation and reflection naturally led to sensory exploration becoming very precise and focused. Because, ultimately, we had to test our hypotheses and questions.
When I managed to formulate a question or statement, I had to announce it to the group. First, I would say aloud, ‘Statement!’. Everyone would stop and listen. I would then make my statement or ask my question. Everyone would then resume their exploration, but they were now tasked with putting this reflection to the test in their exploration. They had to question, verify and revisit this initial statement. They had to experience it first-hand until they could truly respond to it or bounce back with a second proposal shared with the group. It continued like this, between individual trajectories in space and the reflective dimension that emerged and was shared collectively.
At the end of our first five-week workshop, we held a public event where we put this practice into action. We then formalised it a little more so that the kind of emerging choreography that resulted from all this activity could be considered, become legible and articulated.
Anouk Llaurens: You mean the choreography of the bodies?
Julien Bruneau: That's right. The relationship between the bodies, the relationship to space, etc.
To highlight these aspects, we introduced the use of a few calls: 'enter', 'exit' and then 'pause', which suddenly suspended the movement and speech and allowed us to recognise the visual and choreographic dimension of a particular sequence.
Anouk Llaurens: The collective sensing-thinking score was a hybridisation between the statement and question game that came from Isabelle Stengers' protocol and certain aspects of the Tuning score – namely sensory investigation and reporting.
Julien Bruneau: That's right. And it really illustrates the approach taken by the first phréatiques laboratory, where there was an explicit desire to ‘connect’ one aspect of a particular practice with another. We did the same thing between Tuning Score and drawing, focusing on tracing based on sensory explorations, then adding collective thinking through reporting. We drew based on sensory investigations and by deploying a set of statements and questions that were written directly on the drawing.
Anouk Llaurens: I was going to ask you what ‘forms’—performances or other things—emerge from your relationship with Tuning Score, but I feel like you've already answered that question, haven't you?
Julien Bruneau: Perhaps I can clarify that point. So, there was an initial workshop where we familiarised ourselves with the practice of Tuning Score. We referred explicitly to its scores and calls. We then hybridised them with drawing and verbal thinking practices. Until then, it wasn't about making pieces. But Phréatiques then turned into long-term research, beyond the initial laboratory. So, pieces began to emerge, and we became interested in formalising performances. This process remained indebted to the Tuning Score in various ways that we have already discussed: the importance of sensory exploration and the rigour required in setting scores. But we quickly moved away from an explicit relationship or direct borrowing. This was mainly because the Tuning Score is almost a “meta-score”. It is an approach that can be applied to any activity. When you dance, when you have a conversation, when you cook if you want... The Tuning Score can have an enveloping dimension that is difficult to escape. I quickly realised that we needed to clearly distance ourselves from it. Because ultimately, it tends to make everything you apply the principles of Tuning to seem secondary. In fact, I believe that these principles touch on something very basic in the way we compose our actions.
Anouk Llaurens: Yes, something very fundamental.
Julien Bruneau: That's right. I quickly realised that Tuning presented a kind of insurmountable horizon. And although it was very productive to explore it, my desire to create and the uniqueness of my questions ultimately took me elsewhere.
When I said to myself, ‘Right, I'm going to take a closer look at the tools of Tuning score,’ it was in the context of this laboratory, where the aim from the outset was to create resonance with other pre-existing practices. So, it was quite easy to feel free and, at the same time, to avoid complacency. We were in a cross-study context. The cross-sectional observation of the three practices indicated what the research needed. It wasn't based on personal fantasy. There was analysis, comparison, a form of systematic rigour.
Anouk Llaurens: We see the importance of the ‘collective’ again. Here, a collective of practices. With three visions, three perspectives, each distinct, yet still sharing common ground. It's no coincidence that you brought these three together in particular. Would you like to add anything else?
Julien Bruneau: Yes, because here we've focused on the Tuning Score, but I feel that there's also another mode of affinity and influence with Lisa's work. Opportunities for exchange established outside of her own tools.
