Born in Brittany, at the confines of sea and land, Luc would use the constant transformation of Nature as the basis for his pastimes and his sense of observation.

Fascinated by movement, he attended intense Karate classes and progressed as far as the black belt level, winning the title of ‘Junior Champion’ of Brittany.

During his first visit to Paris when he was 18, he discovered a different form of movement – the art of dance. It was love at first sight!

In 1979, Luc Petton obtained a grant from the Conservatoire National des Arts du Cirque et du Mime. He became ever more involved in dance; his encounter with Moses Pendelton, Director of Pilobolus, acted as a springboard for his future career by encouraging him to travel to New York to work with Alwin Nikolaïs.
No sooner had he arrived at Nikolaïs’ Dance Theater Lab in 1980, than he was granted a work scholarship. Here he also attended lessons by Hanya Holm and Murray Louis. He made friends with Steve Paxton and discovered the “contact-improvisation” style so similar to the martial arts, for which he showed a natural aptitude.

In 1981, he returned to Europe and met Suzanne Linke who hired him at the Folkwang Tanz Studio in Essen (Germany) where he remained for 3 years. He created solo roles for her and Mitsuru Sasaki, Butô choreograph, for presentations in several European countries.
With a grant from the Ministry of Culture in 1984, he returned to New York where he had the opportunity to perfect his work alongside Ruth Currier, the early dance partner of José Limon, while opening his horizons at the School for Movement Research with a new approach to body movement. He moved in the same circles as Trisha Brown.

In 1985, he started experimenting with his own personal choreographies and returned to France where he founded the ‘Compagnie Icosaèdre’ with Marilén Iglesias-Breuker winner of the dance competition ‘Prix l’Eté de la Danse 85’, and accepted in residence for three years at the Maison de la Culture [Culture Centre] in Reims.

In 1994, he created Le Guetteur Luc Petton & Cie which was a first step along the remarkable road to the world of French choreography.

As early as 1996, he is distinguished himself thanks to the very first creations by his company (IF, OSCAR) which opened at several cultural events such as the ‘îles de Danse’, the ‘Biennale du Val de Marne’, the ‘Festival de Marseille’, the ‘Biennale de la Danse de Lyon’... His creations were performed over 160 times.

In 1999, a particular commission from the ‘Biennale de la Danse du Val de Marne’ gave him the opportunity to revive his first love for the martial arts, with the creation of “Polemos - du duel au duo”. With this play, using two dancers and 3 champions from the world of karate, he began his research into the idea of ‘laisser-être’ [let be] which he continued to develop a
nd around which he based his subsequent project using birds.

Endowed with a delicate, flowing style, his dancing is full of lightness and elegance. His penchant for aerial movements of the body was especially visible in his creations between 2000 and 2002 and led him to show an interest in the mechanics of flight (Sur le fil de minuit, created for the junior section of the national conservatory of arts, the ‘Ballet Junior du CNSM de Paris’) but also anything to do with the magic of the weightless body (Sans abord réel).

Fascinated by birds since he was a child and an avid ornithologist, in 2004 he launched the fabulous creative adventure associating dancers and live birds on stage. Two projects were born under the generic name La confidence des oiseaux: the first was an open-air performance, created in 2005 for ‘Art Danse Bourgogne’ in Dijon and for ‘les Envies-Rhônements’ festival. The second was destined for the theatre, with a preview performance in 2006 at the Faïencerie in Creil.

In 2008, at the ‘Hivernales d’Avignon’ festival, he presented for the first time a new version called Migration d’été using two new birds; it was an enormous success with performances at the ‘Festival d’Avignon’ that same year, then at the ‘Théâtre National de Chaillot’. To date the play has been performed over 140 times.

The adventure continues with the creation of SWAN, a play for swans and dancers.

Luc Petton was selected by ADAMI – an association defending the rights of arts professionals – to act as choreographer for the Talents Danse 2012 project. This creation, under the patronage of Erik Orsenna, a friends of Luc Petton since they met on the TV set of des mots de minuits on France 2, is part of an overall project to associate modern artistic creation, Culture and Nature and scientific and philosophic research, while announcing a deliberate choice to remain accessible to as wide an audience as possible.

Thanks to the diversity of his remarkable career, Luc Petton has met a number of emblematic figures in the world of art and choreography, both in Europe and in the States, an artistic career that he uses to enhance his creations, but also in the way he openly expresses his creativity and a reactive ability to listen.

Since 1997, he has taken his ‘Compagnie’ into the hospitals to give performances in the framework of the national cultural project known as Culture à l’Hôpital, notably to audiences of handicapped children and the elderly in Laon, Château-Thierry and Soissons.

Throughout his career, he has maintained links overseas, presenting his works in Germany, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Japan, Jordan and Slovakia. This international connection resonates in his Cygnus project on the subject of migrations, where he has chosen as ambassadors the birds that connect Northern and Southern Europe.

But the company does not limit its performances to theatres, choosing many other locations such as: abbeys, chapels, museums, castle grounds, gardens, the undergrowth and ponds.