Performance Lighthouse

Platform for the promotion of performance art projects driven by EPFL students

DÆNCITY, Festival Magma, SĂ©velin 36, Lausanne, June 2025. Photo : Mehdi Bouguerra Ezzina

The mission of EPFL’s Performance Lighthouse, launched in Spring 2024, is to lead the conceptualization, organization, coordination, production, and promotion of performance art projects driven by students of EPFL, in collaboration with external art institutions.

Through this initiative, this platform aims to build a network that facilitates cross-fertilization between the artistic endeavors of EPFL students and alumi, local art institutions and relevant activities conducted at DHI labs and other EPFL labs.

 

Student Performance Art Projects

DÆNCITY

Artistic residency, performances, exhibitions and academic research, for EPFL students, in collaboration with SĂ©velin 36

Improgineering

Movement workshops on the campus for EPFL students and staff. 

Movement improv’ for everyone on the campus !

The “Collective creation: improvised arts and engineering” course (IMPROGINEERING) is part of the Social and Human Sciences (SHS) programme at EPFL, in collaboration with the Arsenic.

Past Events

Calls

Videos and podcasts

Publications

Education

Research in learning sciences demonstrates that engagement in performing arts practices enhances students’ learning processes, bridging the gap between theory and practice and promoting boundary crossing from academic to extracurricular realms. This integration is rooted in the involvement of the body in knowledge acquisition and production, the collective essence of creativity and the potent role of improvisation in all living actions.

  • The course IMPROGINEERING: “Collective creation: improvised arts and engineering”, integrated into EPFL’s Human and Social Sciences (SHS) program, was developed by Prof. Simon Henein, in collaboration with performance artist JoĂ«lle Valterio and the Arsenic (Lausanne’s Center for Contemporary Scenic Art). Since 2017, this course has been introducing students to improvisation techniques developed in the living arts (theater, music, dance, performance) and examining their possible transposition to engineering design practices.

Outreach

Academically recognizing and supporting the artistic endeavors of EPFL students enables the valorization of these initiatives within the curricula such as through the allocation of ECTS credits to semester or master’s projects. Moreover, extending the reach of these initiatives beyond academia by creating public events in partnership with external artistic institutions enhances the exchanges with the city and broader community.

Research

Academically recognizing and supporting the artistic endeavors of EPFL students enables the valorization of these initiatives within the curricula such as through the allocation of ECTS credits to semester or master’s projects. Moreover, extending the reach of these initiatives beyond academia by creating public events in partnership with external artistic institutions enhances the exchanges with the city and broader community.

Team:

  • Simon Henein
    EPFL Professor in Microengineering & Head of the Performance Lighthouse

Partners