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/DANCE/SONGS/

Public Recordings (TORONTO)

/DANCE/SONGS/

Three microphones, percussive electronic music and, projected onto the backstage wall, the image of two men and a woman walking through the wings just before stepping onstage.

Bioboxes

Maiko Bae Yamamoto + James Long (VANCOUVER)

Bioboxes

Slip into a cramped space. Pull the curtain behind you. Sit down, and then gradually fall under the spell of a nano-narrative recounted by an actor whose head emerges from a box right in front of you, so close that your knees are almost touching.

BODY-SCAN

B.L.eux (MONTRÉAL)

BODY-SCAN

Unfurl your antennae, feel both the movement and the moment, bring the intelligence of the body into play – that is the approach to choreography and the challenge launched by Quebec choreographer Benoît Lachambre and Vancouver dancer Su-Feh Lee as they venture, in Body-Scan, into the secret, innermost zones of the human body.

Douleur exquise

Brigitte Haentjens (MONTRÉAL)

Douleur exquise

A woman repeats, 35 times, the story of a break-up, relating her tale of grievous separation until the pain is assuaged, until the words become useless and the narrative shorter and shorter.

Éonnagata

Sadler's Wells (LONDON)

Éonnagata

This powerful, impure work consecrates the encounter of three major and magical artists – Sylvie Guillem, a rebellious star of classical ballet converted to contemporary dance, Robert Lepage, the tireless stage pioneer and Russell Maliphant, the renowned British choreographer whose energetic pieces combine classical dance and martial arts.

GESTES IMPIES

Francis Monty (MONTRÉAL)

GESTES IMPIES

Something has been lost. For a long time now the heavens have been bereft, ancient rites have withered away, and men struggle to live in the world. With no knowledge of how to celebrate life’s transitions – How does one become an adult? What is the proper way to love, to atone, to die? – they try to break loose from the futility of their condition.

GRAVEL WORKS

GravelArtGroup (GAG) (MONTRÉAL)

GRAVEL WORKS

GravelWorks is live music and choreography. It is a showcase of moods, humour, bodies, pop songs, personalities and friendly impertinence.

H3

Grupo de Rua (Rio de Janeiro)

H3

They are Brazilian. The street has long been their battleground. Veterans of hip-hop, dance is the very air they breathe – the rarefied air of the city.

KÖRPER

SASHA WALTZ & GUESTS (BERLIN)

KÖRPER

Sasha Waltz is a leading figure of German dance, the heir apparent of Pina Bausch. She is renowned for appropriating historical sites, for dissecting events, for angrily revealing, in almost burlesque fashion, the failings of reality. Körper, an impressive piece for thirteen dancers and a turning point in her body of work, lies at the very edge of abstraction.

L’OPÉRA PAYSAN

Béla Pintér (BUDAPEST)

L’OPÉRA PAYSAN

A penniless opera. A farce coupled with a fable. In this musical theatre that is cheerfully scathing, a band of unbridled actors, singers and dancers presents a peasant wedding that borrows from sources varying from Brecht to Emir Kusturica by way of cabaret, theatre, popular fairs and festivals.

L’ORGIE DE LA TOLÉRANCE

Troubleyn | Jan Fabre (Antwerp)

L’ORGIE DE LA TOLÉRANCE

A demonic force who assails all strictures and opprobrium as he steadfastly probes the moods of bodies and the temper of the world, Jan Fabre has once again drawn his sword of ridicule.

LE GRAND CONTINENTAL

Sylvain émard (MONTRÉAL)

LE GRAND CONTINENTAL

It can be festive, intoxicating, a unifying force. It flirts with the tango, the waltz, cha-cha-cha, merengue, rock and disco, and thousands of Quebecers have embraced it over the past half century.

LE SHOW POCHE

Marianne et Simon (MONTRÉAL)

LE SHOW POCHE

A guru, hanged men, elephants, docks, a camper trailer – what do these disparate objects have in common? They all add colour to Le show poche, the new choreographic patchwork by Catherine Tardif.

MICROCLIMATS

MICROCLIMATS

An experience of sharp contrasts where the unexpected and the ephemeral can suddenly appear just around the corner, Microclimats is a meandering stroll that features a dozen dazzling art projects, from unusual fragments to other short art forms made specifically for the site.

NEVA & DICIEMBRE

Guillermo Calderón (Santiago)

NEVA & DICIEMBRE

A revelation. The appearance on the world theatre scene of a Chilean company featuring three compelling actors and Guillermo Calderón, a playwright and director who believes in art that incorporates the personal and the political. The Teatro en el blanco, theatre that “hits its target”, slashes through the futile and the ostentatious with two chamber pieces that strip away theatrical illusion to make way for the echo of violence knocking at the door.

QUESTO BUIO FEROCE

ERT- Compagnia Pippo Delbono (ITALIE)

QUESTO BUIO FEROCE

It was in a small bookshop in a country without books that Pippo Delbono discovered the autobiography of Harold Brodkey, an American novelist who died of AIDS.

RAMBO SOLO

Pavol Liska + Kelly Copper (NEW YORK)

RAMBO SOLO

Alone onstage, a man tells the amazing and ornate story of First Blood, intermixing the details of the novel with those of the film adaptation and incorporating his own imaginings into the narrative. With his body and his voice he feverishly rewrites the tale, which is “as universal as Hamlet” because its characters symbolize solitude and redemption.

ROUGE & NOT WATERPROOF

Julie Andrée T. (MONTRÉAL)

ROUGE & NOT WATERPROOF

With Julie Andrée T., when performance-installation encounters theatre the blend is unsettling and fascinating. This artist, whose iconoclastic approach is much appreciated both here and abroad, has dazzled audiences with these two hybrid works where dialogue, a series of actions and a mishmash of unusual images are gradually distilled into poetry. Disconcerting, moving and unclassifiable, these pieces deploy an astounding transformation of the body by means of a metamorphosis of the stage landscape.

SINGULAR SENSATION

Yasmeen Godder (JAFFA)

SINGULAR SENSATION

Regaining sensation, that raw emotion that makes us feel alive, is the remarkable mission that Yasmeen Godder has given to her five incredible dancers so that we can “escape from the deluge of information and the diktats of seduction in our societies.”

STUDIES IN MOTION

Kevin Kerr (VANCOUVER)

STUDIES IN MOTION

Capture time. Break movement down into recognizable photographic sequences in order to escape inner chaos. That was the obsessive undertaking of the photographer Eadweard Muybridge. A few ghosts from the past (a cold-blooded murder, an abandonment) burst into the well-ordered universe of the man often referred to as the “father of cinema”. Soon sordid, swirling images of yesterday are superimposed on those of today.

THE SOUND OF SILENCE

Alvis Hermanis (Riga)

THE SOUND OF SILENCE

People in the Soviet socialist republic of Latvia in 1968 dreamed of peace and freedom, and used makeshift radios to listen to outlawed Western pop music.

TRANSPORTS EXCEPTIONNELS

Beau Geste (VAL-DE-REUIL)

TRANSPORTS EXCEPTIONNELS

She is huge, imposing, cold and threatening. Standing opposite her, he appears minuscule, fragile and vulnerable, yet is not frightened. To the fantastic voice of Maria Callas, he confidently initiates a pas de deux that will eventually seduce her and reveal her innermost sensitivity, making her curious, protective, tender and almost human.

UNE FÊTE POUR BORIS

Denis Marleau (MONTRÉAL)

UNE FÊTE POUR BORIS

Kind and charitable, the Good Woman is a monster of selfishness who toys with her entourage, especially her nurse and companion Joanna, like a little girl playing with her dolls.