When a network of theatres, cultural centres, associations and districts join forces for an artistic discipline, it gives rise to the Escales Danse Festival in Val d’Oise.

Its aim? To publicise today's choreographers to the widest possible audience. From 6th March to 17th April, this ninth edition presents three types of show in several of the department’s towns (Cergy-Pointoise, Bezons, Taverny, Herblay, Saint-Gratien etc...).

Création 2010 opens the dance with Hélène Catala’s Hors Commerce Company. In Talking Blues, the choreographer has a duo of dancers move through the beatnik world of American poet Allen Ginsberg. Hallucinating video images and texts chanted to folk guitar are the setting for the hammering and brutal body language of the two performers, trained in circus arts and contact improvisation dance.

L’Evènement 2010 brings the troupe from the Centre Choréographique National de Nantes together with the Claude Brumachon/Benjamin Lamarche tandem and their piece Festin. To music by Purcell, Monteverdi, Philip Glass and Leonard Cohen, guests sitting around a large O-shaped wooden table, move through the audience in a carnal ballet, guided by their impulses.

Finally, the Découvertes 2010 shows will reveal young iconoclastic creators, playing with visual and sonic codes such as the very offbeat Bayreuth FM by the Woosh’ing Mach’ine Company based on The Ring of the Nibelung by Wagner, or the surprising female trio of the Chavirage Company moving around on musical shoes!