Creative experimentation workshop

The creative experimentation workshops are led by two professors active in the creation of contemporary works, who put the development of the students’ creative projects at the heart of their work.

Thanks to the workshops, the students develop their creativity through an experience that involves the creation, interpretation and design of plays, very often offered to the public in ‘site specific’ form.

Through various collaborations with the city of Geneva’s cultural partners and with the other departments of the HEM, the workshops are promoted on the local scene, with the search for links between music and movement opening up various fields of exploration in the digital arts, architecture, composition, etc.

The workshop is a unique occasion when the student explores the links between music and movement, a chance to discover and create multi-disciplinary pieces that blend together the body, the instrument and the space, and make it possible to tackle works in a variety of styles.

Teachers

Florence Jaccottet

Head of the Music and Movement Department - Rhythmician, teacher, movement artist

Born in Lausanne in 1989, Florence Jaccottet is currently Head of the Music and Movement Department at the Geneva University of Music (HEM), where she has been teaching rhythm, movement technique and composition, and creative experimentation workshops since 2019. A specialist in the Jaques-Dalcroze method, she has over 10 years' experience in teaching rhythm, acquired in particular at the Jaques-Dalcroze Institute, where she taught a variety of audiences for several years. Her teaching has been recognised with several awards, including a prize for excellence in music theory teaching and the Alethéia Foundation Prize for the creation of ‘Entrée en matières’ (2017), in collaboration with percussionist Michael Chapon. Florence Jaccottet was trained from childhood in Jaques-Dalcroze eurhythmics at the Lausanne Conservatory. She also studied piano there in Helena Maffli's class, obtaining a Prize for Excellence in 2008. At the HEM Geneva, she pursued a Bachelor of Arts in Music and Movement (Marguerite Croptier Lange Teaching Prize, 2011), a Master of Arts in Jaques-Dalcroze Pedagogy (Jaques-Dalcroze Institute Prize, 2013), and then a Higher Diploma, obtained in 2019. Alongside her teaching, Florence Jaccottet is developing artistic research focused on the musicality of improvised movement. She has a particular interest in contemporary music repertoire, collaborations with composers, and performative and sound experiments. Placed at the heart of her artistic research, the expression of rhythm and musicality of movement through improvisation makes her dance a unique contemporary language. Also active internationally, Florence Jaccottet is regularly invited to teach, notably in Seoul, Montreal and Beijing.

Daniel Zea Gomez

Atelier d'expérimentation créative / Électroacoustique Jaques-Dalcroze

Designer, sound artist and composer Daniel Zea lives and works in Geneva. His artistic universe revolves around instrumental and electroacoustic music, hybrid performances combining video, sound, gesture capture systems and physical computing, as well as programming. He regularly collaborates on interdisciplinary projects (visual arts, choreography, performance) and teaches at the Geneva University of Art and Design. He is involved in the artistic direction of the Vortex ensemble, working both as a composer and performer of electroacoustic music. Very active in the field of education, he has been a reference artist for multidisciplinary artistic residencies at the Royaumont Foundation and, more recently, at GRAME, a centre for musical creation in Lyon. His piece The Fuck Facebook Face Orchestra won the 2016 Giga Hertz Preis from the ZKM (Karlsruhe, Germany), and in 2017, Pocket Enemy was selected for the International Rostrum of Composers. In 2023, he will receive the Liechti Foundation's Sound Arts Award. In his work, he reflects critically on our society's relationship with digital technology, sometimes with a certain political commitment that is not without humour. However, his musical interests are not limited to contemporary experimental creation. He is also passionate about folklore. On the Colombian side, he explores the repertoire of the Caribbean region (cumbia, fandango, porro) with Palenque la Papayera. A lover of traditional music from south-eastern Mexico, he is a member of the groups Cocoxoca and Gema y sus Valedores. Daniel Zea was a guest at the Les Amplitudes Festival in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 2024. Daniel Zea's website