Floreus
In preparation for an unusual ceremony, the chapel of the Cité-des-Hospitalières is bedecked with flowers: floral beauties that six performers turn into partners for their sensual games. Through their movements, accompanied by live music, they express textures, scents, and metamorphoses, from budding to decay, interacting with their environment as they lead the audience into a garden of Eden. An exquisite, tender ode to eroticism and an appeal to reconnect with the sacred aspect of nature, Floreus awakens the senses and opens up the heart.
Montreal-based choreographer Sébastien Provencher’s newest work contributes to the ongoing discussions about representations of queer bodies, power relationships, and our interdependence with the non-human world. Exploring ecosomatic principles, he draws inspiration from the gorgeous depictions of flowers by renowned Canadian artist Zachari Logan in this delightfully unsettling work, his first collaboration with a visual artist.
About the artist
Sébastien Provencher (Montreal) LORGANISME
Sébastien Provencher focuses his choreographic explorations on gender identity, homosexual orientation, and power dynamics. Eager to move beyond hierarchies, he relies on collaborative and democratic work in his creative processes and sees the performing arts as an act of resistance and object of sociopolitical engagement.
Media Coverage
“The work invites the audience into an unknown universe full of colours and geometric shapes.”
Véronique Morin, The Concordian, 05-12-2021, about What Will Come
« En mettant en scène un tel caucus aux allures provocatrices, Provencher parvient à créer une prestation poignante. L’énergie qui anime le groupe d’homme est transcendante. Un discours très radical portant sur le rapport liant l’homme et virilité émane de la performance. Comment la masculinité est-elle perçue aujourd’hui ? Quels sont les codes qui la prescrivent ? L’homme peut-il s’en émanciper ?»
Pierre-Olivier Marinier Leseize, Artichaut magazine, 13-01-2018, about Children of Chemistry
« Si la danse contemporaine a parfois une dimension ésotérique, What Will Come n’a toutefois rien d’abscons. Il y a réellement quelque chose qui passe de la partition au spectateur, une question qui est lancée au public à travers cette allégorie. L’œuvre parvient en effet à interroger notre propension à faire entrer les corps, les identités, dans des cases. C’est un éloge à la réappropriation de son corps, de son geste, de son rythme propre ; une métaphore sur notre inclination à être mus, plutôt qu’à se mouvoir. »
Sarah-Louise Pelletier-Morin, Magazine Spirale, 06-12-2021, about What Will Come
