Team — ociproduction

TEAM

FOUNDER & DIRECTOR

Mélanie Fréguin

Mélanie Fréguin has received university diplomas in the fields of history and art, informational sciences and communication, international law as well as in social work. In 2004 she began her career as an artistic assistant, charged with the communication for the Monaco Dance Forum – a biannual dance and multimedia festival in Monte Carlo (Mc), editions 2004 and 2006.

In 2007 she was invited to join the team of Dança em foco festival in Rio de Janeiro (Br), where she worked with international artists programmed by the festival. She decided to continue the adventure by joining the Panorama Festival crew, also in Rio de Janeiro (Br). Working in exterior relations for the festival, she coordinated hospitality for the artists and international programmers, co-developed the “videoteca panorama,” a social project for nationwide choreographic education, and co-hosted the broadcasting platform “south-south.info”, a news website on contemporary dance in Latin America.

In 2010 she encountered Gilles Jobin, a choreographer based in Geneva, who invited her to return the scene in Europe. She then took on his company’s productions of “side projects” before meeting Ioannis Mandafounis the next year. A close collaboration soon followed: charged with the management and development of Cie Ioannis Mandafounis, she became the choreographer’s associate, giving amplitude to his creative work and greater scope in the diffusion of his projects, and finally anchoring the company locally, with a high reputation nationally and internationally.

Parallel to her work with Ioannis Mandafounis, she also worked for l’Ecole de Danse de Genève | Ballet Junior de Genève (july 2011 - june 2016), when she was appointed head of administration and communication, as well as the coordination of associations. In addition, she was charged with projects for the Rencontres Professionnelles de danses – Geneva from September 2011 until September 2014. Professionally active in Geneva’s independent dance scene, she has initiated and co-signed the study concerning the conditions of creation, production, functioning, and subsidizing, of contemporary dance companies in Geneva.

Since 2016, Mélanie has been running the Overseas Culture Interchange association and initiating collaborative social-artistic projects in Switzerland and abroad with marginalized and invisibilized populations. She has worked with street children (Brazil), orphans (Madagascar), incarcerated people (Madagascar), people with disabilities, or stigmatized people (Switzerland). Several projects were carried out with the sole aim of breaking down the barriers of isolation and encouraging dialogue.

ARTISTIC COLLABORATOR

Nina Vallon

Born in Geneva, Nina Vallon is a Swiss-Brazilian choreographer and dancer. She joined the Geneva Junior Ballet in 2001 and continued her training within the European D.A.N.C.E program, directed by William Forsythe, Wayne McGregor, Angelin Preljocaj and Frédéric Flamand.

She has then danced with various choreographers, including Prue Lang, Vanessa Le Mat, Ioannis Mandafounis and Aoife McAtamney, and she joined The Forsythe Company in 2008. She began choreographing at an early stage in her career, creating pieces both for the stage and for museum spaces, with a cross-disciplinary approach to choreography. Based in Frankfurt between 2007 and 2014, Vallon set up her first company, Envy&P., and, alongside her artistic activity, she worked on setting up infrastructures for the development of the choreographic field.

Until the end of 2013, she was co-director of these various projects before moving to France, where she obtained a Master’s degree in Visual Studies and worked as a curator in contemporary art before joining the K622 – Mié Coquempot company as a performer in 2016. In addition to her artistic activity, Vallon has been working for several years with structures such as the Centre National de la Danse, where she teaches ballet and various composition and improvisation techniques.

Today, Vallon continues to explore her creative activity, focusing on collaborations with other artists and the cross-fertilization of disciplines, with music playing a central role in her approach. She also pays particular attention to the role of women in the dance world.
She has created SCORE#1, based on Pierre Boulez’s twelve Notations, a meticulous work of writing that makes the musical score visible and transposes it to the stage through movement. Next came EGG CHARADE, followed by THE WORLD WAS ON FIRE, two more figurative pieces, rooted in a very distinct aesthetic universe. In 2021, she reprised ON THE FIRST COUNTERPOINT, her first solo piece, created in 2007 in collaboration with composer Thierry de Mey, based on the first counterpoint of Bach’s Art of the Fugue. LE LAPIN ET LA REINE, a piece for young spectators meant for both deaf and non-deaf children, premiered in March 2022.

She is currently working on Quand je passe, an immersive performative installation, created together with researcher Mélanie Fréguin and video designer Mireille Huguet. Shows will take place at Théâtre du Galpon in November.
Her next creation, a large-scale piece for eight dancers and a string quartet, features a dialogue between Beethoven’s Quartet No. 14, Op. 131 and an original creation by young composer Maxime Mantovani. The work will premiere on May 10th 2025 in La Cité Bleue Genève.

ninavallon.com