CPPM OPEN CLASS: CLÉMENT LAYES (Germany) • CPPM AUTUMN 2025 SEASON

Clément Layes

Clément Layes, born in France in 1978, studied art history and philosophy before receiving dance training at the Conservatoire National de Région (CNR) and the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Lyon (CNSMD). During this time, he also studied at the Lyon Circus School. From 2004, he began his artistic career as a performer and author, working with choreographers such as Odile Duboc and Boris Charmatz. In 2008, he co-founded Public in Private with Jasna L. Vinovrški in Berlin.

His first work was the solo Allege (2010), which was invited to numerous theatres and festivals in Germany, across Europe, Canada and the Americas. He received the Jury Prize at the INFANT Festival (Novi Sad, Serbia) and was honoured with the Prix Jardin d’Europe in 2011. Many further productions followed, often in co-production with Sophiensaele Berlin and various European platforms. In 2018, Clément Layes was invited by the Venice Biennale of Theatre to present a retrospective of his body of work. Throughout his career, he has developed a distinctive working method that brings together choreography, visual art, and conceptual thinking, focusing on the everyday object as a field of artistic research. His methods have been discussed in several publications, most recently in Martina Ruhsam’s book, Non-Human Bodies in Contemporary Dance, which was awarded the NRW Dance Science Prize in 2021.

Since 2014, Layes has engaged critically with the role of theatre as a space for presenting dance, particularly in an internationally oriented city like Berlin. Alongside other choreographers, he co-founded the platform How Do We Work It to examine and reimagine the conditions of art production in Berlin. Building on this initiative, he and Vinovrški launched the 3 AM event series at the Flutgraben, where hundreds of artists performed and thousands of spectators participated between 2014 and 2017. This was followed by Flutgraben Performances and the residency program Flutgraben Residencies in 2019, further establishing the Public in Private Studio and Flutgraben Atelierhaus as key alternative venues for dance and performance in Berlin. In 2017, for Kunstencentrum BUDA in Kortrijk (Belgium), Layes curated an accompanying festival program and developed the concept of The Fantastic Institution. That same year, he became co-organiser of The Watch, a collective of artists repurposing the former border guard tower in Berlin’s Schlesisches Feld for artistic use.

Layes regularly teaches at art academies and leads workshops. Since 2014/15, he has been a guest lecturer and mentor at the Inter-University Center for Dance (HZT) Berlin. 

Public in Private

Public in Private is a Berlin-based dance company that serves as the umbrella organisation under which the works of Clément Layes and Jasna L. Vinovrški are produced. Since its founding in 2008, the company has collaborated with hundreds of venues across Europe and North America, including some of the most renowned, such as Théâtre de la Ville (France), Kaai Theatre (Belgium), Walker Art Centre (USA), and the Venice Biennale (Italy).

In Berlin, they have collaborated with Sophiensaele, Tanzfabrik, and Tanznacht, and have performed in Potsdam, Bremen, Hamburg, Chemnitz, and numerous other locations throughout Germany. Since 2012, Public in Private has been supported by the Berlin Senate and the Capital Cultural Fund (HKF) for dance projects, including Things That Surround Us, Dreamed Apparatus, Allege, Modal Verbs, and Healers.

In 2011, the company also established a dance studio at Flutgraben, the PIP Studio, which is used for rehearsals but has also, together with other Flutgrabena spaces, become a venue for events and residencies for other artists. Projects such as 3AM, Flutgraben performance, and Flutgraben residency emerged from this (supported by the Berlin Senate). Both artists regularly teach in Germany and in international contexts.