Precious useless

For several months, Leonardo Montecchia has been tracking our everyday gestures. Today, he and his performers bring us a unique show at the heart of the university, entitled "In-utile. Beyond utility".
"I have trouble with the word choreographer," he warns. I see myself more as a thinker of the body, a body in relation to its environment.". Between October and December, Leonardo Montecchia was "immersed" at the University of Montpellier: this is the principle of an artist-in-residence program.

Moments of light

With his interpreters, he came to rub shoulders with students, teachers, researchers and staff. To observe and study them.Questioning everyday gestures," he explains, "gestures of transmission, of profession, but also of reflection, of impatience..."His focus is on the most tenuous, the most insignificant, but also perhaps the most significant of them all: the useless gesture.
This is what he has tracked down in lecture halls, labs, classrooms and libraries, with the patience of a hunter. Today, he has come to restore it through the magic of dance, in the very places where he captured these moments of light.
"What place, in today's hyper-productive society, is there for the useless gesture, the gesture that "serves no purpose"? asks this singular observer of the body in movement. What space is there, in the field of learning, for the useless? Is it that of inaction?Orreflection?

Another look at reality

Leonardo is at home on this university campus. He carries with him his constant search for a contemporary art form that draws its inspiration from everyday life, and that appeals to everyone. His quest for "another possible body: a body to be imagined. Art helps us to look at reality differently," he continues. To build a different world".
It's a project that's particularly well-suited to a university setting: "This is where the future is made! Universities are profoundly artistic places: places of learning and research, but also of questioning, of awakening consciences. It's a space for creation, strongly linked to the imaginary".

Artist residency

Since 2009 - and since 2013 in partnership with the Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles - the UM's art & culture department has launched an annual call for projects to host an artist or artistic team in residence.
"An artist's residency invites everyone to take another look at their daily lives. It should also enable the public to enter the heart of the university, to discover it for what it is: a space open to the world and to society", explains Marta Cases Bobadilla, from the art & culture department.

"In-utility. Beyond usefulness"

Choreographic journey - Leonardo Montecchia - Cie de la Mentira

• Tuesday, April 5 at 6:30 p.m. on the Triolet campus
• Thursday, April 7 at 18:30 at Faculté de Pharmacie
• Tuesday, April 12 at 6:30 p.m. on the Richter site
• Thursday April 14 18:30 on the Triolet campus

Open to students and staff of the University of Montpellier and to the general public
See also theinterview with Leonardo Montecchia