Taking the pretext of new appointments to the Order of Arts and Letters of Quebec, THE Duty invites you into the imagination of artists whose exemplary work promotes culture.
“When I was seven, I started taking dance lessons. Dance, there was simply nothing on Earth that made Lucie Boissinot happier. However, with hindsight, she realizes that the music, on the scale of its absolute values, should have prevailed over the dance. “Music seems to me the supreme art form. While dancing, I was first impressed because a pianist there was playing in front of us. He was playing to make us rehearse. Music, performed for me, so I can dance! Can you imagine yourself? I was transported! »
Lucie Boissinot bathed in music. His father, a doctor in Quebec, especially loved classical music. The magic of music, of great music, she will find to combine with the movements of her own body, in a delight that still inhabits her. “I’m still passionate about music. »
His life, very early on, will be orbited around dance. Dance will be the point of both gravity and balance of his entire existence. Ludmilla Chiriaeff, the founder of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, expected a lot from Lucie Boissinot. “Oh, I loved that woman so much! I did what I could to meet his demands. In Quebec, where she studies, the exams for young dancers are taken in front of Mrs.me Chiriaeff. The great lady of dance travels specially from Montreal to come and examine her protégés. “At the time, we had teachers who came to us. »
From 1979 to 2003, Lucie Boissinot was a professional dancer. She danced for a long time for the Grands Ballets Canadiens de Mme Chiriaeff. However, classical ballet was ultimately only a portion of her long life as a dancer. At the time of her maturity, Lucie Boissinot was also a major performer for several renowned troupes, including the Jean-Pierre Perreault Foundation, the Toronto Dance Theater and the company Danse Partout. She left a strong and captivating image by becoming the embodiment of worlds projected into space by choreographers such as Harold Rhéaume, Catherine Tardif, Tedd Robinson or Luc Tremblay.
The excitement
At the age of 20, she discovered the effervescence of modern dance. “I was intoxicated, yes, completely intoxicated by this freedom, by this movement that modern dance allowed. These forms, driven by the emotions of new choreographers, entered the world of ballet, to its greatest joy. “There were 52 of us at the Grands Ballets Canadiens. It was the soloists who danced that…” Lucie Boissinot realizes that it is possible for her to experience other joys, even greater joys, perhaps, in modern dance.
At the same time, very early on, she saw teaching others as a natural extension of her own movements. “It gave me a new distance. To teach, I had to look at what I was doing differently, in order to better understand it. In any case, I was spontaneously interested in training young contemporary dancers. Yet I was still an interpreter. »
She will be a teacher at the École de danse de Québec, in the dance departments of UQAM and Concordia University. It is also found in Manitoba, on the side of the School of Winnipeg Contemporary Dancers. Then, in 2005, he was offered to take over the management of the dance school Montreal Contemporary (EDCM).
A good part of Lucie Boissinot’s career will have been entirely devoted to teaching, to transmission. “A lot of time was spent building the programs, setting up the teaching, organizing trips. The work to be done is enormous. She feels good about the fact that this is her last year as director of EDCM. “I’m very proud of what I did there. I am proud that we were able to live our passion as a community. People who come out of school work everywhere. They are redefining dance. Oh, you have no idea how proud I am of them! »
A new formation
The EDCM has existed since 1981. It is the first reputable establishment in Quebec to train high-level dancers outside the framework of classical ballet. Its director, for years, was a former interpreter of the Grands Ballets Canadiens. And her successor starting this summer, Lisa Davies, is also a former performer with the same ballet company. Is there salvation outside of classical training? Lucie Boissinot smiled softly.
In his view, classical ballet no longer imposes itself, and for a long time, as an obligatory passage for anyone who wants to dance. It would be a mistake to believe otherwise. “When I was a young dancer, there was really no alternative. Now there are. It is indisputable. Yes, in his opinion, “there are many other ways than classical ballet to train young people in dance”.
As proof, more than 160 candidates from all over took part in the École de danse contemporaine once again this year. Only 25 were selected following a rigorous process. “Many come from Quebec, but also from France and Switzerland. The EDCM has demonstrated, during trips to France, Switzerland and Morocco, what we can offer. Many young people also want to extricate themselves from a culture that is too formatted. They want to know something else. For a young artist to be able to bring something new, he must first be able to know himself as an individual, believes Lucie Boissinot. “Young people now know their own field of personal virtuosity. »
To date, the EDCM has trained more than 400 graduates on its floors, including several now well-known names, such as Clara Furey or Mélanie Demers. Each year, around twenty new performers, choreographers and dance artists are trained. “We train artists so that they have the tools to integrate into the world of dance and redefine it themselves. We are constantly in the contemporaneity”, explains Lucie Boissinot.
A necessity
Why, in his eyes, does dance remain necessary, again and again? She smiles. His eyes shine. She does not hesitate to answer me. For her, this performing art seems perhaps more current than ever, at a time when the world delights in an enticing virtuality, laced with streams of words.
“Dance speaks to us of essential things, but without words. Already, there is something original and unique there. She lets strong images take hold of us. It is an expression out of time, outside of what is currently experienced in Western societies. If only for that, she believes, dance still promises a lot in a world where artifice too often supplants depth.
The artifices of the digital, as a rule, add very little to the fundamental emotion aroused by the dance. “Dancing, in its essence, is enough. In other words, the reign of dance is self-sufficient. You just have to know how to find it, she believes. “I’ve seen very few alliances with the digital arts that take me to the guts. Sometimes, in the cinema, a few amazing productions manage to produce a very strong effect. » Virginie Brunelle, with an experimental film like reminiscencesmade “unbijou”, says Lucie Boissinot.
It is true, however, that since the pandemic, people have traveled less to see shows. It seems to him that society exposes itself in this way too easily to a drying up that a relationship to dance can, at least in part, come to fill. “To appreciate dance, with rare exceptions, I remain convinced that you must first move. As a general rule, nothing to date makes it possible to experience the strongest propositions of this art other than by lending oneself in good faith to the game of attending them. »
Lucie Boissinot smiled again. Slowly. Dance taught her, she says, throughout her life, “a renewed relationship to the body” which she still enjoys. And for the dance, she drops, she will always be there, she insists.