Compagnie Marie Chouinard is among Canada’s foremost dance companies, and it has always distinguished itself for the unmistakable style of the dancer who founded it, a style characterized by a considerable variety of forms. In this regard, the double bill of ‘GYMNOPÉDIES’ and ‘HENRI MICHAUX : MOUVEMENTS’, presented at Romaeuropa Festival this year, is exemplary. Since her debut as a dancer and choreographer in 1978, Chouinard has been considering dance as a sacred art. To her, the body is an artistic vehicle that must be respected. Her approach has been a virtuosic one and in each one of her choreographies she has created a different universe. In 1990, she founded her company by gathering a group of highly trained dancers that worked well together. The first choreography of the double bill presented at Romaeuropa Festival this year is poetic and playful; it is inspired by Erik Satie’s three famous piano compositions entitled ‘Gymnopédies‘. The dancers also play the piano, in a setting made of vaporous curtains. Chouinard calls it: «A ballet for eleven dancers around the theme of the duet», but ‘GYMNOPÉDIES’ becomes a hymn to transformation, beauty, presence and absence. And finally, to dance itself. The second piece of the double bill is inspired by Michaux, a Belgian writer, poet and drawer naturalized French who was influenced by Surrealism and led an adventurous, restless life. The starting point for the Quebecois choreographer was Michaux’s ‘Mouvements’, a book of sixty-four pages including India-ink drawings, and a fifteen-page poem. Both the drawings and the verses are sources of inspiration for the dancers, who transform themselves in moving graphs; the choreography brilliantly evokes a calligraphy that makes a huge impact on the viewer.
GYMNOPÉDIES
Choreography, Artistic direction, Costumes, Extra & props Marie Chouinard Music Erik Satie, Gymnopédies no 1, no 2, no 3
Dancers Sébastien Cossette-Masse, Paige Culley, Valeria Galluccio, Leon Kupferschmid, Lucy M. May, Mariusz Ostrowski, Sacha Ouellette-Deguire, Carol Prieur, James Viveiros, Megan Walbaum
Lightning Alain Lortie Set design Guillaume Lord, Marie Chouinard Costumes L Vandal
Musical consultant Louis Dufort Sound environment Jesse Leveillé
Created at Centro Cultural de Belem, Lisbona, Portogallo, June 14 2013
HENRI MICHAUX : MOUVEMENTS
Choreography, Artistic direction, Lightning, Set design, Costumes, Hairstyle Marie Chouinard Original music Louis Dufort
Poem, Post face and projected drawings Henri Michaux from the book “Mouvements” (1951) with the permission of the right-holders Henri Michaux and Editions Gallimard
Dancers Sébastien Cossette-Masse, Paige Culley, Valeria Galluccio, Leon Kupferschmid, Lucy M. May, Mariusz Ostrowski, Sacha Ouellette-Deguire, Carol Prieur, James Viveiros, Megan Walbaum
Sound environment Edward Freedman Translation Howard Scott
Created at Impulstanz, Vienna International Dance Festival, Vienna, Austria, August 2 2011
Rehearsal director TBC Tour manager Marie-Pier Chevrette Technical director, Lighting manager Robin Kittel-Ouimet Stage manager Noémie Avidar Sound engineer Joël Lavoie
Photo © Sylvie-Ann Paré
GYMONOPÉDIES – Produced by COMPAGNIE MARIE CHOUINARD Coproduced by Les Nuits de Fourvière (Lyon – France) Supported by Carolina Performing Arts (Chapel Hill – United States), ImPulsTanz (Vienna)
HENRI MICHAUX : MOUVEMENTS – Produced by COMPAGNIE MARIE CHOUINARD Supported by ImPulsTanz (Vienna)
The COMPAGNIE MARIE CHOUINARD wishes to thank the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des arts de Montréal
