INTERVIEW: Choreography As Language With Serge Laurent

IN THIS EDITION:

-Interview with Serge Laurent, Director of Dance & Cultural Programs at Van Cleef & Arpels on the role of curation in dance’s development.

-Upcoming LIVE TALK Seeing Dance: The Sleeping Beauty Then & Now Tues Feb 24.

As the Dance Reflections Festival returns to New York City (February 19–March 21, 2026), I spoke with Serge Laurent, Director of Dance & Cultural Programs at Van Cleef & Arpels, about how studying art history—rather than choreography—shaped the way he learned to see dance.

For Laurent, dance is not only the art of movement but the art of space. He reads bodies the way others read sculpture or architecture, attending to structure, detail, and lineage. Choreographers, he argues, are researchers: artists who invent new languages while working in conversation with history.

We discuss why contemporary dance cannot be separated from what came before, why curating is an act of support rather than direction, and why a festival should offer experience rather than consensus.

Below are *lightly edited* excerpts from the interview, full conversation in the podcast above.

EXITABOVE NYU Skirball March 5-7 Photo: Anne Van Aerschot

Cynthia: You come to dance through a background in contemporary art and institutional programming rather than choreography itself. How did your background shape the way you first learned to read dance?

Serge: In fact, I studied art history. My major at École du Louvre was ancient art and archaeology. When you study visual art and ancient art, you learn to look at things in detail. By focusing on details, you understand the work. So when I started attending dance performances, I was really struck by these moving bodies. The body is everywhere in art history—painting, sculpture, monuments—and suddenly seeing bodies in motion was fascinating.

I remember looking at every single movement like a sculpture in motion. I didn’t have any background in dance, so it was a real discovery. Dance is a visual art, but in motion. One of the first shows I attended was Goldberg Variations by Steve Paxton. I was amazed by the precision, the fluidity. It’s probably because of this performer and a few others that I really fell in love with dance.

When you look at a painting, you have a frame and a notion of space. Painters and sculptors deal with space all the time. Dance is, of course, the art of movement, but it’s also the art of space. On stage, choreographers and dancers invent new ways of using that space. They’re researchers, inventing new languages—just like contemporary artists.

Artists are researchers. They invent new languages. —Serge Laurent

EXITABOVE NYU Skirball March 5-7 Photo: Anne Van Aerschot

Cynthia: And we think of dance as being the art of movement, but so much of it is about geometry and poses. It reads almost as beautifully in a photograph as it does in movement. So that translation makes a lot of sense.

Serge: I had the chance to work after my studies in contexts combining different art disciplines—trans-disciplinary institutions—with Fondation Cartier. I created this program called Nomadic Nights, and it was the wish of the director at that time to bring inside the gallery other art disciplines: theater, music, dance, fashion, et cetera. And I was dealing with that for four years at Fondation Cartier.

When I discovered dance a bit later, what interested me the most—is dance can be an art form in itself. I mean, no music, no stage, nothing. Just pure movement. And at the same time, it’s a discipline that can bring together all the other ones: visual arts, music, fashion, text, lights, video art, everything. Also, choreographers—they’re also into philosophy, literature. So I think it’s a very complete art form. And also it uses, I think, the most beautiful medium you can create your art with: the body. Since we share the same thing together, our bodies—it creates a direct empathy with the audience. The first time I approached dance, I was really touched. I’m not an artist, I’m on the other side, but we have something in common above words, above everything.

Cynthia: Yes, and when we watch the dancer’s body we empathize not as a concept, but immediately. It’s the mirror neurons in the brain. When we see someone else doing something, we merge and have that experience. It works on the other side too. If you see someone in pain—like if you see someone injured on their shoulder—you’ll instinctively hold your shoulder. And the same with dance.

It shows us who we could be. Like if you take a stone from the ground, a precious stone, and it’s covered in dirt and whatever, and you take all of that off—the stone was not transformed. You’re showing what it truly was. And that’s what dance is. It’s what we really are.

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Cynthia: When you select artists for Dance Reflections, what are the non-negotiables? What must be present in the work or the artist?

Serge: My curatorial practice started 25 years ago, so it’s a long time ago. And I would say that I always had the same approach with artists. They are free. I select them because of what they do. I will not ask them to do something.

And today I work in a private institution, like a public one, managing this program on a curatorial basis. The idea is to support artists, but in fact, there is no limit. For example, sometimes people ask me, “When you approach a dance company and you support them in production, do you ask them this or that?” No. But I know who they are.

What I want through this program is to invite people to experience something, it’s more than attending a new show for me. A festival is like an invitation to a journey. A journey where you discover something. Sometimes you appreciate this and that, sometimes there are things you appreciate less, but you experienced something—and that’s what is most important for me.

Cynthia: That’s a beautiful analogy. When you’re on long journeys, actually a lot of the time you’re uncomfortable, and then you have these beautiful experiences, and it’s all part of the experience.

Serge: What I like also is the way you enlarge your vision of the world. Because these languages—even if you attend the full season in the same city—you see different ways of re-transcribing the world, with different vocabularies, different approaches.

It’s a way to enlarge your vision of the world, because when you travel, most of the time you don’t understand the local languages. And of course, English is very practical, but sometimes it’s difficult to communicate in certain countries. So you have to accept to communicate differently—through your eyes, your body, whatever.

And I think when you approach a new language in contemporary art—we’re talking about dance, but we could say that for other artistic approaches—you have to receive things differently.

