September 17, 2003 -

OTTAWA -- Compagnie Marie Chouinard inaugurates the National Arts Centre's 2003-2004 Dance season when it performs Étude #1 and Chorale in the Theatre of the NAC on Friday October 3, 2003 at 20:30. An invigorating and original choreographer, Marie Chouinard, "a virtuoso innovator of the primeval", presents an exhilarating body of powerful dances to audiences worldwide. Marking the 25th anniversary of her choreographic career, Chouinard views dance as a sacred art and the body as a vehicle of that art, inventing striking new universes for each work. It is no exaggeration to say that Marie Chouinard has revolutionized contemporary dance. Étude #1 and NAC co-production Chorale - in its North American premiere -- both speak her radically idiosyncratic language of unusual, erotic, primal movement. These works lift the lid off of contemporary Canadian dance.

Étude #1, a solo in five parts created for dancer Lucie Mongrain, transforms the dancer's body into a pretext for a series of dislocated, convulsive, undulating movements accompanied by the sounds of cleated shoes and orchestrated in real time processed sound by composer Louis Dufort.

"Étude #1 is a virtuosic solo … an incredibly raw performance. It's half an hour inside a dancer's skin in which the choreographer has blurred the lines between performing and existing.."

Susan Walker, The Toronto Star

In Chorale, a new work of pure dance for 10 dancers, Marie Chouinard creates a festive universe around the notion of sexuality and divinity; corporal and vocal individuality is pushed to the limit of personal expression, where voice and movement are inseparable. This series of transcendent solos, duets and group movements offers a unique perspective on the human body in a series of situations that are intense, tender, humorous and profoundly human.

Always a surprising and provocative choreographer/dancer, Marie Chouinard's richly diverse body of work has firmly established her reputation as a contemporary artist. After 12 years performing as a soloist around the world, in 1990 she founded the Compagnie Marie Chouinard in order to develop a repertoire of group choreography. To Marie Chouinard, everything can be viewed in terms of a classical structure, and every culture has its own way of understanding the body, which itself has a boundless intelligence. As raw material Marie Chouinard employs muscle, bone, flesh and the instinct and life force of the dancer's body, revealing the intimate connections that bind them together. Gesture and movement convey meaning, becoming shared yet slightly different phonemic sounds, the expression of an idea anchored in body and form, a reflection of the dancer's soul. The dance is rooted in the organs, cells and energy of the dancer. A veritable wizard who celebrates the body and its inner life, Marie Chouinard and her Creators orchestrate the component elements, capturing all their secrets so that the dance reveals coded and ever-changing light and sounds hurtling through space with vigorous, incandescent movement.

Compagnie Marie Chouinard performs Étude #1 and Chorale in the Theatre of the National Arts Centre on Friday, October 3, 2003 at 20:30. Tickets are $40, $37 and $29, and $21, $19.50 and $15.50 for students (upon presentation of a valid student ID card). Tickets are available at the NAC Box Office (in person) and through Ticketmaster (with surcharges) at (613) 755-1111; Ticketmaster may also be accessed through the NAC's web-site at www.nac-cna.ca. Last-minute tickets (subject to availability) for full-time students are $9.50 at the Live Rush Centre in the NAC Foyer after 18:00 on the day of performance only, upon presentation of a valid 'Live Rush' card.

For additional information, visit the NAC website at www.nac-cna.ca Photos for all dance events can be viewed and downloaded at: www.nac-cna.ca/media/

Information:
Gerald Morris
Marketing and Media Relations,
NAC Dance Department
(613) 947-7000, ext. 249
gmorris@nac-cna.ca

MARIE CHOUINARD
The international reputation of the Compagnie Marie Chouinard stems from nearly twenty-five years of work by the Montreal artist. A fixture on the world's major stages and festivals, the Company has its roots in Marie Chouinard's first creation in 1978, a solo entitled Cristallisation. This work, which immediately established her originality and integrity, was followed by some fifty choreographies, action-performances, vocal works and installations, in which she refined her unwavering interest in formal research and the mysteries of the human body in all its aspects.

From 1978 to 1990, Marie Chouinard performed alone on stage, travelling throughout the world, absorbing various cultures, techniques and philosophies which she would transform into a personal language with universal resonance. After twelve years as a soloist, she retired from performing and founded Compagnie Marie Chouinard in 1990. In the more than a dozen works she has created since then, the choreographer has succeeded in communicating to her dancers the urgency, power and sensibility that characterized her own performances. She has also invented formal structures from which a deep and primordial humanity emerges to touch the imagination. By exploring the body's secret intelligence and inexhaustible complexity, by developing perfectly conceived formal constructions in her quest for truth and beauty, Marie Chouinard evokes the fragility of the human species within the cosmos, along with the unalloyed joy of being alive.

Her first group choreography, Les Trous du ciel (1991), was acclaimed in Canada, the United States and Europe. Critics and public alike felt the same intensity of her solos, heightened by the numerous dancers. "Les Trous du ciel, the delicate fruit of immense labour, whose compositional lines are invisible, belongs first and foremost to the art of poetry" (Le Devoir, Montreal). The Rite of Spring followed in 1993, set to music by Stravinsky, which from 1994 on would be performed in a dual program with L'Après-midi d'un faune, to the music of Debussy. With its evocative power and visceral energy, the program had a huge impact: "... One of those rare performances that shook me deeply, in body and spirit" (China Times, Taiwan). In 1996, the Company created L'Amande et le Diamant in which Marie Chouinard continued her research on the links between sound and movement. "The fascination created by this monumental and extremely dense work is almost boundless" (Le Devoir, Montreal).

Created in 1998, Les Solos 1978-1998 provided an opportunity to re-examine Chouinard's passionate and rigorous path: a retrospective of nine works created and formerly performed by Marie Chouinard during her solo period, along with two new creations. "Each choreography is a miniature masterpiece of precision and a delightful span of intelligence" (Danser, Paris). "Chouinard builds powerful art from the tension between transgressiveness and artful structures" (The Village Voice, New York).

Again in 1999, Marie Chouinard combined solos, duets, trios and group movements in 24 Preludes by Chopin, in which she displayed her ease working within a classic structure and exploring subtle states of mind. "... A dynamic of absolutes, filled with discoveries" (d'Land Kultur, Luxembourg). Le Cri du monde was created in 2000, and would henceforth be presented with 24 Preludes. A study of morphological division, this deeply moving work stems from architectural observations of the body, probing the forces and tensions within us. "Le Cri du monde is a masterpiece. Chouinard appeals to the intelligence of the body and her aim has never been so sure. A triumph for Marie Chouinard and her extraordinary troupe" (The Globe and Mail, Toronto).

Marie Chouinard has received several awards for her outstanding contribution to the world of dance and the arts in general. In 2000, she earned a Bessie Award in New York for her works as a whole. She received the Paper Boat Award in Glasgow for The Rite of Spring in 1994, the Jean A. Chalmers Award in 1987, and the Prix Jacqueline-Lemieux in 1986. Marie Chouinard participates regularly in conferences and round tables, in addition to conducting workshops.

Several productions of the Compagnie Marie Chouinard remain in repertoire and the company receives invitations from the world's most prestigious theatres and festivals. Some of these have become faithful partners, including the National Arts Centre and the Dance Canada Festival in Ottawa, the Festival international de nouvelle danse in Montreal, the Joyce Theater in New York, ImPuls Tanz in Vienna, the Biennale in Venice, and the Julidans Festival in Amsterdam.