Manon Parent was born in France and grew up in Paris. At the age of 3 she starts playing violin and dancing. At the age of 13 she enters the Superior Paris Conservatory (CNSMDP) in contemporary dance. After 5 years, she graduates with technical, anatomy and dance history degrees. Soon after that she gets a superior degree in classical violin, and starts playing non-classical music. She leaves Paris for Geneva where she lives for a year and performs with the Ballet Junior of Geneva and other artists.
After six months she spends traveling, she moves to New York on a Fulbright Scholarship. In parallel with an internship with the Cedarlake Dance Company, she studies Body Mind Centering, which brings her attention on physical and mental health. This is when and why she starts teaching violin and movement.
In New York she forms with the visual artist and noise musician Sto Len a performance duet called Saturn Dogs. After touring in the US with this project, Manon comes back to Europe, and moves to Berlin.
The potential of the dialogue between art forms is for her a priority and a primordial source of interest.
In 2012, she creates with Margot Dorléans and Sto Len the pluri-disciplinary performance collective Embody which federates artists of different mediums and nationalities. The collective performed in Paris (Société des curiosités), Geneva (Kugler), New York (Silent Barn). They also performed in Paris for La Nuit Blanche (Les Bernardins) and Reims (Le Césaré) with the collective Links.
In 2014 she directs in Zamek, Poznan a research laboratory focused on relation of the sound and physical movement, exchange between Berlin and Poznań. (osmotic.tk)
In 2016, with Su-Mi Jang and Miriam Siebenstädt, Manon creates Red Monky, a queer feminist improvisation band using both movement and sound mediums, which had shows in Berlin, Geneva, Zurich and Athens.
Since 2018, she has a duet band with Miriam Siebenstäadt (Jean P’ark) called Machines for calm living.
Manon has been creating her own choreographic work since 2009 and since january 2014 also works as a composer, for dance pieces, television (DR, Dk) and cinema.
Manon is currently based in Berlin.
Amongst her current collaborators, all fields combined: Ioannis Mandafounis, Kareth Schaffer, Jean P’ark, Sergiu Matis, Roni Katz, BAG Collective, Margot Dorléans, Jefta Van Dinther, Stephanie Thiersch (Mouvoir).
In 2015 Manon graduated professionally from the Wat Po Traditional Thai Massage School in Bangkok, Thailand and practices since then as thai massage therapist.
Interview from Beatrix Joyce for Tanzschreiber (2019) here