Lucas BASSEREAU
Dancer

Lucas received a grant to participate in Camping project organized by the Centre National de la Danse.

What is your artistic background ?
After growing up in the suburbs of Paris, I started my professional training at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, where I followed the contemporary dance curriculum from 2010 to 2013. I then joined the Training Cycle of P.A.R.T.S. (Brussels), the school directed by choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker. I started to dance professionally in Noé Soulier's pieces, first for reprise roles in Removing and Faits et Gestes, then for his last works The Waves and Passages. I was a performer in the production of the play MAPS by Liz Santoro and Pierre Godard (Le Principe d'Incertitude) and took part with them in the project LEARNING, presented at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and at the National Gallery of Singapore. In 2019, I joined the tour of Gisèle Vienne's CROWD in a new role. I collaborated as a performer with Sylvain Huc, for the creation of the piece NIGHT. Since January 2019, I have been creating my own projects in collaboration with the dancer and choreographer Constance Diard, and together we produced the performance 100 Meters Per Second and conducted other choreographic research for our future work. At the same time, I also give workshops for dancers in training at different venues (CCN, CDCN, Conservatories ...)

How do you see your profession today ?
I feel privileged today to be able to live from artistic creativity, but above all to be fully interested in the projects I take part in. I have the feeling that the jobs market, in the field of live performance, is rather complex, and I have the chance to work in collaboration with artists who give me visibility, and which ensures that I get work long term, which is wonderful. What I also like in my job, as a dancer, is to have the opportunity to travel and to perform on international stages, during tours or creative residencies. Another major point today is to succeed in organizing myself to continue to articulate my work as a dancer with different choreographers, while carrying out my own projects, and thus to be able to digest and interpret the tools I have acquired from experienced creatives, and to re-appropriate them in my personal research.

How do you see yourself in 5 years ? in 10 years ?
In 5 years, I see myself continuing along the professional path I am on today, continuing to work, creating and touring with different choreographers, while developing and evolving my personal projects. In 10 years, I imagine myself maybe less involved in the work of a performer and fully invested in my own creations. I also think that I would like to be invested in a process of mediation or pedagogy, with different audiences. And through this to be oriented towards a form of sharing and contact that is more direct than that of the stage.

Interview conducted in 2021
Photography credit: Julia Grandperret