Biennale de danse du Val-de-Marne identity 2023
In 2023, French graphic design studio Ultragramme designed the visual identity of the Biennale de danse du Val-de-Marne. This festival takes place in la briqueterie – their identity was also designed by Ultragramme. This place, entirely dedicated to dance, is labeled Centre de Développement Chorégraphique National (CDCN) by the Ministry of Culture and Communication. As a tool for cultural decentralization, the mission of the CDCN is to support choreographic creation and research, to disseminate works throughout the territory, to mediate towards the public, and to train and integrate dancers into the workforce.
From the briqueterie website:
The 22nd Val-de-Marne Dance Biennial resolutely cultivates the multiple nuances of dance. Irradiated by the artistic vitality of the South, it invites you to discover a great diversity of works brought together in three porous and intertwined components: celebration, transmission and imagination.
In addition to Söhne, the typeface usually used for the briqueterie identity, Ultragramme chose BVH Doc Script for the Biennale identity. BVH Doc Script brings a vibration, the spontaneity of a gesture reminiscent of dancers’ bodies. It is also a connection, a call to urbanity and youth, that counterbalances the Swiss and strict aspect of Söhne.
Ultragramme had the desire to move away from the previous identities, based on the choice of an image representing the whole event, reproduced and displayed everywhere. Instead, they wanted to build a system without a unique visual. They show the richness and plurality of languages by proposing a series of backgrounds for the posters. They are designed to function alone or in series (proposal to hang them by 2, 3 or 4). These backgrounds are composed of different types of colourful lines, movements and occupations of space: undulations, breathing, interlacing, tremors, curves, disturbances, etc.
The program covers are cut out of the poster’s background and then printed in black with the title. This economy of means allows for diversity, randomness, unpredictability and pushes forward this idea of avoiding one single visual to represent the event.
