≈ 60 minutes · No intermission
Last updated: October 5, 2021
It is with great joy that I welcome you to the first live performances of NAC Dance in over 18 months. And what a way to begin: with discovery, innovation and exploration delivered by Montreal-based Andrea Peña & Artists. Some of you may have discovered Peña through our online series, #DanceForth, and we’re thrilled to now present her first large-scale work to open our 2021-22 season! 6:58: Manifesto is a bold and vibrant exploration of artificiality and truth, realized through the magnetic performances of nine dancers and a soprano.
Thank you for embracing the return to live performance, and for being here to celebrate dance creativity throughout the season. It means so much to all of us at NAC Dance, and to all the artists whom we welcome.
Enjoy!
A word from Andrea Peña
As a Colombian designer, behind the vision of this work, I want to humbly welcome you as you return to the theater, this complex place of rich human encounters. I thank you for joining us in this time and place to engage with the performative ritual of exchange. A place where we have the privilege to dream beyond, to question and to challenge both our society and ourselves. These artists share with you not the work, but their vulnerability as human beings navigating and negotiating the propositions of the work. We hope that by shedding towards vulnerability, we meet you at a place with open spirits and open arms. 6.58: Manifesto is our offering to you, ourselves and each other to continue searching for the nuances that make us human.
6.58: Manifesto
6.58: Manifesto presents a choreographic triptych which critically explores the concept of artifice and artificiality, as constructs that are silently filtering and sedimenting into our minds and bodies. Artificiality as the contemporary individual identity framed within a post-industrial society, intertwined amongst technology and machines. Where artifice is observed as artificiality’s seduction that wraps our experiences, interactions and notion of the future human. The dancers, in conversation with the hegemony of a machine, opera singer, and DJ; transverse three disarticulated tableaux while experimenting on the notion of flesh and mind, as mediated by external forces.
Andrea Peña and Artists
Andrea Peña & Artists is recognized for the creation of critical, alternative and spatial universes that rupture our notions of a sensible humanity. Interested in the depth of human individuality that breaches from a personal disposition as a bi-cultural artist, Peña’s approach is known for its difficult choreography as a highly intricate, vulnerable and somatic raw physicality that engages in deep encounters between the physical body and a highly conceptual research approach. With a background in industrial design, her work borrows from visual art practices and spatial qualities of creative making, questioning the body as a material whom exists relationship to space and time.
Peña’s works invites a collective questioning of political and philosophical ideals as the starting points for the creative research. Choreographically the work searches for presence rather than performance, through a juxtaposition of complex ideas investigated in the physical potentials of the body as unusual states. Towards generating a physical language that embodies these states, revealing and communicating the conceptual framework of the piece to the audience.
Premier: Agora De la Danse, 2020-2021 Season
Andrea Peña has received the support from the Banff Center for Arts and Creativity - Clifford E. Lee Choreography Award 2018, Conseil des arts du Canada, Conseil Des Arts et Lettres du Québec, DanseDanse Créateur en Mouvement, Arsenal Art Contemporain, Maison de la Culture Claude- Léveillée.
Artists
Originating from Bogota, Colombia, and having honed her practice in the territory of Tiohti:áke, Montreal, Andrea Peña is a prolific Latinx artist who has built international renown as a designer, choreographer, and director of the multidisciplinary company AP&A (Andrea Peña & Artists). With a background in design and fashion, Andrea is a definitively multifaceted visionary who works seamlessly across disciplines. Rooted in extensive research and choreographic knowledge, she creates unique living universes that unify bodies and materials in performative, digital, and sculptural environments. Andrea’s artistic rigour has been recognized by numerous awards including the Ballet BC Emily Molnar Emerging Choreographer Award, whilst in 2023 she was the winner of the first international La Biennale di Venezia dance co-production. Complex, vulnerable, and raw, her work has been commissioned by TanzKassel, the National Arts Centre, PHI Centre, SAT, and Ballet Edmonton. She has presented work at prestigious institutions and festivals across the world, including Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Mattress Factory Museum Pittsburgh, TANZ Bremen, Tanzmesse, Theater Freiburg, Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama, Attakkalari India Biennial, Milano Festival, Hong Kong International Choreography Festival, Festival Internacional de Danza de la Ciudad de México, PRISMA - Festival de Danza Contemporánea, AADK Spain, and Ionion Center for the Arts and Culture in Greece, to name a few.
Andrea Peña & Artists is a multidisciplinary company that merges the universes of choreography and design. Based in Montreal, Quebec in the territory of Tiohti:áke, the company merges the body and materiality in performative, digital, and sculptural works to create living arts universes. AP&A’s multifaceted practice explores the peripheries of social imaginaries, as futuring hybrid narratives that nurture the collision of different fields, disciplines, and individuals through AP&A’s collaborating artists.
