Dancer and choreographer close to the Automatiste movement and the signatories of the Global denial, with more than 40 choreographers to her credit, Jeanne Renaud paved the way for contemporary dance in Quebec. She died Thursday at the age of 94 in a palliative care center in Outremont.
“It’s so sad to see how you can become completely dependent on your body, when you’ve been active all your life,” laments Claude Gosselin, general and artistic director of the Center international d’art contemporain de Montréal (CIAC). . Mme Renaud was struggling with various health issues, including cancer.
Claude Gosselin is part of a group of very close friends of the artist who followed her all her life. “She encouraged me a lot in my own career, as well as many other artists of her generation,” he says.
Jeanne Renaud has also held several positions as a teacher, artistic director and manager. Among other things, she was a professor at the École de théâtre at Cégep Lionel-Groulx (1970-1971), artistic co-director of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens alongside Linda Stearns (1985-1987) and professor at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Quebec in Montreal (1987-1989).
“Great Lady of Dance”
It is above all as a dancer and choreographer, however, that Jeanne Renaud stood out, having rubbed shoulders with outstanding figures of the Quebec avant-garde and founding the Groupe de la Place Royale, often considered the first modern dance troupe in the Quebec.
Jeanne Renaud first studied music at the Vincent d’Indy school in Outremont. In 1946, she pursued dance training in New York, with the now famous Hanya Holm, Mary Anthony and Merce Cunningham.
Her sisters Louise and Thérèse, as well as her friends Françoise Sullivan and Françoise Riopelle, are signatories of the Global denialthe famous manifesto led by Paul-Émile Borduas published in 1948. That same year, Jeanne Renaud gave her first recital, with François Sullivan.
In the early 1950s, she taught and practiced dance in Paris. She collaborates with, among others, Jean-Paul Riopelle and Pierre Mercure. In 1965, back in Montreal, she presented Phrase 65a dance show that is very successful.
A year later, she founded the Groupe de la Place Royal, with choreographer Peter Boneham. Integrating elements of theater and voices into its shows, the troupe overturned the dance conventions of the time. Jeanne Renaud was artistic director of the group until 1972.
“We are losing a great lady of dance,” says Rafik Hubert Sabbagh, general and artistic director of the Festival Quartier Danse. It is also at this festival that Mme Renaud presented, in August 2021, his last show, Feldman/Renaud Projectfeaturing dancers Marc Boivin and Louise Bédard.
“It’s quite an honour,” said Rafik Hubert Sabbagh.
“Well Surrounded”
The latter also says that Marc Boivin was at the bedside of Mme Renaud when she passed away on Thursday.
As Claude Gosselin explains, she was always “very well surrounded” by her friends. “Jeanne organized famous dinners at her house, where we discussed creation and art, from the 1940s until very recently,” he says.
A CIAC newsletter paid tribute to him on Friday: close friends and collaborators signed a letter in his honor. Among them, the son of Jeanne Renaud, but also Marc Boivin, Louise Bédard, Françoise Sullivan, Yseult Riopelle, Sylvia Safdie, Danielle and Suzanne Sauvage and many others.