After five years of absence, choreographer Dave St-Pierre returns with a brand new creation: Rapture. At the request of Montreal Pride and in partnership with the pharmaceutical company Gilead, this piece pays tribute to the millions of people who have tragically died of AIDS around the world. Incarnated by a dozen performers, Rapture also evokes the current struggles of the LGBTQ2S+ community, highlights invisible minorities and denounces the violence they still suffer today.
“I found myself as in my beginnings, where I had to explain everything, build new links…” explains Dave St-Pierre. After saying yes to Montreal Pride’s proposal to develop a new creation, he decided to surround himself with collaborators with whom he had worked little or not at all. “I said to myself: ‘As long as we embark on a daredevil project, let’s be daredevil until the end!’ Alex Huot, one of his longtime collaborators, adds that it is in chaos that St-Pierre excels. “It’s not something that scares him, on the contrary. It stimulates it, it catalyzes its creation. »
Dave St-Pierre has thus surrounded himself with artists from all walks of life, but also with amateur dancers. A deliberate act to reflect diversity. “For me, it was important that there was variety in the bodies, in the age groups and in the communities. In dance, you don’t find fat people, so I went looking for people in the theater world or people who dance in an amateur way, ”he adds.
For a month, the team met for a few hours on weekends to mount Rapture. A very short preparation time which has, in addition, been compressed by the vagaries of COVID-19 and the availability of each and everyone. “Sometimes there was only an interpreter who showed up. It was chaotic, I wondered how we were going to get out of it, ”he says. The creator then quickly reported on his various inspirations and defined tables “so that each and every one knew where he was going and/or what he was going to do”.
And the result of this “daredevil” project? “It’s a melting pot of diverse influences — Angels in America, Laid or It’s a Sin —, but also stories, found in blogs, of AIDS survivors, and the essence of each performer as well,” describes the man who has shaken up the contemporary milieu with his creations.
Several months before the start of rehearsals, Dave St-Pierre worked with Yann Villeneuve to musically dress the work. “We wanted it to be sensual, sexual, to have a lot of voice sounds, guttural sounds too, heaviness and a metallic side. I went to look for excerpts from pornographic films that I transformed, I also recorded certain voices”, says the composer. To all this, he wanted to integrate club music, a catharsis according to him. “With all this beautiful mixture, it gives something of the order of the ritual”, he continues.
Push body states
Recognized in the world of contemporary dance and performance as a creator of “ferociously physical” shows, Dave St-Pierre affirms that he has however changed over the years. With his creations Fake or Scourge, he sought more immobility, slow motion rather than great physicality. “It seems that almost nothing is happening, but everything is happening in tension, much more than in movement,” he says. As I got older, I felt that was more what I wanted to explore. The refined aspect of a work is what the choreographer who says he hates dance and theater is looking for.
And these states of the body, he has deepened them in particular with the interpreter Mélusine Bonillo, a trans woman who completed her bachelor’s degree in dance in Montreal last year. Trained during an internship in Belarus “the hard way”, she had to adapt to this more “figurative” practice. ” With Rapture, we work on the art of presence. Yes, there is also endurance which is important, but the slowness was a big challenge for me after having worked so hard physically with my body,” explains Mélusine Bonillo. Dave St-Pierre wanted to “push each and everyone’s personality a little further”. “Mélusine has a lunar, ethereal, but super wild presence. My jobit’s about finding your features and underlining them in pink”, explains the choreographer.
“Put him in the face”
Dave St-Pierre wishes to denounce a certain “sanitization” of the gay community with this piece, which will begin a few days before the Pride festivities. “On apps, for example, all guys are the same! All white, muscular, with the same little haircut! Where are the fat people, the trans people, the Asians, the Blacks…? I find it so unhealthy, ”he laments. According to him, it is for these reasons in particular that the queer community of Montreal “takes more and more space”. “People recognize themselves more than in the gay community,” he adds.
Through Rapture, Dave St-Pierre also wanted to highlight the violence that LGBTQ2S+ people still suffer today, sometimes even within the community. “I have read hateful, transphobic comments and seen so much ignorance within the gay community, despite having suffered the same thing in the 1980s! The bar raids, the arrests… I have a hard time understanding why. Same thing when we mentioned the idea of transforming the Gay Village into an inclusive neighborhood! Lots of reactants shouted, saying that trans and non-binary wouldn’t be valid! I want the show to serve the gay community, we’re doing this for them! I want to put him in the face! he shouts.
A desire to defend inclusiveness shared by Mélusine Bonillo, who has long feared not having a contract because of her trans identity. “I have seen cisgender women play trans women several times, I was appalled! With Rapture, I take this responsibility to expose my body on stage because we don’t see that often and it’s very important. »
According to the artist, trans women “have always been at the forefront of the various struggles”, but they are also, and still are, the first victims of discrimination and violence. “When I leave home, it’s complicated, I don’t feel safe,” she says. It is for these various reasons that Dave St-Pierre wanted to put her in front of the stage, as the protagonist of the show.
With Rapture, Dave St-Pierre aims for collective awareness, for a world where there is less animosity. “All this violence is not necessary,” he concludes. The most important thing is that we must continue to support each other. »