When Science Takes the Floor: Thermodanse Wins the 2025 CGE Prize for Pedagogical Innovation
Thermodanse, a “Art & Science” Project at CentraleSupélec, wins the 2025 CGE Pedagogical Innovation Prize
CentraleSupélec once again stands out for its commitment to innovative and socially engaged pedagogy. The Thermodanse project, carried out on the Paris-Saclay campus, has been awarded the 2025 Pedagogical Innovation Prize by the Conférence des Grandes Écoles (CGE), presented on December 10, 2025.
Led by Morgan Chabanon, Associate Professor (EM2C) and recently appointed Science & Society Coordinator at CentraleSupélec, in collaboration with choreographers Cosetta Graffione and Namiko Gahier-Ogawa, Thermodanse offers a creative and innovative approach: understanding, modeling, and expressing physics through the body and movement.
Understanding Science Differently, Through the Body and Movement
Thermodanse explores an alternative mode of scientific representation, using dance to give form to advanced scientific concepts: quantum entanglement, targeting of tumor cells by immunotherapy, machine learning algorithms, central limit theorem, Curie temperature in ferromagnetic materials…
By putting participants in motion, the project relies on the principles of embodied cognition, which show that learning is reinforced when the body is engaged.
This approach allows us to:
• to develop modeling approaches based on movement and interaction,
• to train scientific intuition,
• to make science more accessible, inclusive and engaging, by moving beyond purely mathematical formalism,
• and to offer immersive science outreach activities for a wide audience.
Since 2022, Thermodanse has given rise to several courses, workshops and performances involving students, staff and participants from all backgrounds. Each event concludes with an open performance, inviting the public to experience, manipulate and embody scientific concepts through dance.
Thermodanse goes far beyond pedagogical innovation: the project questions how science is constructed and shared. It opens a space where the body and movement become tools for exploring, understanding, and transmitting knowledge. By placing collective experience at the heart of learning, Thermodanse reminds us that knowledge never arises in isolation: it is born from social, cultural, and human interactions. This approach fully embodies CentraleSupélec's ambition to bridge the gap between science and society, and demonstrates that innovative pedagogy can be both demanding and creative, and that science is experienced as much as it is understood.
