Dr Yvon Bonenfant 

Programme Leader - MA Devised Performance 

Arts 

Dr Yvon Bonenfant, Programme Leader - University of Winchester

Yvon.Bonenfant@winchester.ac.uk 

+44 (0) 1962 827505 

The University of Winchester
Winchester
Hampshire
SO22 4NR

Expertise

  • Voice and extended voice
  • Devising and compositional process
  • Practice-led research/experimental performance across disciplines
  • Body, identity, performance, processes

For more information, go to Yvon Bonenfant’s external website at www.yvonbonenfant.com

Publications

Bonenfant’s profile includes publications, artworks, residencies.

Books & sound recording

  • Bonenfant, Y. (2009) [editor, artistic director, sound]  Soie soyeuse (Silky Silk). Paris: Editions Talmart. With textile art contributions by Lorna Dallas-Conté, Caroline Mercier, Casey Wasniewski. and photography by Caroline Mercier ISBN 2-903911-91-1. See http://www.yvonbonenfant.com/?cat=8 for visual tour

Articles in journals

  • Bonenfant, Y. (forthcoming 2012)  Architecting sensation: voice, light and touch. Choreographic Practices 2:1, pagination tbd.
  • Bonenfant, Y. (2010) Queer listening to queer vocal timbres. Performance Research 15:3, 2010, pp. 74-80
  • Bonenfant, Y. (2009)  Enskinning between extended voice and movement: somatics, touch, contact and the camera. Journal of Dance and Somatic Practice, 1:1, pp. 67-87.
  • Allegue, L. & Bonenfant, Y (2009)   Textures and translations: B(earth) in between extended voice and visual arts. Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance 2 (1), Intellect, pp. 239-256.
  • Bonenfant, Y. (2008) Meditations on the challenge of skin and bone: creating between extended voice and costume. EPARTS: Études et pratiques des arts, 1 :2, Presses de l’Université du Québec, pp. 63-89
  • Bonenfant, Y. (2008) Toward a politics of felt pulsation: de-disciplining voice and movement in the making of a musi-dance performance. Studies in Theatre and Performance, spring 2008, Intellect, pp. 39-58.
  • Bonenfant, Y.(2008)  Sound, touch, the felt body and emotion: Toward a haptic art of voice. SCAN Journal, 5 (3) http://scan.net.au/scan/journal/display.php?journal_id=126
  • Bonenfant,  Y. (2006).  The embodied politics of intention, therapeutic intervention and artistic practice. Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy, 1. (2). 115-127.
  • Bonenfant, Y and Maclaurin, A. (2006). Acoustic/Electric : a reflective performance document of an experiment in co-creation. Body, Space, Technology, 6 (1). http://people.brunel.ac.uk/bst/vol0601/
  • Bonenfant, Y. (2004).  She came and did it and went and I came and people are coming: Gertrude Stein wrote. Performance Research, 9. (1). 6-10.

Chapters/Annotations

  • Bonenfant, Y. & Maclaurin, A. (2009) Acoustic/Electric (excerpt/overview of piece) in Allegue, L., Jones, S. Kershaw, B., Piccini, A. (eds.) 2009 ‘Practice-as-Research in Performance and Screen’, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 195
  • Bonenfant,  Y. ( 2004)  The Visceral Voice. In Morgan, K. (ed.)  Crossing Over: Negotiating Interdisciplinary Culture. Regina: Canadian Plains Research Institute Press.

Edited/Curated Collection

  • Arlander, A. & Bonenfant, Y.  with Covey-Krell, M. (forthcoming 2012) (editor-curators) Ex-trauma: The Opposite of the Traumatic. Experiments and Intensities 2, Winchester: Winchester University Press.
  • Bonenfant, Y., Edmondes, W. and Silver, M. (forthcoming 2012) (editor-curators) Cries from the Guts. Experiments and Intensities 1, Winchester: Winchester University Press.

