Françoise Riopelle, first wife of Jean Paul Riopelle and signatory of the manifesto Global denial, died Monday at the Jewish General Hospital at the age of 95, according to her family. The dancer and choreographer left her mark on the Canadian contemporary dance community, notably by creating the first school of modern dance in Canada.
Posted at 9:30 a.m.
Born in 1927 in Montreal, Françoise Lespérance was the sister of Jean Lespérance, the childhood best friend of Jean Paul Riopelle. She began dating Riopelle in 1943. They ended up getting married on October 30, 1946 in the Immaculée-Conception church in Montreal, where Riopelle was baptized and where his funeral was held in 2002.
Françoise Lespérance is a minor (19 years old) when she marries. Her parents force the couple to unite in the church…even though she doesn’t believe in God. When Riopelle died, she boycotted the religious ceremony, finding it inappropriate, but watching it on television.
His religious marriage still has its good sides. It enabled the couple to pay for the trip to Paris in December 1947, thanks to the sale of the house which they had received as a wedding present from Riopelle’s father. In Paris, Françoise Riopelle supports her husband in his quest for notoriety. She raises their daughters Yseult and Sylvie, and discovers the Parisian arts community. Their union will last 11 years, until Riopelle falls in love with the American painter Joan Mitchell, in 1955.
Meanwhile, the manifesto Global denial was launched in Montreal in 1948. Françoise Riopelle was one of the 16 signatories of the text considered to be the spark plug for modern Quebec. She then had a passion for the arts, especially for dance, which was then considered a sin by the Quebec Catholic Church.
“We were going to lose our soul there,” she said to The Press in 1998. Global denial has opened doors in the direction of greater respect for the artist. Previously, the artist was a hooligan, a lazy person who did not want to work. When Riopelle came to paint in my parents’ cellar, my aunt, who was a poet and member of the Society of Poets, was outraged. She said, “That’s a painting from hell!” »
Passionate, Françoise Riopelle is still intimidated by her Automatiste friends. “In our group meetings, I didn’t say much,” she told The Press in 2013. I was there and I supported Riopelle. Borduas was still like a family man and, in my head, it was a bit embarrassing. Revolting against something as powerful as the clergy, you had to feel strong. But as I then stayed 10 years in France, I was not aware of the changes that followed. »
If Françoise Riopelle may seem to have been in the shadow of her prestigious signatory comrades, the Borduas, Riopelle, Leduc or Barbeau, she played an important role within the group with the six other women of Global denial, including Madeleine Arbor and Françoise Sullivan. “Madeleine Arbour, Françoise Riopelle and the other women embodied the revolutionary message of the manifesto better than the men,” said Patricia Smart, professor of literature at Carleton University, to the magazine News, in 1998. They took art out of the galleries to install it in daily life. »
It was the time when Quebec women wanted to take charge of themselves and obtain real freedom. “I fully lived the questions about love, said Françoise Riopelle to The Press in 1998. We thought that once love is over, you start something else. In the eyes of my parents, it was unacceptable. Marriage, they believed, was binding on you for life. My father was a very understanding man. He followed our movement with great interest, but also with fear. »
Dance
After separating from Riopelle, who remained in Paris, Françoise devoted herself, from 1958, to her daughters and to dance. She played a key role in the development of modern dance in Quebec in the early 1960s, after having taught dance in Paris from 1956 to 1958.
With Jeanne Renaud, Françoise Riopelle founded the Groupe de danse moderne de Montréal in 1961, the first Canadian school devoted to contemporary dance.
Françoise Riopelle was particularly interested in costumes, sets and music. She worked a lot with her then partner, the composer Pierre Mercure. He writes experimental electronic music while she creates avant-garde choreography. In 1961, Mercure organized a festival, International Week of Current Music, which allowed Françoise Riopelle to be in contact with dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham and composer John Cage.
During her career, she will have other nourishing encounters, notably with dancers Martha Graham and Mary Wigman and dancers Winifred Widener and Alwin Nikolais. She has also worked on several projects with Ontario composer Murray Schafer, including the opera Youwhich she choreographed and which was broadcast on Radio-Canada television in 1966, like other of her choreographies, such as Available shapesin 1965.
Françoise Riopelle was the spouse, from 1968, of the Canadian pianist, composer and arranger Neil Chotem who wrote music for his choreographies. In 1969, she began teaching dance in the theater department of the new UQAM where she later founded the group Mobiles to integrate acting and dance. In 1979, the Regroupement Théâtre et Danse, which she developed with Ninon Gauthier, was inaugurated at UQAM, a year after she had founded the collective of independent choreographers Qui danse? with Dena Davida.
Strong, inspired and often rebellious, Françoise Riopelle has always wanted to be free, in action as well as in thought. In 1988, she had refused to take part in the celebrations of the 40e birthday Global denial. “Me, my global refusal, I affirmed it every day of my life. I never stopped dreaming, ”she said on a daily basis The sunten years later, during the 50th anniversary of the manifesto.