Mark Tompkins

Mark Tompkins is a dancer, choreographer and teacher living in France since 1973. After a series of solos and group collaborations, he founded his company I.D.A. in 1983. Parallel to his activities as artistic director of I.D.A., his interest in improvisation and real time composition has led him to collaborate, through teaching, performing, and producing, with many dancers, musicians, lighting designers, and visual artists.

Winner of the 1984 Bagnolet International Choreography Contest, he created a trilogy "Trahisons-Men, Women, Humen", inspired by photographer Edward Muybridge's study of the human body in motion. The following year he created "Nouvelles", based on the novel “IDA” by Gertrude Stein, for the Avignon Festival. From 1990 to 1992, he produced "La Plaque Tournante", a series of unique site specific performances involving dance, music, video and light with his company and local artists in ten european cities. Returning to a traditional theatre space, he created "Home" (1993), a vaudeville comedy for four actors/dancers, "Channels" (1994), a large scale urban fantasy for seven dancers and three musicians, and “Gravity” (1996), a “reality show” for five actors/dancers and video.

He has created and performed many solos, the most recent being "La Valse de Vaslav" (1999), an homage to Nijinski, "Witness" (1992), dedicated to dancer and choreographer Harry Sheppard, "Under My Skin" (1996), an homage to Josephine Baker and “Icons” (1998) dedicated to Valeska Gert. Since 1998 these are presented as an evening of solos, “Hommages”.

Artist in residence in Strasbourg from 1998 to 2000, he created “La vie rêvée d’Aimé” (1999), a musical comedy for adolescents of all ages, and “RemiXamor” (2000), a panorama of the body of desire. In december 2002, he created “Fandango”, a performance for 10 dancers of the Junior Ballet - CNSMD de Paris. Mark Tompkins is currently associated artist with the Théâtre de la Cité Internationale in Paris from 2001 to 2004 where he is developing “En Chantier”, a three year research and performance project in the construction site of the rehabilitated theatre.

Due to their big success „Song and Dance“ and „Hommages“ will be presented at ImPulsTanz 2004 in Vienna again. Mark Tompkins was Danceweb Coach 2004 and creator of the performative series „Trademark“ at ImPulsTanz 2004.