Catherine Gaudet
Catherine Gaudet holds a B.A. and M.A. in contemporary dance from UQAM, and has established herself as a choreographer with a strong, singular signature. Reaching beneath the mask of social convention, she tracks down the jolts of the unconscious and the micromovements in the body that betray the emotions and sensatons we try to hide. Obsessed by the quest for existential truth, she delves into the meanders of the psyche, seeking beauty in contradiction. Her state dance emerges from forces that oppose, constrain and control her flayed-looking characters. Her raw, precise physicality is mingled with a theatricality that subtly combines dramatic tension, a sense of the absurd and black humor.
She choreographed her first work in 2004, and made a name for herself the following two years with Grosse fatigue (2005), which won a prize at the Arhus International Choreography Competition (Denmark), and L'arnaque (2006). In 2009, she turned her atenttion to the effects of lack in her first full-length work, L'invasion du vide. Following creative residencies in Brussels (2010) and Berlin (2011), in 2012 she created Je suis un autre, in which she scratches away at the veneer of social facade to reveal the ambiguity of beings grappling with their contradictions. She pursued this intention in 2014 with Au sein des plus raides vertus, this time focusing on the notion of morality.
In 2016, in addition to a residency at the Centre chorégraphique national de Tours (France), she co-wrote La très excellente et lamentable tragédie de Roméo et Juliette with Jérémie Niel, a piece that transposes the Shakespearean legend into a huis-clos as sensual as it is melancholy. With Tout ce qui va revient (2018), she brings together on the same stage three solos from her repertoire, created in 2014 and 2015. It thus closes a cycle. In autonomous 2018, she presents her latest opus, L'affadissement du merveilleux, in Montreal. In 2021, she signs the solo Se dissoudre, which deals with the perception of time as an illusory phenomenon, and presents, at the FTA 2022, Les jolies choses, her latest creation for five dancers.
Alongside her creative activities, she was a founding member of the Lorganisme company from 2010 to 2019; co-director of the Centre de création O' Vertigo alongside Ginete Laurin, Mélanie Demers and Caroline Laurin-Beaucage; guest professor at UQAM's Département de danse in 2018-2019; and lecturer at the same institution from 2019 to 2021. Catherine is currently artistic director and general manager of Compagnie Catherine Gaudet, a member of Circuit-Est centre chorégraphique, associate creator at DLD - Daniel Léveillé Danse and associate artist at Agora de la danse.