For its centenary, we sang the work and artistic spirit of Françoise Sullivan. But who has seen the dances, the choreographies, essential in the evolution of Quebec dance, of this artist who has devoted herself in recent decades to the visual arts? On Sunday, five dances come back to life, as well as another by the great accomplice Françoise Riopelle. An opportunity to capture firsthand if the rigor and great freedom used by Sullivan, the choreographer, are brought to life today, in eight dancers of all ages.
“We have the habit here of only bringing back choreographies that have had great public success,” underlines dancer Simon Renaud, 34, who will touch for the first time on the work of the Quebec pioneer of contemporary dance.
“The dance repertoire is a major topical issue for me. It’s certain that there are moments, in this Sullivan retrospective, where it breathes from another era. But in the material, from the inside, I see traces of what will provoke the birth of the works of Jean-Pierre Perreault [décédé en 2002] and Tedd Robinson [chorégraphe ontarien décédé en 2022 qui a beaucoup travaillé au Québec], for whom I danced quite a bit. »
Ginette Laurin, retired creator of O Vertigo, wanted to take over Maze. A piece that she danced a lot and re-danced, from 1978 to 1982, which had been created in 1948 by Mme Sullivan.
“It was really an adaptation that Françoise made with me,” remembers Ginette Laurin. She gave me instructions, and a lot of freedom to embody them. »
“Françoise was very direct verbally and conceptually in what she wanted. But she didn’t necessarily know how it was going to take shape. » Mme Laurin remembers a rigorous score, with always exact number of steps, where his intense breathing was the only music.
“I had to throw myself into it with a certain violence, go all the way, almost smash the space. The breath gives it a visceral dimension. I ended up dizzy,” hyperventilated, she recalls.
“I remember it very, very well,” confides M.me Laurin, 69 years old. If my body was willing, I could dance it again. I would really have liked to dance it again, to adapt it through my interpretation to everything we have seen, in terms of choreography, since…”
“But my body is no longer capable…” laments the one who suffers from chronic pain due to a depressed vertebra, a natural deformation, and years of dancing on top of that. A recent attack of pain forced her to withdraw from Mazewhich Lila-Mae Talbot reprises.
“It’s really dancing”
“I would like to name the big break that took place when we started working with Françoise Sullivan, in 1978-1979, for the first time,” underlines Michèle Febvre, 81 years old. “It was a big upheaval” for the dancers, some of whom were also young and future choreographers — Paul-André Fortier and Mme Laurin, among others.
“We were coming from a fairly corseted modern dance,” remembers M.me Febvre, and Françoise, suddenly brought us great freedom, a lot of improvisation. And fun, too. »
“She told us to feel the rhythms for the rhythms, the body for the body,” says the one who danced then Hierophania And And night to night. She is now starting again Right of entryt, a short performance, “an exercise in presence”, delivered to a text read aloud, almost a mantra, a ritual, which will be recited on Sunday for the first time by Françoise Sullivan herself.
Michèle Febvre, who has also worked as a dance historian, even if she no longer retains the label, believes that Françoise Sullivan’s choreographies transcend time.
“As the primary initiation of the majority of her dances comes from bodily impulses, the dancer who redoes a piece necessarily updates it. » Other choreographies, however, need to be recontextualized to be properly understood, believes Mme Febvre.
Simon Renaud: “Sullivan’s dance is based on pure movement. Today, if we look at what is being done in the choreographic landscape, it is still radical. For a dancer, it’s liberating. It is Really dance,” describes the performer.
“I am curious to see if this program can live elsewhere, be taken up by a broadcaster of creative dance,” asks Mr. Renaud. “And also curious to see if the dance community will come and see” these pieces which for a long time only existed through images, photos and archive films, without living bodies.
Daniel Soulières is rehearsal master for this program performed by Michèle Febvre, Paul-André Fortier, Ginette Laurin, Manon Levac, Isabelle Poirier, Simon Renaud, Lauren Semeschuk, Lila-Mae Talbot, the musician Rober Racine and M. Soulières.