Foofwa d’imobilitè

Foofwa d’Imobilité (Frédéric Gafner) is a Swiss dancer and choreographer. He trained at the Geneva Dance Centre and worked with Ballet Junior. He worked as a professional dancer first with the Stuttgart Ballet (1987-1990), then with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (1991-1998). He began working as a choreographer in 1998, creating three multimedia solos. He founded the dance company Neopost Ahrrrt and is the author of “Media Vice Versa” (2002), a show about media and digital images, and Injuria (2004), about the precariousness of dancers’ conditions, among others. He collaborated on three shows with French choreographer Thomas Lebrunn, which were taken on tour throughout Europe. He has made numerous dance videos and collaborated with artists including Alan Sondheim, Nicolas Rieben, Christian Marclay and Antoine Lengo. As a choreographer he has worked with various companies including Nederlands Dans Theatre II, Bern Ballet and Ballet Junior, and as a dancer he has performed in theaters all over the world, from the Paris Opera to Teatro La Fenice in Italy and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
His work has been presented by The Kitchen, Chez Bushwick and Baryshnikov Arts Center; the Maison de la Danse and the Biennale de la Danse in Lyon, France. He was awarded the Prix Professionnel at the Prix de Lausanne in Switzerland (1987), of the New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for his work in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (1995 ). She has won a Leenaards Foundation Fellowship (1998), a Swiss Dance and Choreography Award (2006) and a three-year fellowship from the Swiss Arts Council, the Department of Cultural Affairs of the City of Geneva and the Geneva State Department of Education (2007-2009). In 2009 he received the Grants to Artists award.