Everything is a medium, whether it is light, sound, space, body, or various materials. Gaëtan Rusquet is interested here in the interconnectivity of these elements, their agency (their capacity to act or manifest) and their relationship in complex devices. The medium, in this context, is not only a vector of communication, but also a body with which we are in relation. Offering a space of transformation and dialogue between different forms of reality: visible and invisible. This underlines a desire to blur the boundaries between body, matter, and mind through performative gesture.
Gaëtan Rusquet, born in 1984, lives and works in Brussels. He studied applied arts at ENSAAMA in Paris, where he specialized in Space Design, before pursuing a master’s degree in scenography at ENSAV La Cambre in Brussels. It was during his performance option at La Cambre that he developed a deep interest in the performing arts, particularly for the commitment they require and the way they involve the body as a material and medium. Performance art, through the quality of presence it generates, has left a deep mark on him.
Throughout his career, Gaëtan Rusquet has enriched his artistic practice with parallel training in dance and energy healing, thus opening up a field of reflection and experimentation between them. His practice is resolutely undisciplined, and navigates between performance, scenography, dance and energy healing. For him, each practice becomes an opportunity to explore the subtle links between matter and consciousness, while inviting a different perception of the world and oneself.
Beyond his academic training and the disciplines covered, Gaëtan develops a collaborative practice, both as a project leader or co-creator (Damien Petitot, Eglantine Chaumont, Lucille Calmel) and as a participant in the service of other artistic visions. He has danced for Meg Stuart and Bryan Campbell, created performed scenographies with Lucille Calmel and Meg Stuart, or designed performative stage and museum devices inviting bodies, whether performers or visitors, to experiment with them through movement and action for Léa Drouet, Judith Deschamps. Gaëtan Rusquet attaches particular importance to transmission, which he considers as a space for sharing and experience. He intervenes through workshops and laboratories, whether they are centered on the medium of the body (movement/dance) or in relation to plastic mediums. He regularly or exceptionally intervenes in art schools, for the scenography section at ENSAV La Cambre and ENSAD(Paris), for the caso performance at La Cambre, or the Installation/Performance section at ERG(Brussels).
His work has been presented in many festivals and institutions such as Festival Trouble, Kanal Pompidou, Kaaitheater, Europalia (BE), Centre Pompidou, FRAC Lorraine, Palais de Tokyo, Festival Actoral (FR), Theater Avantgarden (NO), Accionmad (ES), Homonovus festival (LV), Impulstanz (AT), MDT Stockholm (SE), Antifestival, Newperformancefestival (FI) and Infinite Present (SI).
“Headfirst and tumbling down. End. It is more interesting than it sounds and can obviously be read on many levels. A critique of civilization is the closest at hand.” about Meanwhile, by Margareta Sörensson Scenbloggen 01.09.2014
Back-and-forth was awarded the “Ällöttävin/Most Disgusting – and the Kaunein/Most Beautiful performance” by a jury of Children during Antifestival in Kuopio (FI) 2011
“Meanwhile, activates considerations of forces, conditions, and sensorial awareness that often go unnoticed, and all of these elements contribute to more relational than transactional interactions with one another and our environments.”
“Meanwhile, privileges concepts of interdependency and distributive agency and there is a politics inherent in this decision. Instead of familiar scenes of human control and domination, the performance generates the agency of assemblages, upsetting an ideology centered around human will or intentionality.“
In an article by Kate Mattingly: Choreographic Architecture and Critical Sustainability in Meanwhile, in Performance Research, a journal of the performing arts, vol.25, 2020Along the way, among others “is a beautifull ritual withs snow and water that addressed trust, caretaking, cleansing, purification and rebirth” by Jennie Klein in Reliving time, a publication from the network A Time for Live Art, 2024
“Thus the dance in Meanwhile, starts where everything is decided: In concealed and non-controllable processes, permanently taking place around us and within us. As soon as the ground under the huge wall begins to vibrate, it can no longer be held. After its dramatic fall, our three sympathetic characters begin to build again, without batting an eye or changing strategy, having learned nothing. The evening remains brilliant throughout.” Helmut Ploebst Der Standard 31.07.2014
“It is a modeling of the void and the full, it is an infinity. It is a device that gives an intangible becoming to the supposed solid.” by David Bernardas, about Meanwhile, in the Médiapart club, 2016
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Design by Miriam Hempel, code by Johan Giraud