MARK TOMPKINS

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

Winner of the 1984 Bagnolet Choreography Contest, he creates a trilogy Trahisons - Men, Women, Humen, inspired by photographer Eadward Muybridge's study of the human body in motion, presented at the Montpellier Dance Festival in 1987. In 1988, he creates Nouvelles for the Avignon Festival, based on the novel IDA by Gertrude Stein,.

From 1990 to 1992, he produces 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 the traditional theatre space, he creates Home (93), a vaudeville comedy for four performers, Channels (94), a large scale urban fantasy for seven dancers and three musicians, and Gravity (96), a reality show for five performers and video.

He creates and performs many solos, and notably La Valse de Vaslav (89), an homage to Nijinski, Witness (92), dedicated to dancer and choreographer Harry Sheppard, Under My Skin (96), an homage to Josephine Baker and Icons (98), dedicated to Valeska Gert. Since 1998 they form an evening of solos, Hommages.

Artist in residence in Strasbourg from 1998 to 2000, he creates La vie rêvée d’Aimé (99), a musical comedy for adolescents of all ages, and remiXamor (00), a panorama of the body of desire. Since 2001, Mark Tompkins is associated artist with the Théâtre de la Cité internationale in Paris where he develops En Chantier 2001-2004, a research and performance project in the construction site of the rehabilitated theatre. He performs recent works and, in 2003, creates an evening length solo, Song and Dance.

His long time collaboration with composer and musician Nuno Rebelo inspires them to form a rock band. In 2005, Mark Lewis and the Standards release their first album and begin to tour. In 2006, they create a more intimate duet version, Lost&Found, and in 2007, Mark Lewis creates a more theatrical solo karaoké concert, kings&queens.

In 2005, he creates a solo, Sept Voiles, inspired by Salomé and John the Baptist and a group piece, ANIMAL Male, which questions the themes of combat, survival, power and domination, followed by a feminin version, ANIMAL Female in 2007.

In 2008, for the 25th anniversary of the company I.D.A., Mark Tompkins reincarnates a solo from 1983, empty holes – the life and love and death of John and Doris Dreem, and creates LULU an operetta of circumstance. He receives the SACD Choreography Prize.