\r\nIn the landscape of Belgian creation, Manu Di Martino \u2013 the founder of OKUS Lab \u2013 is seen as an oddball. Preferring the term \u2018creative\u2019 to that of artist, he has for over ten years been inventing research methodologies around movement. Recognisable by their hyper-aesthetic style and their saturated colours, his choreographies incorporate digital apparatuses (photos, videos and VR) deliberately stripped of any technological superfluity. Presentation\u2026\r\n<\/p>\n\n\n
There are some encounters that change a life. In 2000, the Li\u00e9geois Manu Di Martino embarked on his career as genetics and biochemistry researcher at the University of Li\u00e8ge when he discovered dance. \u2018At that specific moment, I became aware that art existed. It was a revolution, my mind wavered: I discovered hip-hop dance, ballet, video, contemporary art, etc.\u2019 he explains. An artistic world he would never abandon. \u2018Facing a mirror, the combination\u00a0 of movement and their symbiosis profoundly affected me. With my body, I understood that I could create a sequence of movements. This love of composition pushed me to devote myself solely to this adventure.\u2019 In 2004, he thus created OKUS Lab<\/a> \u2013 a contraction of \u2018OKUlar Synergie\u2019, tacitly revealing the philosophy guiding the project: \u2018I love creations which flatter the eye and are intriguing. They allow you to attain altered states of consciousness. With OKUS Lab I am trying to explore these possibilities through movement and hyper-aestheticism,\u2019 the dancer continues. Yet, at no moment does OKUS Lab ever position itself as a dance company. It is more worthwhile to consider it as a structure imagining methodologies which enable the designing of a multitude of creative experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n