≈ 60 minutes · No intermission
Last updated: March 29, 2023
A Note from the Executive Producer, NAC Dance
I still remember the first time I saw Louise Lecavalier soar through the air in the 1980s! Back then I also witnessed her early choreography performed in a small theatre, where her signature style was already apparent. Fast forward many years and we are so fortunate to be welcoming Louise back to NAC Dance where we have presented her several times with various projects, including beautiful duets with Frédéric Tavernini, Robert Abubo, and the late Tedd Robinson. With this latest oeuvre, Stations, Louise has reached a pinnacle in her creative explorations: her first choreographed solo. Stations is seen as her most personal work to date, and is an impeccable blend of force and speed, emotion and passion. Not only do we marvel at her spectacular performance but also at her dramatic prowess and musicality. Persistently curious and adventurous, Louise throws herself into each project with vigorous attention and sensitivity. I am thrilled to experience this work with you all tonight.
Enjoy!
A Message from Louise Lecavalier, Choreographer, Dancer and Artistic Director
“Increasingly, over time, I have become the subject of my research. I take the risk that my various existential battles as a dancer may resemble those of others, trusting that the new difficulties I come up against or inflict upon myself in the movements will always provide an answer and perhaps a true space of freedom. I go back into the studio to discover the previously unrevealed movements that will allow me to renew and clarify what my body needs and what inspires me now. I seize upon new steps as if it were a matter of sheer survival.
The solo form imposed itself in my new creation. Dances were created during productive days of improvisation, developing the main thrust of the movements, trying new ones, exploring, accumulating and storing them. Movements close to the body, framing and constraining it, or movements drawn in the air around the body as if it were filled with particles that I could sculpt and had to ceaselessly reinvent in new traces in the everyday atmosphere of the white studio.
I found fluidity in hips and torso, and sometimes, a sinuosity in legs. I explored waves of movements, sliding, working arms, torso, and hands in rhythmic, mechanical gestures, exploring slow, fluid movements, more circular, or between balancing and hanging, anchored in the ground, with a density in the lightness and liveliness in the holding-back, pulled between high and low, between the bird and the elephant, between the desire to soar yet also to remain anchored in the present.
The piece is structured in four sections: four stations that could be seasons or points of the compass. A never-ending cycle, like the seasons, leaving and returning. Each station corresponds to a specific theme that I explore in movement: fluidity, control, meditation, and obsession. I didn’t provoke myself as much this time. I accepted what was there and took what came out of it. The movements tell of the aftermath of a personal story, my spirit either revealed or hampered by the body, and yet, occasionally, even often, still free for the most wondrous journeys.
I wanted a musical world different from those of my last productions. The powerful blast of varied musical inspirations, at the same time piercing and repetitive, particularly those of virtuoso saxophonist Colin Stetson, resonated deeply in the research.
Lighting designer Alain Lortie’s contribution to the two previous creations was essential; imparting them with a unique visual signature. In this new work, four movable columns of light delineate the space, creating a luminous framework on stage where the different dance segments develop. This piece is yet a further attempt to renew the primitive experience called dance.”
Artists
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.
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.
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.
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.
Credits
Artistic Team
Premiere: February 14, 2020, tanzhaus nrw, Düsseldorf
Choreographed and performed by
Louise Lecavalier
Choreography Assistant and Rehearsal director
France Bruyère
Lighting Design
Alain Lortie
Scenography Advisor
Marc-André Coulombe
Music
Colin Stetson
Suuns and Jerusalem in My Heart
Teho Teardo and Blixa Bargeld
Original Music and arrangements
Antoine Berthiaume
Costume
Yso, Marilène Bastien
Co-production
Fou Glorieux; tanzhaus nrw, Düsseldorf; HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts Dresden; Festival TransAmériques Montreal; Usine C, Montreal; Harbourfront Centre, Performing Arts, Toronto; National Arts Centre, Ottawa; SFU Woodward’s Cultural Programs, Vancouver; Diffusion Hector-Charland, L’Assomption and Repentigny.
Fou Glorieux
Tour Manager and Communications Director
Ginette Prévost
Administrative Director
Cyrille Commer
Technical Director
François Marceau
International Agent (except Europe)
Menno Plukker, theatre agent
Booking Europe
Anne-Lise Gobin, Alma office
Louise Lecavalier is supported by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Montreal Arts Council.
NAC Dance Team
Executive Producer
Cathy Levy
Senior Producer
Tina Legari
Special Projects Coordinator and Assistant to the Executive Producer
Mireille Nicholas
Company Manager
Sophie Anka
Education Associate and Teaching Artist
Siôned Watkins
Technical Director
Brian Britton
Communications Strategist
Julie Gunville
Marketing Strategist
Marie-Chantale Labbé-Jacques
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees