Jean-Marc Puissant
Jean-Marc Puissant is a stage and costume designer as well as a curator for performing arts and exhibitions. Working across genres, his practice is rooted in the cultural and practical identity of art forms. He collaborates with performers, supports their craft and connects with a varied, multicultural contemporary audience. Storytelling, whether narrative or abstract, is central to his practice.
He also collaborates with renowned directors, choreographers, curators and brands and has designed for major opera houses, theaters and museums worldwide, including the Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Sadler's Wells, Scottish Opera & Ballet, Paris Opera, Théâtre du Châtelet, Venice Biennale, New National Theatre Tokyo and the Australian Ballet.
Recent commissions include sets and costumes for ballet productions such as Oscar (Christopher Wheeldon), Tchaikovsky Overtures (Alexei Ratmansky), Ballet Impérial (George Balanchine), La Boutique (Gemma Bond) and Soirée Ravel (Bridget Breiner / Richard Siegal). Future commissions comprise Paquita (Manuel Legris), Petrushka / Pulcinella (Richard Siegal) and the revival of Madame Butterfly at the Santa Fe Opera.
His work has received Laurence Olivier Awards, South Bank Show Awards, and Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards. He was a finalist at World Stage Design 2013 and nominated for Best Scenographer at the 2016 Benois de la Danse for the diversity of his work across several productions. In 2019, he curated a dance evening acclaimed by the New York Times at Joyce Theater Festival. He was awarded a 2018 Resident Fellowship at New York University’s Center for Ballet and the Arts, where he researched the multi-disciplinary project Kingdom of Shades – Dance Beyond Choreographic Identity.
Jean-Marc Puissant is a trustee of Dancers’ Career Development, a former trustee of Dance Umbrella – London’s international contemporary dance festival –, a judge for the Linbury Prize for Stage Design and a guest tutor at London’s Central School of Speech and Drama. He trained at the Motley Theatre Design Course and studied Art History at La Sorbonne in Paris.
He began his career as a professional dancer with Stuttgart Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet and graduated from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and the School of Paris Opera Ballet.