Reflections on “Rhizomes”: Thierry Thieû Niang in Conversation with Roxane Revon

Rhizomes is an innovative project conceived by dancer-choreographer Thierry Thieû Niang and visual artist Roxane Revon that blends dance and visual arts to guide children aged 3 to 5 on a sensory, visual, and bodily exploration of the plant world.

Following their inaugural workshop series in September, Thierry Thieû Niang and Roxane Revon are back in New York for a second two-week series at Language and Laughter Studio, taking place from March 31 to April 11, 2025.  Additionally, they are conducting a two-week session at L’Alliance New York’s Manhattan Preschool from April 7 to April 18.

Tell me about your first encounter. What sparked your desire to collaborate? 

Thierry: Last year, I led a workshop open to all generations as part of artist Camille de Galbert’s Growing Matter exhibition at Invisible Dog (Brooklyn, New York). Participants were invited to explore connections between dance and visual arts, and Roxane was one of them. 

Roxane: That workshop was incredibly invigorating for me. At that time, I was in residence at Governors Island with Residency Unlimited, working on a solo exhibition at House 404. I invited Thierry to see it, and that’s when the idea emerged to co-create an evolving work where a visual installation would develop alongside movement work. 

Thierry: What drew me to Roxane’s work was her reflection on time; how to take time? The time of growth, transformation, and decomposition. I had been wanting to explore this concept of time in relation to movement and bodily transformation for a while. Pascale Setbon, founder of the Language & Laughter Studio preschool, had heard about my work with the elderly and wanted to do something similar with young children. So, she invited us to work in her school. 

Roxane: I think it’s important to note that this project emerged after the COVID crisis. Pascale observed how the pandemic had affected children’s bodies, often sedentary and screen exposed. This is why she wanted a project that would reconnect children with their bodies. 

How did you manage to build bridges between your respective practices—dance and directing for Thierry, and visual arts for Roxane? 

Roxane: In the past, I directed theater. It’s a discipline I still teach. When I participated in Thierry’s workshop, I was already familiar with the language of the performing arts. 

Thierry: Over time, interdisciplinarity has become an essential practice in contemporary dance. Collaborating with artists from all backgrounds has significantly enriched my own practice. New York is an ideal playground for this type of interdisciplinary approach. 

Roxane: When I discovered Thierry’s work, I immediately realized that we shared a common experience of working with marginalized communities, such as prisoners. I teach at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, where some of my students, marked by difficult life experiences, discovered the performing arts while incarcerated. For this project, however, we are exploring a new world: that of very young children. 

Thierry: The children we work with are in the midst of exploration: they are learning to differentiate parts of their bodies and to orient themselves in space and time. The pandemic has profoundly changed children’s relationship with their bodies, learning, and adults. We are rediscovering how to interact with this childhood that has become protected, overprotected, even sanctified. This involves questioning our perceptions of authority and shared knowledge, as well as educational practices specific to our culture and others. What is education like in the United States? How does one raise their own child and the children of others? 

How do the children contribute to the project? Do they participate in creating the installation or mainly in the choreographic aspect? 

Thierry: They do it all! 

Roxane: They truly create everything, although each creation has a different timeline. There are instant creations, like cyanotypes, which are photos made with photosensitive materials… 

Thierry: …and there are creations that take time. 

Roxane: Today, for example, we listened to the sound of plants using a device that converts the electrical pulse of leaves into musical notes. 

Thierry: You can choose a techno sound or something more ambient; the children were fascinated. One of them ended up tearing off a leaf; when it was reconnected, the silence was striking. The children spontaneously wrapped the damaged leaf in a cloth, as if to heal it. Such experiences show children that immobility is not necessarily synonymous with death. Rhizomes explores our relationship with nature, the living world, and climate issues, while also raising questions about time, care, and patience. 

Roxane: I am very inspired by Philippe Descola, a French anthropologist and philosopher who approaches the concept of nature as a social construct, separating us from the plant and animal worlds. In our work with Thierry, we aspire to abolish this barrier. Naming plants, for example, is a first step. 

Upon your return in the spring, the organic installation will have “grown,” just like the children. What major transformations do you expect? 

Thierry: I think that our presence and way of being with them “plant” ideas that will take root within them. In just one week, we have already observed changes. The children have integrated the idea that when the music stops, they can freeze their movement like “statues.” They have also understood that they can dance lying down, sitting, upside down, against trees… They are devoid of any preconceived notion of dance, which gives them great freedom of expression. 

Roxane: It’s similar in visual arts. They are increasingly using words like ‘roots’ and ‘mushrooms.’ It’s a language that is both bodily and verbal, which is gradually emerging. 

Thierry: Even in our absence, these transformations will continue. The children’s evolving artworks, created with Roxane’s help, will be displayed in the classroom. 

