After two years of facilities, starting summer 1997, offered by the Centre Culturel de la Région de Mons, the company settled in the amazing edifice of La Machine à Eau, which belongs to the City of Mons.
Since March 1999, this building has provided housing for the office and the rehearsal studio of As Palavras- Cie Claudio Bernardo. The company has the two rooms of the second floor at his disposal permanently. The company can, as well, use the large common halls whenever needed and in agreement with the city, the Centre Culturel, the district museums and the contemporary music ensemble with which As-Palavras-Cie Claudio Bernardo shares these accommodations. This partnership intends to focus the use of the building on the thesis of MOVEMENT.
Remembering the water that long ago flew through the city to irrigate it, the company has imagined a place where music, dance and visual arts would find a welcoming, warm and challenging space.
In 1999, the Festival Le Mouvement- Mons was born along with workshops for students, school pupils, and people from all backgrounds, art exhibitions, video installations, weekly classes and lectures. The first symposium that was held at the beginning of the festival in 1999, untitled “ le plat pays-plancher pour le mouvement” (the flat land- land for movement) gathered many of the finest people of the dance world in Belgium.
Collaborations between several cultural spots in Mons such as the Mundaneum, the Mac’s (Contemporary Art Museum) and the Conservatoire Royal of Mons came into being through workshops and exhibitions.
As palavras-Cie Claudio Bernardo has not only worked on his own creations but meanwhile welcomed and accommodated other artists in order to generate new artistic views and expand dance in the district. The purpose is to make dance more visible, rooted and strong, for the years to come, in Mons.
Among the chosen artists, not only choreographers and dancers, but also stage directors, musicians or video designers needed facilities to create. The company put a space for research and light and sound equipments at their disposal so that they would be able to rehearse and show their work.
Ten years after its creation, owing to the quality of work accomplished during the different sessions, the festival Le Mouvement-Mons went beyond local boundaries and extended nationally and internationally. This space extension, in order to be fully accomplished, required a time extension. Therefore, the Mouvement-Mons is, from now on, taking place all through the season and is no longer focused on the brief period of a festival.
A stronger involvement within the Machine à Eau all through the year of 2009 enables the company to multiply the exchanges with national and international companies. Reheasals, revivals from the repertoire, performances and creations by As-Palavras as well as by invited companies will follow one another.
Since its creation, one of the main challenges of Movement-Mons has been to go and meet the inhabitants of Mons, whether by proposing performances from the Communauté Française (French Community) or from abroad, by holding workshops and training courses at the Machine à Eau, or by going to the city schools to introduce dance along with an artistic dialog.
The city of Mons is now thinking of becoming the European Cultural Capital in 2015 and As Palavras- Caudio Bernardo wishes the Machine à Eau to become a highlight spot for dance and arts, related to movement.
