≈ 60 minutes · No intermission
Last updated: December 20, 2019
One can’t talk about the Canadian dance scene without including the exceptional dancer and choreographer Louise Lecavalier. Building on many stellar collaborations with Edouard Lock, Tedd Robinson, Crystal Pite and Benoît Lachambre, Louise’s break-out choreographic debut So Blue (2012) was an international success. A recipient of numerous accolades, including the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement, Louise continues to be prolific in her creative endeavours, exploring new projects and touring at a high pace around the world. She is truly an icon of contemporary dance. We’re thrilled to welcome her back, this time sharing the stage with the remarkable dancer, Robert Abubo.
If you can, check out Louise Lecavalier: In Motion, a recent and beautiful dance film about this extraordinary artist!
Enjoy!
Premiere: February 13, 2016, tanzhaus nrw, Dusseldorf
Louise Lecavalier explores new territory in this solo and duet freely inspired by two Italo Calvino characters, the non-existent knight and his squire. The stage is a ring, a playground, where in nine rounds, where a thousand battles, ephemeral or extreme, are waged. Avid for adventures and misadventures, the two antiheroes allow glimpses of their ideals and disillusionments to show in a mad, unclassifiable dance.
Buy the CD of the soundtrack of Battleground after the performance!
Conceived and choreographed by
Louise Lecavalier
Performed by
Louise Lecavalier and Robert Abubo
Artistic assistant and rehearsal director
France Bruyère
Original and live music:
Antoine Berthiaume*
* The soundtrack includes Le mur, a piece originally composed for [ID] Double, a work by Louis-Élyan Martin.
Lighting design:
Alain Lortie
Costume design:
Yso
Administration:
Cyrille Commer
Company Tour Manager and Communications Director:
Anne Viau
Technical director and stage manager:
François Marceau
Stage Manager Ottawa:
Martin Lepage
International Booking Agent (except Europe):
Menno Plukker Theatre Agent Inc.
Co-production
Fou Glorieux; tanzhaus nrw, Düsseldorf; HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts Dresden; le CENTQUATRE, Paris; Festival TransAmériques, Montréal; Usine C, Montréal.
Fou Glorieux is supported by
Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des arts de Montréal
Dancer and choreographer Louise Lecavalier worked with Édouard Lock and La La La Human Steps from 1981 to 1999, a period of exceptional intensity punctuated by works that have since become mythical along with scintillating collaborations (David Bowie, Frank Zappa…). Her extreme dance, filled with a fiery energy, caught the imagination of a whole generation. Since founding her own company, Fou glorieux, in 2006, her movement research has been emblematic of her whole career, emphasizing the surpassing of limits and risk-taking, a search for the absolute in which she seeks to bring out the “more-than-human in the human.” In 2012, she created So Blue, her first full-length choreography, followed by Battleground in 2016. Both works have toured extensively, nationally and internationally. After over 60 performances, the Stations tour continues across Canada, Quebec and internationally. Many prestigious awards were received during her career.
Antoine Berthiaume, a Montrealer, is a composer and guitarist active in the fields of improvisation, contemporary music, dance, and theatre. His work has been enriched by collaborations with artists such as Gilles Poulin-Denis, Mélanie Demers, Annie Gagnon, Thierry Huard, Aurélie Pedron, Audrey Bergeron, Louis-Élyan Martin, Jessica Serli, Alan Lake, and Louise Lecavalier, as well as with Cavalia and Cirque du Soleil. Antoine’s music features on dozens of albums on the Ambiances Magnétiques, Audiogram, Vos Records (Japan), Incus Records (U.K.), Saint-Cécile, Sony, and Starkland (U.S.A.) labels. A contributor to Classical Guitar Magazine, Antoine just completed his PhD in digital music at l’Université de Montréal under Robert Normandeau.
Alain Lortie has pursued his chosen career with passion for over thirty years. First associated with multidisciplinary artists Michel Lemieux, Marie Chouinard, and Édouard Lock, he went on to collaborate with Québécois and European singers Jean-Pierre Ferland, Diane Dufresne, Robert Charlebois, Daniel Bélanger, Peter Gabriel, Francis Cabrel, and Eros Ramazzotti. Named Lighting Designer of the Year several times at the ADISQ Awards, he also received the Masque for Best Lighting for Les âmes mortes (1996) and the Dora Mavor Moore Prize in Toronto for Œdipus Rex (1997). From 2001 to 2005, Alain was artistic director of the Celebration of Light at the Montreal High Lights Festival. He designed the lighting for several musicals in Asia, as well as two permanent circus productions for Shanghai Circus World: Era (2005) and Kaleido (2010). Among Alain’s major achievements are Starmania (1993), NotreDame de Paris (1998), Arturo Brachetti (1999), Cavalia (2003), and Odysseo (2011). His work with the Cirque de Soleil includes Soleil de minuit (2004), Delirium (2006), Zarkana (2011), and Toruk, the first flight! (2015), which was inspired by the James Cameron film, Avatar. In addition, Alain collaborated with Franco Dragone in the Han Show in Wuhan, China, in 2014.
Classically trained, France Bruyère quickly widened her field of interest to include contemporary and jazz dance. After her professional debut at age seventeen with Groupe Nouvelle Aire in Montreal, she danced for numerous choreographers and with several dance companies which, besides Nouvelle Aire, included Groupe Axis, the Louise Latreille dance troupe, Pointépiénu, and the Danny Grossman Dance Company in Toronto. After working as rehearsal director for La La La Human Steps for ten years, she taught at UQAM until 2017 and works for Louise Lecavalier as artistic assistant and rehearsal director.