picture: Feriet Tunc

Antonin Rioche

has always been a creator and a storyteller, dance happens to be one of his predominant mediums. He is also passionate about painting, photographing, and filming. Born in Angers, France, Antonin finished his dance education at the Ballet Junior of Geneva. After completing his dance education, he worked with Olivier Dubois and was part of diverse projects throughout Europe. There he worked with names such as Sasha Waltz & Guests, Ryan Djojokarso, Theo Clinkard, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, amongst others. Cherkaoui was the first to stimulate him to create his first solo Oh boy!. Antonin continued choreographing and recently started to build his own foundation: Funny People, which is a platform for collaboration curated and directed by Antonin himself.

Antonin creates through different lenses of expression. Movement is a root of creation but not automatically the starting point. His works often depart from a text that he writes. From there, poetic interpretations emerge. Cataloguing his ideas and inspirations, he creates in dialogue with his inner world. Time passing is a recurrent theme in his pieces.

Aside from stage works, Antonin works hand in hand with film. His first solo in 2017, Oh boy!, created during the Eastman Summer Intensive (which toured in Europe as a piece first) became a film, and was selected and awarded by several film festivals around the world. His duet Finally a sign of life is also now produced as a film, shot in Museum Voorlinden. His latest film The Research Project: The Leftovers has been selected to be screened during Cinedans in 2022. 

Antonin is also interested in teaching and choreographing for dance educations throughout Europe. In his workshops, the classes often contain a mixture of breathing exercises, yoga, and meditation. Tools designed to develop clarity of mind in order to connect with the body in a more sensitive way. In 2021, he created new work for FONTYS (Tilburg), The Royal Conservatory (The Hague), and Zurich University of the Arts in Switzerland.

As a house choreographer at Korzo, he created The Others and Finally a sign of life both for Here we live and now, editions 2018 and 2019. The following year in 2021, he created Huidhonger, a new work made for the dancers of Rotterdam based company: Conny Janssen Danst. Invited by Korzo and Nederlands Dans Theater he presented his first full-evening performance: Glitter at the CaDance festival 2021. That same year, he worked on a research called The Waves during the Pioneer project, founded by Jiri Pokorny and supported by the Omscholing Dansers, and Korzo. He will present a new full length evening performance in October 2022: Ohgirl! co-produced by Nederlands Dans Theater.