Andrea Peña, born in Bogota, Colombia, created AP&A after a career as performer with Ballet BC and Les Ballets Jazz Montréal, and is now recognized in Canada and internationally for her creations as critical, alternative, and spatial encounters that break with our notions of a sensitive humanity. With a master’s degree in industrial design from Concordia University, Peña’s work imagines cross-disciplinary approaches that challenge the choreographic practice as a source of collective experimentation and knowledge. As a bi-cultural artist, Peña is known for her complex layered systems that engage in deep encounters between the physical body and a highly conceptual research approach.
From Canada, Japan, USA, Germany, Italy, France, Mexico, Greece, Spain, India, and others, Peña’s works are recognized for her inter-artistic rigour that manifests spatio-material experiences that challenge hybrid practices. Andrea is recognized with numerous awards and commissions for her conceptual creations, most recently the Hong Kong International Choreography Award (2018) and the Banff Centre’s Clifford E. Lee Award (2019) given to an emerging Canadian artist in recognition for her highly rigorous creation 6.58: Manifesto, which was selected to open the internationally renowned Tanzmesse in Dusseldorf (2022). AP&A’s latest large-scale creation, BOGOTA (2023), was the winner of La Biennale di Venezia’s first foreign choreographic co-production.
The company’s most recent works include 6.58: Manifesto (2021), which won the Banff Centre’s Clifford E. Lee Award and opened the 2022 internationally renowned Tanzmesse; and Untitled I (2018) and Untitled I + III (2019), which won the prix Hong Kong International Choreography. AP&A has been presented by the National Arts Centre (2021), Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (2021), Arsenal Contemporain Art (2016), Usine C (2019), Agora de la Danse (2021), TANZ Bremen (2022), Tanzmesse (2022), Cinars, New Italian Dance Platform (2022), Festival Trajectoires (2022), Theater Freiburg (2021), Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama (2020), the Canadian Centre for Architecture (2019), Attakkalari India Biennial (2018), MILANoLTRE Festival (2022), Festival Quartiers Danses (2022), Hong Kong International Choreography Festival (2018), Festival Internacional de Danza de la Ciudad de México (2017), PRISMA - Festival de Danza Contemporánea (2016), AADK Spain (2017), and Ionion Center for the Arts and Culture (2016), among others. Andrea’s work has been commissioned by the PHI Centre, Laval Symphony Orchestra, Ballet Edmonton, the 375th Anniversary of Montreal, Pro Arte Danse, École de danse contemporaine de Montréal, Transformation, and Springboard Program.
Born in Longueuil, Véronique Giasson graduated from L’École Supérieure de Ballet Contemporain de Montréal and was part of Le Jeune Ballet du Québec from 2006 to 2008. Her career took off when she left school in 2008: Véronique obtained an apprentice position with Cas Public and, following that, was hired by Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal). From 2011-2012, Véronique danced with the Donlon Dance Company, former resident company of the State Theater of Saarland (Germany).
For the past 12 years, Véronique Giasson has had extensive experience working with renowned cultural organizations including Compagnie Marie Chouinard, Cirque du Soleil, Ballet Preljocaj (France), Compañia Tania Pérez Salas (Mexico), Sinha Danse and Ezdanza.Over the past year, she has carried out several personal projects as a teacher and choreographer. She has been collaborating with Andrea Peña & Artists since 2017.
Gabrielle Kachan’s passion for dance emerged at a young age. Raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia, she studied classical ballet, jazz, modern and contemporary dance through the Intensive Training Program at Halifax Dance. A major award winner from the Nova Scotia Talent Trust, Gabrielle regularly performed as part of the Young Company and assumed a lead role in Symphony Nova Scotia’s The Nutcracker. In 2018, Gabrielle moved to Montreal to study at École de Danse Contemporaine de Montreal. During her time at EDCM Gabrielle has worked with choreographers such as Andrea Peña, Andrew Turner, Charles Brecard, James Viveiros, Kanpai - Natalia De Miguel & Jorge Jáuregui Allue, Darryl Tracy and Pierre-Marc Ouellette.
With his initial passion for urban dances, combined with his training in contemporary dance, Jean-Benoit possesses a versatility of interpretation sought out by choreographers. Since earning his diploma from EDCM in 2014, he has collaborated with Danièle Desnoyers for the creation of ANATOMIE D’UN SOUFFLE (2016), and UNFOLD, 7 PERSPECTIVES (2019). Furthermore, Jean-Benoit has been a member of the AP&A company since 2017 and participated in the remount of UNTITLED I+III (2018) and 6.58: MANIFESTO since 2020, and is currently working with Andrea Pena on a new creation. He performed in Some Hope for the Bastards by Frédérick Gravel (2018), as well as L’affadissement du merveilleux, by Catherine Gaudet since 2019. Jean-Benoit collaborates with choreographers Alan Lake, Jacques Poulin-Denis, Sébastien Provencher, George Stamos, Riley Sims, amongst many others.
Benjamin Landsberg is a Toronto-born contemporary dancer and independent choreographer. Since completing Ryerson University’s Performance Dance BFA Program, he has performed and collaborated with Compagnie Flak, ProArteDanza, and Landerer&Company, and toured worldwide. He has danced in works by Robert Glumbek, Jose Navas, Michael Caldwell and Felix Landerer. He is currently in the creation process with Amanda Acorn and is a regular collaborator with Andrea Peña & Artists. As a choreographer, Landsberg’s work has been commissioned and presented internationally by Commedia Futura, Ryerson University, Festival Quartiers Danses, and Dance Ontario.