I mentioned earlier that she led a three-day workshop during my master's degree in choreography in Amsterdam. But during my studies, I also asked her to be an ‘external mentor’ for my research. Lisa ended up working with us for a few days in the studio.
At this point, we were completely detached from explicit references to her tools. But I saw the research as a direct development of the first groundwater laboratory, and I continued to see affinities with her perspective. Particularly because we were still busy with collective composition scores. I was curious about her perspective.
In concrete terms, my invitation was for her to practise with us. Not to make her an outside observer, but someone who was searching alongside us.
In practice, we discovered a fertile opportunity for friction. While my research at the time placed great importance on the incorporation of images, she proved to be quite resistant to this. Without rejecting it on principle, she does not like to integrate images suggested to her from outside. It does not suit her. This created an interesting perspective.
After this residency, we met a few more times at informal gatherings. Then recently, she invited me to contribute to her editorial work for Contact Quarterly. I created one of their ‘folios,’ which are small booklets of a few pages designed by a guest editor and published once a year, inserted in the summer issue of CQ.
Her invitation was motivated by her memory of Strata[6], an online publication I had created on the Oralsite platform. In it, I had worked on the layout of the ‘infinity’ of the virtual page, sometimes with overlapping images and text, and sometimes with lots of white space. Working on the folio was an opportunity to work this time on the space of the paper page. At the time, I was deeply involved in the question of how we are inhabited by the places we inhabit. This is the question behind Genius Loci's performance, which we have already discussed, but also behind the book I am currently writing, Fields, in which the concept of the field allows us to explore our relationship with places. The folio, which I have entitled Field within a field, is based on this theme through texts and images. But also, with a layout that considers the blank page as an expressive presence.
Ultimately, although I was more of a very occasional visitor to Tuning Score, I also had the chance to experience other forms of relationship with Lisa's work.
In the end, what is most rewarding for me is maintaining this relationship where affinities are possible without me having to subscribe to her formulation.
Anouk Llaurens: It reminds me of this notion of dialogue, which is quite fundamental in Lisa's work, whether it's dialogue with space or with other people. I find this notion of friction interesting. For dialogue to be possible, there must be a space between, a difference... And at the same time, a common ground.
Julien Bruneau: You often mention that Lisa doesn't want to “make school”. It's very noticeable when you spend time with her. She constantly rejects the position people want to put her in, that of a ‘master’ who has perfected a form, wants to pass it on and keep an eye on how faithfully ‘her legacy’ is being transmitted. This role does not seem to interest her. She likes to multiply points of view, to encourage people to express their own perspectives. The Tuning Score is not a finished, closed form. It is perhaps more of a meeting place – a place of negotiation, as the term “tuning” suggests. I find it very inspiring that you are part of this movement with your research. If the Tuning Score is not to be passed on as it stands, then let's multiply the points of view. And let's take a particular interest in those points of view which, by different means and for different reasons, are certainly enriched by the Tuning Score but find other paths than the forms already listed.
Regarding dialogue and friction, I also find it remarkable how Lisa can support others' proposals with great open-mindedness, while at the same time demonstrating great frankness, sometimes to the point of being blunt. She takes a very clear stance. She says, ‘I'm not interested in this and that, yes to this, no to that.’ She is not afraid that this might upset people. And at the same time, once she has stated her point of view, she is prepared to set it aside if the other person is clear about their intention.
Before I finish, I would also like to mention her humility and generosity. I find that very inspiring in her. She is obviously a very accomplished artist. Yet she is never in the position of asserting herself or her work. When I talk to her, she always leads me to talk about myself, my research, my desires. She is always asking questions of others, engaging in dialogue with them on their terms, rather than coming with announcements about this or that project of hers. After seeing her, I always feel nourished and revitalised.
[2] The laboratory brought together Sonia Si Ahmed, Maya Dalinsky, Laure Myers, Anouk Llaurens and Julien Bruneau, occasionally joined by Nada Gambier, Jeroen Peeters, Jonathan Philippe, Coralie Stalberg and Lisa Reinheimer.