Édith Patenaude has just been appointed to take over from Ginette Noiseux as artistic director of Espace Go. Artistic director of the company Les Écornifleuses until 2018, Edith Patenaude has since signed several remarkable productions, including An enemy of the people, by Henrik Ibsen, and The Salem Witchesby Arthur Miller.
After having worked so far on her own projects, Édith Patenaude felt the desire to now open up to those of others, and to offer them this space that is Espace Go.
“It is this space of freedom that I want to protect. […] My desire is to be surprised by artists with approaches that are not mine, with points of view that are not mine. May they be artists who are whole, singular, daring, reckless, and that they pull me in a direction that I had not considered,” she says.
Espace Go, as we know, has its origins in the Experimental Women’s Theater, founded in 1979 by Pol Pelletier, Nicole Lecavalier and Louise Laprade. Ginette Noiseux joined the team in 1981. “1981 was the year I was born! exclaims Edith Patenaude. “I benefited from the work that was done before me,” she adds.
Édith Patenaude’s desire to gain access to another point of view on theatrical practice “coincided with the moment when Ginette felt the desire to pass on the baton,” she says. While Les Écornifleuses, of which she was the artistic director, was an emerging company, the Go Theater is “an institution”, she says. “It’s a center of creation”, sums up Ginette Noiseux, outgoing artistic director of the theatre. The Espace Go already hosts the Théâtre Ubu, as an associated company, in addition to the companies Onishka and Magneto and the Théâtre de La Sentinelle.
A public place
For Ginette Noiseux, “art takes over where politics, history and science run out of steam. […] It’s not talking about feminism that is interesting at Espace Go, it’s being a feminist”, she adds, specifying that Espace Go needs a “signature” for its artistic direction. , and that Édith Patenaude will also be “co-director general of Espace Go”, a situation that leads to reflection on the place of theater in the community. “This place belongs to the citizens,” she says.
The period of transition from Ginette Noiseux to Édith Patenaude will span the whole of the next year, the programming of which has already been determined, and during which Édith Patenaude will apply in particular to implementing the following season as well as the direction of the theater of ” next four years.
“With different tasks, we will work in parallel, we will also have the opportunity to share a lot, and it is really precious for me, this year of absorption”, says Édith Patenaude.
The two women already know each other, having worked together on various projects. “Anecdotally, we each have a dog and we shared the same dog park, laughs Édith Patenaude. But we can’t wait to start the dialogue and to be able to dive in.