What I appreciate is that when you get in a theater, hopefully people applaud at the end, and sometimes it’s very enthusiastic reactions. But if you look, no one receives the same thing. We are together attending something together, part of a community, and at the same time we keep our individuality and we can share opinions about the work with no crucial issues.

The same show is presented in New York, in London, in Tokyo, in Shanghai, in Saudi Arabia recently, and I’m so moved by how different people from different cultures can receive something. Probably they receive something different, but they get something. We have something in common, and it’s something very essential to me.

Mycelium New York City Center Feb 19-21 Photo: Agathe Poupeney

Cynthia: Does location affect your curatorial choices?

Serge: I would say yes and no. Because I have a curatorial vision, so I want to share it with all the different audiences we approach. But at the same time, when I’m in New York, I’m inspired by the history of New York. This city has such a strong history with dance. When I’m in London, it’s different. For example, recently I was in Sydney, Australia, and they were very keen to welcome us. And I met with Aboriginal dancers and traditional dance, and I said to myself, if one day I do a festival over there, I will probably include something local.

We’re going to have a festival in Shanghai next year, and it’s such an exciting exercise for me too—to add in the programming two Chinese dance companies, one from Beijing, one from Shanghai.

So the curatorial approach is the same. I say yes and no, because for me, even if I include a Chinese dance company from Beijing or a local dance company from Australia, it’s the same intellectual approach. For example, in London I decided to close the festival with pieces by George Balanchine from the twenties, and everybody said to me, “Wow, how come in the context of a contemporary dance festival you put works dating from such a long time ago?” And I said, because it’s a reference. It’s a reference we cannot miss. If contemporary dance is here now, it’s because of them, of what came before. There is an anchorage for this art discipline, and I think it’s essential to talk about it.

Cynthia: The former dance critic from The New York Times, Alastair Macaulay, talks about how he mostly covered ballet and traditional modern dance. It sounds funny to say “traditional,” but Martha Graham’s company is turning 100 years old. And he was talking about how he would try to go see hip-hop battles, because he said you can find so much about an immediate culture from their folk dances, and it’s such an important part of the conversation that’s easy to overlook.

Serge: Yes, it’s true. I remember when I was a young curator, I was focusing on a certain range of dance and I thought what happened before was not interesting. And there are these wars between classical, modern, avant-garde, et cetera. And I think it’s a shame. I realized that a bit later.

If we talk about dance in the West—without classical dance, you would not have modern dance or neoclassical. And because of modern dance, we had the birth of postmodern dance, and because of postmodern dance, we talk now about contemporary dance. But all of this is linked. Some people say, “I like only this,” or “Only this has the right to exist.” But if you really are into an art discipline, you need to look at the history. I think it’s essential.

That’s the reason why sometimes for the festival, I try to include a piece of reference before presenting a brand-new work. And if we take New York as an example, I’m very glad that with Ballet de Lyon we can present the same night Merce Cunningham and Christos Papadopoulos. Because it shows people how things evolve, but they have one thing in common: they invented a language.

That’s what interests me the most. When I select an artist, I look at whether they found their own voice. And it’s because of this category of artists that the art form is continuously evolving. For me, the historical vision is essential if you want to approach contemporary art.

If contemporary dance is here now, it’s because of what came before. —Serge Laurent

La Nuée New York Live Arts March 6 & 7 Photo: Luca Ianelli

Cynthia: We get attached to small differences and make tiny art wars. It’s such a reflection on how we could improve our society—looking past these differences and seeing the links.

Serge: Of course there are debates, but there’s a big difference between a curator and a critic. As a curator, I want to develop a vision, leaning on history and witnessing the evolution of dance. I want to show the diversity of dance and how rich it is. Even if artists are very different and come from different cultures, they have this in common: they research and try to find their own voice. And I thank them for giving us the opportunity to experience the art of movement.

Cynthia: Looking ahead, what directions or questions are you most interested in pursuing through Dance Reflections?

Serge: We decided to lean on three essential values: creation, transmission, and education. Creation is not only about a new work, but what is needed before the work—residencies, time, space. Transmission is essential to preserve works and heritage. And education is about awareness—not making everyone an expert, but giving tools to approach dance. This is what I want to develop, especially education and awareness.

Cynthia: It gives people an access point—it pulls the curtain back without forcing anything.

Serge: Exactly. My job is to be a mediator, a bridge between creation, artists, and the rest of the world.

Listen to full conversation in the podcast above and The New York City iteration of Dance Reflections Festival takes place February 19 to March 21, 2026

Seeing Dance LIVE TALK:

The Sleeping Beauty Then & Now Tues Feb 24 7PM EST.

Last month we took a look at Swan Lake from the classic Nureyev & Fonteyn version to Matthew Bourne’s male swans and psychological take.

Christian Spuck’s Sleeping Beauty (courtesy of Marquee TV)

This month, February 24 7PM EST, we’ll do a deep dive on the pivotal Sleeping Beauty. A ballet that was once considered a sellout to low popular taste, is now thought of as the crystalline example of the classical style. We’ll compare The Royal Ballet with Christian Spuck’s neoclassical version and finishing with another Matthew Bourne hit theatrical (and wildly different) production.

UPDATE: Starting in March, we’ll still have a once monthly live for everyone but for a deeper look we’ll have weekly lives for paid subscribers. More on that soon. If you already know you’d like to join then go ahead and do so below.

The Dance Lens with Cynthia Dragoni is a reader-supported publication. Join me for subscriber only monthly lives and paid subscriber weekly lives.