About Jean-Marc Puissant
London, England and New York, NY
Jean-Marc Puissant (CBA ’18) is an award winning set and costume designer working internationally for opera, theater and dance. Designing productions of all scales, styles, and genres, Puissant’s design practice is rooted in the identity of unique collaborations, supporting the nature and craft required by each art form across the performing arts. He was nominated as Best Scenographer at the 2016 Benois de la Danse, was a finalist of World Stage Design 2013, and several productions he designed won Laurence Olivier Awards, South Bank Show Awards and National Dance Critics Awards. Puissant trained at the celebrated Motley Theatre Design Course in London after studying Art History at La Sorbonne, Paris. His career began as a dancer, studying at Paris Opera Ballet School and Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris. A professional dancer with Birmingham Royal Ballet and Stuttgart Ballet, Puissant danced and created roles in classical, neo-classical and contemporary repertoires. Puissant serves on the Board of Dance Umbrella, London’s international contemporary dance festival.
Kingdom of Shades – Dance Beyond Choreographic Identity
At The Center for Ballet and the Arts, Puissant focused on a developing a research project about the culture and process surrounding creating and producing dance from a non-choreographic perspective. In doing so, Puissant aimed to create a forum of interviews with practitioners of all fields, established creatives, producers and technicians. In parallel, he worked and documented his current scenography and design work for contemporary dance and ballet productions.