Theatre a la Sauvage
Concordia Choreographers Put their Personalities on the Stage
Eleven students from Concordia’s Contemporary Dance program joined forces this year as Le Collectif de Danse l’Analogie to present RECIPROK, their debut show this week at the Festival St-Ambroise Fringe Montreal.
Concordia’s Contemporary Dance program is exclusively geared toward choreography, making it a unique experience for students coming from diverse backgrounds.
Students bring experience from the performing arts, competition dance, circus, break dancing, visual arts and creative writing, to name a few. These overlapping areas of study offer rich opportunities for creating together and sparking ideas.
The spark that ignited RECIPROK was a deceptively simple analogy made by Michael Montanaro, Associate Professor and Chair of the Dance Department, using a water bottle. If you saw the Fringe-for-All, you saw the physical manifestation of this analogy about choreography.
At the Fringe-ofor-All the dancers reflected the movement of water bottles, which were rolled, thrown and spilled according to suggestions called out by the audience! The dancers illustrated that choreography becomes lifeless when too heavily controlled and exciting when control is “let go” mentally and physically.
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(Left to Right) Michaela Gerussi, Carolann Shea, Linnea Gwiazda, Amelie Lemay Choquette, and Sophia Wright
For RECIPROK, working collectively means negotiating the ideas and instincts of five choreographers and six dancers. With the exception of a few pieces, all of the choreography presented in RECIPROK has been in development since September 2010.
It’s a valuable opportunity for the young artists, one which has deepened their individual work, allowing invaluable outside feedback and personal reflection to inform and change the show.
“This is not a recital or a showcase,” said 3rd year choreography student Linnea Gwiazda. “Our personalities come out in our show. We’re people performing, not simply performers.”
The team has found confidence in working together, and performing in the Fringe gives them the self-confidence to create projects in the future.
Michaela Gerussi sums it up when by saying, “I think we’ve created a world. We’re a team, always changing and flowing. We know each other and you can see that.”
Four heads nod enthusiastically in agreement. Expect talent, heart, hard work and personality!
RECIPROK opens at the Montreal Fringe Festival Saturday, June 11 @ 5:30pm & offers six shows total. Tickets are $11 [$9 students and seniors].
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