The author of some thirty choreographies, Isabelle Van Grimde signed her first creation in Montreal in 1987, beginning 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 Van Grimde Corps Secrets company. Four years later, she focused her research on the power of physicality and communication through the body with À l’échelle humaine. She then took advantage of creation residencies in Europe which propelled her onto the international scene.
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 career: from then on, she no longer conceived of choreographic art without the presence of live musicians on stage. In 2003, in Saetta, her physical approach became more visceral and sensitive. Both refined and animal, her gestures are firmly anchored in the elementary impulses and tensions of the body.
She made another major shift in 2005, with the series Les chemins de traverse, by choosing the principle of the open work to present her creations. In 2007, she broadened the scope of her multidisciplinary collaborations by working with creators in architecture, visual arts, theater and music in Perspectives Montréal. In 2012, she renewed and expanded the experience with the series of works entitled Le corps en question(s), which were presented as creation-exhibitions in galleries, as a book, and as an interactive digital platform (exhibited in the laboratory of the 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 the spring of 2016.
The deepening of the dialogue between dance and music led her to collaborate between 2007 and 2013 with musicians and scientists from the Centre interdisciplinaire de recherche en musique, médias et technologies (CIRMMT). With them, she created the choreography-concert Duo pour un violoncelle et un danseur and Les gestes, participating in the development of digital musical instruments with anatomical forms that react to the movements and manipulations of the dancers.
In 2014, she continued her technological explorations by transposing the fabulous possibilities of interaction between gesture and sound to visual images. Working closely with virtual and interaction design artist Jérôme Delapierre, she immersed her dancers in the visual, virtual and interactive universe of Symphonie 5.1, presented in January 2016. That year, the two partners filmed the first episode of the interactive web series Eve 2050.