François Chaignaud & Aymeric Hainaux

François Chaignaud

After graduating in 2003 from the National Superior Conservatory of Paris for Music and Dance, François Chaignaud has danced for many choreographers (Alain Buffard, Boris Charmatz, Emmanuelle Huynh, Gilles Jobin). Since his first piece in 2004, he conceives dance as a global expression, his work is characterized by the articulation of singing and dance and a profound relationship to history, both in his own work as well as in the collaborations he has formed with multiple artists (with Jérôme Marin, Marie Caroline Hominal or Théo Mercier).

Between 2005 and 2016, together with Cecilia Bangolea, he created a series of noteworthy shows that were presented worldwide. In 2021, he founded mandorle productions, whose artistic line is based on the cooperation with other artists such as Nina Laisné, Marie-Pierre Brébant, Akaji Maro, Dominique Brun, and Sasha J. Blondeau. He also creates pieces for large groups of performers: Soufflette in 2018 for the ballet Carte Blanche and t u m u l u s in 2022, then In absentia in 2024, with Geoffroy Jourdain.

He recently created the shows Mirlitons with Aymeric Hainaux and Petites joueuses. In 2025, he created the show Último helecho with Nina Laisné and Nadia Larcher. A portrait was devoted to him at the Festival d’Automne à Paris 2025. In 2026 François Chaignaud was appointed director of the Centre Chorégraphique National de Caen en Normandie.

Aymeric Hainaux

With his background in the visual arts, (he first turned to cartoon stip at the Beaux-arts d’Angoulême, then to painting) Aymeric Hainaux is invested in a very personal approach to the human beatbox. He creates machine sounds so precise as the famous Roland TR909, and his incomparable technique makes him one of the prominent artists of this art. Hainaux “plays what happens,” and his performances are a music of the present instant, attentive to silence and movement. Without a loop pedal, but the use of a microphone, some bells, a harmonica, and sometimes a cassettes player, all exclusively played in real time.

He has collaborated with Christine Quoiraud, Tanya Tagaq, Kenzo Kusuda, Oguri, Erik M, and Anne Lise Le Gac. In 2005, he began a solo tour by hitchhiking. This adventure lasted eight years during which he traveled 40 thousand kilometers each year—from Meknes to Copenhagen and from Tallin to Rome—and staged 700 performances on 3 continents. With banjo player Stéphane Barascud, in 2013, he created the music brut duo Cantenac Dagar, which proposed un rituel pour l’invention d’une sensibilité radicale (Sonic Protest festival, 2017). The group has released a dozen records, and this duo remains Hainaux’s main musical project.

The diversity of his projects also brings him to perform in the backrooms of restaurants and art venues. These include, in France, Mixart Myrys, the CND (Centre National de la Danse), Les Siestes Électroniques, the Palais de Tokyo, and the Sonic Protest festival. His label Isola Records, which he has been running since 2011, makes books, cassettes, CDs and records of artists and groups working at the borders of concerts and performances. He also has a practice of poetic writing and publishing. In 2023, he contributed to the soundtrack for Clément Cogitore’s film Goutte D’or. 

Concept and Performance: Aymeric Hainaux & François Chaignaud

Artistic Collaboration: Sarah Chaumette

Costume Design: Sari Brunel

Lighting Design: Marinette Buchy

Technical Managers: Marinette Buchy, Anthony Merlaud

Sound Operators: Patrick Faubert

International dissemination: APROPIC–Line Rousseau–Marion Gauvent 

Executive Production: Centre Chorégraphique National de Caen en Normandie

International Dissemination: Apropic – Line Rousseau & Marion Gauvent

Co-production: MC93 – Maison de la Culture de Seine-Saint-Denis; Festival d’Automne à Paris; Charleroi danse, centre chorégraphique de Wallonie-Bruxelles (BE); Maison de la Danse, Lyon – Pôle européen de création; Festival Next (FR/BE); Theater Rotterdam (NL); Triennale di Milano (IT); KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen Hannover (DE); Bonlieu, Scène nationale Annecy

Support: Espace Pasolini/Laboratoire artistique Valenciennes; La Villette, Paris – Initiatives d’Artistes; Malraux, Scène nationale de Chambéry Savoie; Les Aires – Théâtre de Die et du Diois, Scènes conventionnées d’intérêt national – « Art en territoire »

Acknowledgements: Balakumar, Edouard Prabhu, Prune Becheau

Centre Chorégraphique National de Caen en Normandie is subsidized by the Ministry of Culture – DRAC de Normandie, the Normandie region, the city of Caen, the department of Calvados, and the department of Manche.

Miriltons is supported by FUSED, a program of Villa Albertine and Albertine Foundation.

Read a preview of the performance and an interview with the artists in WAMC here.

“I’ve been a super fan of Francois since I saw his utterly compelling collaboration with Trajal Harrell and Marlene Monteiro Freitas, Mimosa, many years ago at The Kitchen. Since then I’ve encountered his work in a cave in Italy, a medieval chapel in Brussels, and an opera house in Lyon.

“He is a performative polymath—an extraordinary counter-tenor, an even better dancer, and a fierce, constantly inquisitive collaborator. This runs across genre and time. A sinewy virtuoso from whom one cannot tear their gaze. He dives into the past, into a multiplicity of histories and brings them flaming into a compelling present.”

“As an aside he also runs one of the leading choreographic centres in France. He is the busiest man I know in this business. Here we are privileged to see one of these investigations—with a leading beatboxer—and I hope in time we will be able to share some of the others, with flamenco, medieval music and more.”

– Vallejo Gantner, PS21 Artistic & Executive Director