Author of about thirty choreographic works, Isabelle Van Grimde signed her first creation in Montreal in 1987, initiating a cycle in which she explored the more theatrical facets of the dancing body. Secrets vestiges, Au sommet de tes côtes, and Par la peau du cœur are representative works of this period. In 1992, she founded the company Van Grimde Corps Secrets. Four years later, she shifted her research toward the power of physicality and communication through the body with À l’échelle humaine. She then benefited from creative residencies in Europe, which propelled her onto the international stage.
In 1998, a commission for the creation of May All Your Storms Be Weathered in the Netherlands marked a major turning point in her artistic journey: from that point on, she could no longer conceive of choreographic art without the live presence of musicians on stage. In 2003, with Saetta, her physical approach became more visceral and sensitive. At once refined and animalistic, her gestures were deeply rooted in the elemental pulses and tensions of the body.
In 2005, she initiated another major shift with the series Les chemins de traverse, choosing the principle of the open work to present her creations. In 2007, she expanded her multidisciplinary collaborations by working with creators in architecture, visual arts, theatre, and music in Perspectives Montréal. Beginning in 2012, she continued and broadened this exploration with the series Le corps en question(s), which unfolded as gallery exhibitions, a book, and an interactive digital platform (exhibited in the laboratory of Agora de la danse during the performances of Symphonie 5.1), as well as with the architectural, choreographic, and sound installation Corps Secret / Corps Public, presented in spring 2016.
Her deepening dialogue between dance and music led her to collaborate between 2007 and 2013 with musicians and scientists from the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music, Media, and Technology (CIRMMT). With them, she created the choreographic concerts Duo pour un violoncelle et un danseur and Les gestes, contributing to the development of anatomically shaped digital musical instruments that react to the dancers’ movements and manipulations.
In 2014, she pursued her technological explorations by transferring the fabulous possibilities of interaction between gesture and sound to the image. Working closely with virtual design and interaction artist Jérôme Delapierre, she immersed her dancers in the visual, virtual, and interactive universe of Symphonie 5.1, presented in January 2016.
That same year, filming began for the interactive web series Eve 2050, directed by Robert Desroches from DAVAI, the first installment of a new triptych that came to life in 2018 and 2019. It included an installation (Eve 2050: The Installation) and a stage production (Eve 2050: The Stage Work), both premiering at Agora de la danse before being presented at Arsenal Contemporary Art Montreal and the Triffo Theatre in Edmonton. Eve 2050: The Web Series was also adapted into a short film.
In 2021, Eve 2050: The Installation received a NUMIX Award in the Digital Art category. That same spring, Isabelle Van Grimde curated the virtual exhibition EMBODIMENT2, which brought together the episodes of Eve 2050: The Web Series with the film The Birth of the World, created in collaboration with Brad Necyk and Gary James Joynes. The exhibition included previously unreleased sequences from the web series and motion capture footage from a virtual reality prototype developed with UQAT.
In 2022, Van Grimde Corps Secrets launched MESSIS, a web series accompanied by an interactive platform, further pursuing its innovative exploration of the relationships between the body, the environment, and new technologies. That same year, the company founded the Centre de création et de diffusion Malvina (ccdMalvina) in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, a space dedicated to multidisciplinary creation, research, and dissemination.
In 2023, the ccdMalvina hosted the exhibition CORPS PRIMAL/CORPS FUTUR, offering audiences a profound immersion into the connections between the human body, nature, and the future.
In 2024, Isabelle Van Grimde premiered TRANSES, a new stage work presented at Agora de la danse, while the ccdMalvina inaugurated the exhibition Essential Links: The Body and the Environment, accompanied by live performances, further enriching reflections on the relationship between living beings and their environment.