A project selected through the grant Nouveau Grand Tour 2025
The project Transhumance reinterprets the movement that flocks and herds, together with their shepherds, make through rural territories, cities, and towns with the changing of the seasons. Bruel began this research in the French Pyrenees, meeting with local communities. In Verbania, the process continued during an artistic residency in November 2025, through a creative movement workshop with students at the Cobianchi Institute and by interviewing shepherds from the Verbano and Alto Vergante areas, who weave the memories of ancient transhumances together with new strategies for coexistence within today’s ecological context. Local farms that organize transhumances also collaborated, in particular the Susanna and Paolo Tondina farm (Nebbiuno) and the Su e Giù farm of Antonio and Nilla (Invorio), as well as the very young shepherd Aurora. The Transhumance project, by intertwining performance and participation, starts a broader journey of choreographic creations, immerses us in the rhythm and sound of a practice that speaks of constant flow: of collective movement, public space, and the resilience found in the contemporary relationship between animals and humans.
Originally from Pau (FR), Marie Bruel studied literature and art before training in contemporary dance at the Centre de Formation Adage in Bordeaux. She has collaborated with several choreographers, including Hamid Ben Mahi and Faizal Zeghoudi. Since 2021 she has also been living in Morocco, where she works as a performer for choreographers such as Khalid Benghrib and Wajdi Guagi. In 2022 she led a training program entitled Capsule at the School of Fine Arts in Casablanca, combining visual arts, dance, and performance. In 2023 she coordinated the socio-cultural project Corps Croisés in Tangier, promoting the discovery of art through dance and theatre, and began research on theatrical performance with the new works Mirage and What do you want from me. Marie also participated in the creation of Damien Jalet and JR’s Chiroptera in Paris in October 2023 and began writing her first solo choreographic piece, No cage without, with the support of the Goethe-Institut and DABATEK in Morocco. In November 2023 she founded a new association, a+, in Pau, with the aim of developing artistic and contemporary dance projects. In April 2025 she received a scholarship from the New Voices program of ASSITEJ International to collaborate with other emerging artists on access to the arts for younger generations
Ph. Marie Bruel, Sara Cattin, Elisa Sbaragli
A journey into the aura of key practices and figures of spirituality and performance art between body, gesture and vision.