Roxane: Not to mention the plants they must take care of. 

Thierry: We will send them pictures during our absence, so they know we are continuing to work. Upon our return, the idea is to create a space where everything that has been built, everything that is germinating or evolving, is presented to the public. Adults will be immersed in this universe, made up of children’s drawings, stones, and foliage. At times, a group of children, like elves, will emerge, dancing and improvising before disappearing. 

Roxane: For a weekend, the classroom will be transformed into an enchanted jungle. 

How do you envision the evolution of Rhizomes after this initial residency in Brooklyn? Do you plan to adapt and present it in other contexts? Do you plan to document this adventure?  

Thierry: Reproducing this experience would mean having venues where we can gather sustainably, as this process takes time. I live in France, while Roxane is in New York. Regarding the presentation of our project, I am inspired by the work of the Swiss choreographer, Nicole Seiler. In her latest creation, she brings the audience and performers together to build the scenography for the duration of the performance. Unlike other participatory projects where we simply act together, here, something is created that will continue to exist. For Rhizomes, we’d like something lasting beyond the concluding performance of our residency. 

Roxane: Practically speaking, it is entirely possible to replicate this project, provided there is a structure capable of accommodating this work, including the preparation of myceliums and the creation of cyanotypes. As for the scope of Rhizomes, I am confident that this process could benefit a wide range of audiences.  

Thierry: Imagine a partnership between a group of young dancers and landscaping students at an agricultural high school. These groups with very different realities could create something magnificent, both artistically and humanly. This type of project could extend the reach of arts programs, often reserved for general education tracks.  

Roxane: Visual arts students could also participate in this project and, for example, learn mycelium techniques from landscaping students. 

Thierry: Regarding the documentation of the project, I’d like to explore something other than the documentary film format I’ve used extensively. I’d love for an illustrator to observe our work and create a children’s book that captures our interactions with them.  

Thierry, you have worked with a wide range of audiences, from professional dancers to people whose freedom of movement is restricted, such as the elderly or prisoners. How do these interactions influence your approach with children, who have a great deal of physical and mental freedom to explore? 

Thierry: It is true that children benefit from greater physical, mental, and intuitive freedom. A natural state, sensitive, open to the senses, almost wild: in other words, free. Children aged 3 to 6 navigate between a bodily spontaneity and a thought process that is beginning to structure itself around language and social codes that they discover and acquire. They will have to learn to work with them! 

From preschool onwards, there is increased pressure in terms of learning. In the school where we intervene, they begin teaching French at the age of three to provide them with as many tools as possible for future admission to a good French high school. Some children are already juggling with three languages! This pressure, combined with a remarkable contract for success and performance, excludes from an early age those whose learning rhythm is slower, longer, and more unique. Every educational framework must be mobile, mixed, and hybrid to allow everyone to learn, speak, and dance together in a community. 

We must push the boundaries to meet the world, turning public spaces into privileged sites for transmission, research, and creation. It’s about connecting public spaces and places of art by renewing the forms, both inside and outside. 

Marketplaces, schoolyards, middle schools and high schools, conservatories, theaters, museums, community halls, hospitals, prisons, nursing homes, town halls, courts, swimming pools, media libraries, barns and farms, gardens and forests, fields and beaches… 

I have always carried a dance in the present, prioritizing the functions of art — sensitive, cathartic, therapeutic — and embraced all possible emotions to reimagine a way of being together. 

Roxane, your work with biomaterials, like mycelium, is fascinating. Can you tell us about your creative process and the evolving nature of your works? 

Roxane: All the exhibitions I’ve created included an evolving dimension, with at least one artwork transforming over time. It’s only been four years since I truly committed to the field of visual art. My work on root fibers started as a simple experiment that proved successful, and I discovered mycelium through a collaboration with an architect friend. I then experimented with molds and ink transfer, it’s a really fascinating living material. I also enjoy working with botanists and scientists to better understand the plant world, particularly during residencies at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 2022, at the Urban Field Station, and in New York City parks in 2024. 

Recently, I collaborated with American choreographer Jessica Lang for her production Shades of Spring at the Joyce Theater, where I created a set design inviting reflection on our relationship with time and living things during the spring season. 

In my project with Thierry, what I particularly love is seeing how children interact with my creations. It allows me to rediscover work I do daily through their amazed eyes, and sometimes even test new techniques. The process is also characterized by a strong collaborative dimension that I have always loved and sought; exploring with Thierry and discovering his work and energy every day is a true pleasure. 

While awaiting the potential release of a children’s book, this interdisciplinary project opens new perspectives for arts education and raising awareness about environmental issues. Rhizomes is a rich human experience, testifying to the power of the collective and the ability of children to create works of great sensitivity.