Jontae McCrory, originally from Detroit, Michigan, started his training at Western Michigan University at the age of 19. In 2017, McCrory attended the year-long Dancers Course with BalletBoyz in London, England. Throughout his training, he has had the privilege of learning works by Kyle Abraham, James Gregg, Frank Chaves, and Azure Barton. As a filmmaker and choreographer, McCrory has had works featured in the 2017 American College Dance Association Gala Concert, Festival Chéries-Chéris-Paris Film Festival, Cinema Quebec, and BBC Network London. McCrory started working with contemporary company RUBBERBAND in 2018, while guest performing with Decidedly Jazz Dance Company later in 2020. Currently, McCrory has been working with Andrea Peña & Artists, while freelancing in Montreal, QC.
Originally from Calgary/Treaty 7 Territory, Erin O’Loughlin is a Montreal/ Tio’tia:ke- based dancer, choreographer, teacher, and founding member of LA TRESSE; a laterally arranged organization whose goal is to create physically driven works which embody a connection to pleasure and assert that we can be more ourselves by being together. O’Loughlin holds a BA in Dance and International Relations from the University of Calgary and her training includes attendance at numerous workshops and festivals. In Alberta she worked with Davida Monk, Maya Lewandowsky, and Helen Husak. In 2016, she was in Mumbai, India teaching and working for Bollywood choreographer Shiamak Davar. She currently collaborates and performs with Andrea Peña & Artists, Sylvain Émard Danse, and Sinha Danse. Alongside her LA TRESSE partners, she has won the “Prix Coup de Coeur du Public” from Festival Quartiers Danses, and the “Gibney Company/Springboard Emerge Award” for their 2019 creation as Resident Choreographers at Springboard Danse Montreal.
Born in New Brunswick, François completed his studies at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School. His professional career has taken him across more than twenty countries with companies such as Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, José Navas/Compagnie Flak, Van Grimde Corps Secrets, Sylvain Émard Danse, PPS Danse and AP&A. He has worked closely with choreographers such as Virginie Brunelle, Victor Quijada, Anne Plamondon and David Rancourt.
In 2011, he danced in the short film ORA, produced by the NFB and nominated for a Genie award in 2012. For his solo UNTITLED I, a collaboration with Andrea Peña, he won the prize for best performer at Festival Quartiers Danses, and for best choreography at the Hong Kong International Choreography Festival in 2018. He is now based in Montreal as a teacher and independent artist.
Frédérique Rodier believes dance is not only a field of expression, but the ultimate way to reveal who she is. Graduating in 2014 from École de danse contemporaine de Montréal with previous theatre training, she finds herself in a mix of the two disciplines. Frederique has collaborated with choreographers Victoria Mackenzie, Noam Gagnon, and theatre director Gilbert Trudel. In 2017, she created the collective Bregma with visual artist Andréanne Martel. The collective has shown their work at Tangente, Art Souterrain, and the Laroche-Joncas Gallery.
Laura Toma was born in Romania and raised in Canada. She is a graduate of the Laban Center in London, UK and The School of Dance in Ottawa. Her additional professional training includes theatre and American style latin and ballroom dance. In August of 2012 Laura graduated from the first official Gaga Teacher Training Program in Tel Aviv, Israel under the mentorship of Ohad Naharin and is the first certified Gaga teacher in Canada. She has taught for Compagnie Marie Chouinard, the RQD, l’ÉDCMTL, and L’École Supérieure de Ballet du Québec, among others. Laura, along with Geneviève Boulet and Erin O'Loughlin, is a founding member of Montreal based dance collective LA TRESSE. In June of 2016 she performed at the Venice Biennale of Dance for Israeli/French choreographer Emanuel Gat. Laura has been a core member of Andrea Peña & Artists since 2014.
Thank you
A sincere and pure gratitude for the incredibly generous, vulnerable and fearless team behind the creation of 6.58: Manifesto. A culmination of five years of iterations and deep research brings this work to life with your incredible commitments. We want to bring conscious gratitude to all of AP&A’s partners, supporters and communities that create the foundations for the wild dreams we have. We wouldn’t be able to dream as far and wide without you.
Gracias to Agora de la danse and the NAC, for believing in the potential of this work and making home for the birth of this creation. Equally gracias to the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity, Agence Mickael Spinnhirny, DanseDanse, Arsenal Art Contemporain and Milieu Institute who have been incremental to the stages of growth of our team and this work.
NAC DANCE TEAM
Cathy Levy, Executive Producer
Tina Legari, Associate Producer
Mireille Nicholas, Special Projects Coordinator and Assistant to the Executive Producer
Sophie Anka, Company Manager
Siôned Watkins, Education Associate and Teaching Artist
Brian Britton, Technical Director
Livia Belcea, Communications Strategist
Chatelaine Rindorindo, Marketing Strategist
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees