≈ 1 hour · No intermission
It's always such an absolute honour for me to share with you a world of dance, shaped by some of the most gifted and innovative artists working across a broad spectrum of styles and influences. I am committed to bringing the best and brightest dance companies to Ottawa and I hope you will join me throughout the season on this extraordinary journey of life in motion!
Paul-André Fortier has continued to push the choreographic envelope throughout his long and influential career. Collaborating with visual artists, theatre makers, composers and other dance artists, he has both provoked and captivated audiences over a 40-year career. In Solo 70, his final piece, Fortier’s desire to ignite our emotions and imaginations remains as profound today as ever.
FUN FACTS!
Paul-André began his career with Le Groupe Nouvelle Aire in the 1970’s, dancing in the first works of Edouard Lock and Daniel Léveillé.
His site-specific piece Solo 30x30 was performed in over 15 cities around the world – rain or shine!
He is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Governor General’s Performing Arts Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award (2012).
Fortier is apparently an excellent gourmet cook!
Word from Paul-André Fortier, O.C., O.Q.
In creating this final solo, I pulled out all the stops and took great pleasure in surrounding myself with artists and collaborators whose work I deeply admire. It took us two years to build this show –two luminous years of research, work, dialogue, and exchange. As we crossed the finish line, we took stock of the richness of what we had brought one another. Our interconnections were magnificent, and the thread of those encounters runs through the work you are about to see.
I had an intense desire to include electric guitar; Jackie Gallant obliged me, and I am very grateful to her. As I am not an actor myself, I chose Étienne Pilon to say what I could not; his immense talent, his precision and his generosity astound me. And for the first time in my 40-year career, I created a show in tandem with another creator, playwright Étienne Lepage, who wrote the script and quickly became the co-author of the show. The risk and the experiment were well worth it. The presence of artist Marc Séguin as set designer reassured and inspired me throughout our creative venture. My long-time collaborators Jock Munro, Denis Lavoie, Ginelle Chagnon, Karyne Doucet‑Larouche and Jean‑François Gagnon proved to be once again ideal creative partners.
This work concludes an important chapter of my life. After 40 exciting years of creation and performance, my company, Fortier Danse-Création, will close its doors at the end of December 2018. Thank you to all my collaborators, and to the audiences who have shared my journey.
Solo 70
Here is a man who has danced, and who dances still. A man whose body has lived fully, and who carries on, pursuing a formal aesthetic. His aura is nearly mythological, and the depth of his experience reaches into his very soul.
Inviting the younger generation into his world – a writer, an actor, a punk guitarist, and others – he asks them to accompany and nourish him, yet also challenge him, pushing him into the unknown and beyond.
The world is changing, as is he: style, tastes, questions and concerns. In response, what is important is to converse, to move, to sing, to debate, to sweat, and of course, to dance. And dance again. Always and forever. As if for the very first time. As if for the very last time.
This encounter could suggest alarming conflicts, but also surprising points of contact. A clash of conventions and languages in search of a common goal.
Expect neither retrospective, nor exegesis: only an indestructible desire to ensure that creativity and its conventions change with the times, and that they leave nothing behind but the burning embers of the present.
Fortier Danse-Création
Last updated: October 17, 2018
Fortier Danse-Création was founded on 1981 and has the mandate to support the creation, production and dissemination of works by Paul-André Fortier. His talents as a creator, performer and teacher have made him one of the leading figures in Canadian and Quebec contemporary dance. His creative work is distinguished by its search for renewal and a desire to surpass himself and include solos, group pieces and site-specific works. Recognized on an international level, his works have been presented in 10 countries.
In 2010, he was appointed Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by France and, in 2012, received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award – Canada's foremost distinction for excellence in the performing arts – and an appointment to the Order of Canada. In 2018, he received the Ordre national du Québec.
Paul-André Fortier
In a career spanning more than 40 years, Paul‑André Fortier has made an immense contribution to contemporary dance in Canada as a pioneering creator, performer and teacher. He has created some 50 choreographies, including solos, group pieces and site-specific works. A performer with a striking presence, this self-described “man who dances” challenges himself by imposing spatial, time and technique constraints that push his own limits and those of his art. Inspired by the crossover of various artistic disciplines, he has collaborated with other leading artists, including Françoise Sullivan, Betty Goodwin, Rober Racine, Alain Thibault, Robert Morin and Malcolm Goldstein.
Paul‑André Fortier began his performance career in the 1970s as a member of Le Groupe Nouvelle Aire, dancing in some of the first works of his peers (Edouard Lock, Daniel Léveillé). In 2010, he was appointed Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. In 2012, he received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award and was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada. In 2018, he received the Ordre national du Québec. At the age of 70, Paul‑André Fortier is still performing, offering audiences a unique take on dance polished by maturity.
Étienne Lepage
A passionate activist, a partisan of movements and ideas, Étienne Lepage made a splash as a playwright shortly after graduating from the National Theatre School of Canada with Rouge gueule. Premiered in 2009, the play drew attention for its ferocious tone and ruthlessly precise language. L’enclos de l’éléphant (Festival TransAmériques 2011) was the recipient of the AQCT award for best original script. In 2012, the Centre du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui presented Robin et Marion, a cruel questioning of love. Ainsi parlait… (FTA 2013), a radical, provocative play that marked the first collaboration between Étienne Lepage and Frédérick Gravel, went on to tour in Canada, France and the Netherlands.
A screenwriter and translator, Étienne has also successfully ventured into theatre for young audiences, notably with Histoires pour faire des cauchemars, premiered in Brussels and presented at the Coups de théâtre festival in 2012. More recently, at the Maison Théâtre, he reimagined the fairy tale The Snow Queen as a puppet show entitled Le cœur en hiver.
Étienne Pilon
From the outset, Étienne Pilon has worked with such leading directors as Alice Ronfard, Claude Poissant, René‑Richard Cyr, Yves Desgagnés, Louise Laprade, Michel Nadeau, Jean Leclerc, Geneviève Blais, Maxime Denommée, Philippe Ducros and Olivier Kemeid. Performing in both classics of the repertoire and new works by Quebec playwrights, he carved out his place in the Quebec theatre community and appeared in numerous productions in Montreal and Quebec City. In 2015, he was part of the cast of Richard III, directed by Brigitte Haentjens for the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde.
Étienne made his screen debut in the TV series Nos étés, directed by Francis Leclerc. In La Promesse, he played Charles in the show's last three seasons, and joined the cast of Destinées (as Simon) for its last two seasons. In film, he was featured in recent projects by groundbreaking director Olivier Godin; Nouvelle Nouvelle was ranked one of the top 30 films of the year 2014, in all countries, by Panorama Cinéma magazine; and Boutique de Forge was named best Canadian short film at the Festival du nouveau cinema in 2012.
Jackie Gallant
Jackie Gallant is a musician, performer and videographer for dance, video, theatre and film. She began her musical career as a drummer for several Montreal rock groups. Since then, she has toured internationally with performers as diverse as La La La Human Steps and Lesbians on Ecstasy. As a solo artist, she performs sample-based improvised sound pieces featuring electronic drums and other instruments. Most recently, she has worked with choreographers George Stamos and Julienne Doko, dancers Sarah Williams and Karen Fennell, and actor/director Marie Brassard, among others.
Jock Munro
Jock Munro has enjoyed a long and varied career lighting all genres of the performing arts. Lighting designs in theatre, dance and opera include: the NAC (over 60 productions), the Stratford Festival (15 seasons), the Shaw Festival, the Canadian Opera Company and most regional theatres in Canada.
Mr. Munro’s dance lighting career began with Jean‑Pierre Perrault at Le Groupe de la Place Royale. As Resident Lighting Designer for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal: eleven premieres from 1996 to 2001. With Édouard Lock: Étude (GBC), Éxaucé/Salt, Amélia, Amjad (La La La Human Steps), Touch to Include (Nederlands Dance Theatre), André Auria (Opéra de Paris). With Guillaume Coté and the National Ballet of Canada: Dark Angels. With Jean Grand‑Maître and Alberta Ballet: Caelestis. With Emily Molnar and Ballet BC, Keep Driving, I’m Dreaming.
Jock Munro wishes to thank Paul-André Fortier for so many wonderful collaborative opportunities over the years. With Paul-André Fortier at Fortier Danse-Création: Tension, Risque, Lumière, Cabane, Vertige, Misfit Blues, Solo 1X60 (Yamaguchi, Japan), and Spirale (Ballet de Lorraine, Nancy).
Marc Séguin
Marc Séguin was born in Ottawa on March 20, 1970. He obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Concordia University and currently divides his time between Montreal and New York. His works can be found in the collections of renowned museums and galleries around the world, including the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal and the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec. His prints and paintings can be found in numerous Canadian corporate collections and those of major private Canadian and American collectors. Marc has held more than 20 solo shows and participated in group exhibitions and art fairs around the world, including in Madrid, Barcelona, Venice, Berlin, Cologne, New York, Miami, Chicago, Brussels and Namur. The bulk of his artistic production consists of large-format works of astonishing proportions, where the abstract and the figurative coexist within the same frame. He offers a social and human critique on the recurrent themes of destruction, life and death. His works are often controversial, both for their subject matter and for the media he uses (pigments made with human ashes, for instance, or stuffed animals), and leave no one indifferent. Marc is a talented printmaker as well as a prolific painter, and his prints constitute a large proportion of his artistic output.
He is also a writer: his debut novel, La foi du Braconnier (2009), won the 2011 Prix des Collégiens, and his two subsequent novels, Hollywood (2012) and Nord Alice (2015), garnered rave reviews from literary critics. Like his paintings, Marc Séguin’s novels invite us to reflect on life, death, love and destruction.