Sylvie Frigon

Sylvie Frigon holds a PhD from the Institute of Criminology at Cambridge University in England. She is a full professor in the Department of Criminology at the University of Ottawa, where she has taught since 1993. Since 2015, she has been a Senior Research Associate at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge. She is Associate Dean of Graduate Studies in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ottawa.

She has been conducting research on dance in prison with Compagnie Point Virgule in Paris for over 15 years. She was a consultant to the Royal New Zealand Ballet in 2016 and to Arts Access Aotearoa for the development of prison arts programs in New Zealand in 2024.

The project

Title: The researcher's body in balance

"The researcher's body in balance is a research project that questions the liminality of researchers in the humanities and social sciences, and how the practice of choreographic art can displace the conception and realization of their research projects. Dance, the art of fine-tuned perception of bodies in all their diversity, and of the sensitivity of gestures, works on our apprehension of the world, of the Other, and the nature of our actions. In one way or another, all the pieces in the Compagnie Point Virgule's repertoire, as well as the shared creation projects carried out in prisons over the past 30 years, propose a sharing of the experiences of mobile, open bodies. Bodies that are constantly constructing/reconstructing themselves in an infinite alternation between balance and imbalance, in the literal, physical sense, as well as in the figurative sense, more or less ample, alone or connected to others. Accompanied by the faithful performers and artistic collaborators of Compagnie Point Virgule, I've been exploring the phenomena of balance for many years, notions that are essential and foundational to my artistic approach: suspension, the in-between state of imbalance, the perpetual to-and-fro between phoric and haptic functions, the constant interplay between being on one's feet and moving towards, in the postural, mobile and relational sense. How can these danced phenomena of equilibrium interrogate the physicality of researchers in the humanities and social sciences, their liminalities, and perhaps renew academic practices?."

Hosting institution: Compagnie de danse Point Virgule, Paris

Selective Bibliography

• Frigon, Sylvie (2019) (sous la direction de). Danse, enfermement et corps résilients/Dance, Confinement and Resilient Bodies. Les Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa.
• Frigon, Sylvie et Claire Jenny (2020) (sous la direction de). « Aux lisières de l’art, de l’intervention et de la justice sociale » (numéro thématique), Nouvelles Pratiques Sociales, vol. 30, no.2).
• Frigon, Sylvie et Claire Jenny (2009). Chairs incarcérées : Une exploration de la danse en prison. Montréal : Les éditions du Remue-ménage, 187 pages.
• Jenny, Claire et Sylvie Frigon (2020). « Savoir-être, savoir-faire et contraintes liés aux démarches chorégraphiques en prison en France : Notes de terrain », Enjeux criminologiques contemporains : Au-delà de l’insécurité et de l’exclusion sous la direction de Carolyn Côté-Lussier, David Moffette et Justin Piché, Ottawa : Les Presses de l’Université de’Ottawa, pp.159-187.
• Frigon, S. (2015). “La danse en criminologie: une échappée belle hors de la classe’ dans Cifali, M., F. Giust-Desprairies et T. Périlleux (éds). Processus de création et processus cliniques. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, pp. 113-135.