Selected performances/installations/artworks

  • In development: Uluzuzulalia (2012), an interactive intermedia voice playground for children aged 6 to 10, in R & D thanks to funding from the Wellcome Trust.
  • Masz – extended voice/video – premiered Oct 2011 at MIX 2011 Queer Experimental Film Festival, New York City
  • Beacons – live show (toured UK autumn 2011, to venues including Arnolfini, Rich Mix, The Arches) (created 2009-10 in residence at EMPAC, Albany, NY; Webber-Douglas Theatre, Central School for Speech and Drama, London; ‘Song, stage and screen 9’ conference, University of Winchester ), ca. 60 min - (for multi-channel live and recorded extended voices, 3 projections of images) Composer, deviser, performer, artistic director. Reviewed METRO, Total Theatre
  • The End of Safari (2009-10), durational/cycling - Extended vocalist and textual contributor for Micah Silver’s installation at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.
  • The Opposite of Trauma/Skin Walks (2008), durational, cycling; cycle lasts about 90 min. Composer, choreographic facilitator. Public/street work performed in Paris, Cardiff and London, including the Tate Modern in London; Centre Pompidou (Musée National d’Art Contemporain), Paris.
  • Intimacies (videodance version) (2008), ca. 25 min – Composer, vocal and physical performer, choreographic facilitator, artistic director, visual co-director – shown National Gallery of Nitra, Slovakia; Alsager Gallery, UK; 2e Mostra Internacional de Videodanza, Brazil; Theatre Academy of Finland, Helsinki; Beetroot Tree Gallery, UK, all 2008-9.
  • B(earth) painting, voice, video installation (2007-8), sound ca. 23 min  – composer, extended vocalist. Shown at Galerie Talmart, Paris (2007) [with positive media preview]; ATRiUM, Cardiff (2008); Alsager Gallery (2009); Sala da Arte Rey Chico, Granada, Spain (2010).
  • Soie soyeuse (Silky Silk) (2007) performance, 20 min performances in day long repeated runs – for solo performer – composer, extended vocalist, physical performer, for maximum 5 audience at a time. Shown ran 3 days Prisons de Saint-Merry Gallery, produced by Éditions Loris Talmart, 2007 over 3 days. Special 3 day event at the MIX Queer Film and Audio Festival, New York City, 2007. Festival event at Giving Voice 10 Festival, Aberystwyth, 2008; 2nd run at Caves Talmart, Paris, May, 2008. Video of Soie Soyeuse premiered at INPORT Festival, Tallinn, Estonia 2007. Developed into book project.

Residencies since 2004

  • 2009 Experimental Media and Performing Arts Centre (EMPAC), RPI, USA 2009, 4 week funded research residency with video artist and engineer assistant to develop Beacons live show. Première; media attention.
  • 2009 Funded residency to develop elements of Beacons project with MAX/MSP programmer Kingsley Ash, Theatre Noise Project, Central School of Speech and Drama.  Performed experiment.
  • 2007 Six week funded residency to develop B(earth) project with Ludivine Allegue, École Nationale Supérieure d’Art de Limoges-Aubusson, France. With support in the studios of the IDEAT, Université de Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. 
  • 2006 Three week funded residency to finish developing and performing the Each Starry Night project with Mile Zero Dance, Edmonton, Canada. Premiere.
  • 2005-6 External artist-collaborator of the residency/research project ‘Articulating Practice’ with the Arts Council of England Choreographic Lab, University of Northampton. Performance.
  • 2005 Funded residency with CEPiA & University of Évora, Portugal, for July in Performance event.
  • 2004 Funded residency and workshop with CEPiA & University of Évora, Portugal, for July in Performance event.

From 2000-2002 Bonenfant produced a body of experimental music/performance art while at Wesleyan University’s experimental music MA programme.

Previous to 2000 Bonenfant was a regular collaborator with the Tunnel Works troupe, based in Montréal, Canada.

Research Interests

  • Extended voice and performance potency
  • Sensation and sensuality in the process of devising performance
  • Interfaces between touch, expressive gesture and vocal gesture
  • Explorations of choreography and vocalisation their influence on one another
  • Infant language acquisition and phoneme development in extended voice
  • Emotional somatics in the pedagogy of acting, music and dance
  • Fabric and costume and sound integration
  • Biodynamic psychology, psychocorporeal analysis, and erogenetics and devising  Fabric and costume and sound generation
  • Bioemotional activism.

Funding Awards and Professional Membership

  • Since 2005, Yvon’s work has been funded by the Arts Council of England, the Wellcome Trust, twice by the Arts and Humanities Research Council of the UK;  and the British Academy; in his pre-academic life participated in many Canada Council for the Arts and Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec funding awards; and has financial or material support since 2004 from the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Centre (www.empac.rpi.edu); Dance Digital; The Choreographic Lab, IDEAT Université de Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne;  Central School of Speech and Drama, London; École Nationale Supérieur d’Art de Limoges-Aubusson; CEPiA; Galerie Talmart et Editions Talmart; and others.
  • Yvon belongs to the Performance as Research Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research; is an external research associate of the IDEAT, Université de Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne; was an external associate of the Choreographic Lab, 2005-6; was a founding member of the Research into Expanded Dramaturgies group.