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What extra might be stated of dance artist Louise Lecavalier that has not already been recorded?
Through the 80s and 90s, the Montréal-born Lecavalier was arguably essentially the most well-known Canadian modern dancer on this planet. Her declare to fame was being the lead dancer in Edouard Lock’s idiosyncratic, ground-breaking dance firm, La La La Human Steps, a darling of European presenters. As muse to Lock, Lecavalier, a singular picture along with her muscular, compact physique and punk androgyny, fearlessly carried out the mind-boggling, explosive feats of physicality that the choreographer showered on her.
Lecavalier reached worldwide stardom as a visitor on David Bowie’s Sound + Imaginative and prescient Tour in 1990. She additionally appeared within the pop star’s music video Fame ’90. After leaving Lock in 1999, she labored independently with different choreographers and theatre artists, together with Canadian greats like Tedd Robinson and Crystal Pite. Lecavalier fashioned her personal firm, Fou glorieux, in 2006, for the creation of works tailor-made expressly for her. Alongside the best way, she tried her hand at choreography.
To honour her distinguished profession, Lecavalier was introduced with the Order of Canada in 2010, and, in 2014, she acquired Canada’s most prestigious prize, the Governor Basic’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Creative Achievement.
Now on the astonishing age of 64. Lecavalier continues to be going sturdy. When her acclaimed solo present Stations opens tonight at Harbourfront’s Fleck Dance Theatre for a three-day run, she will likely be performing her personal choreography in a present that has been known as her most private work to this point.
David Bowie works with Edouard Lock, Louise Lecavalier, and La La La Human Steps in 1988:
The Q&A
Lecavalier and I met by Zoom and had an in-depth dialogue in regards to the dancer’s life and occasions, and naturally, Stations.
What retains the inventive drive so alive in you?
It’s all a counter-balance. I can see magnificence on this planet, and that’s what provides me the will to enter the studio. Exploring motion makes me really feel so good. I’m so fortunate to be concerned in one thing so lovely. I ask questions, and regardless that I discover not so good solutions, I hold looking out.
What’s it wish to be a 64-year-old dancer?
My reminiscence of what I may do at 20 is selective. I’m not goal in regards to the previous. I by no means say that I can’t do as a lot as I as soon as may. Reasonably, I say I’m doing issues otherwise. My physique hurts however it’s a distinct sort of ache. In actual fact, my physique is as alive as my ideas. There may be an vitality and a fireplace that’s inside me. There’s something inside my abdomen that burns.
Are you able to describe the 18 years you spent with Lock?
I’m a inventive artist and so is he, and we grew collectively. He would give me steps and I needed to interpret them, to make them work. You need to be true to a choreographer, however you may as well be inventive in your individual interpretation, and that’s what gave me essentially the most enjoyable.
Once you left Lock in 1999, you left the stage, and didn’t reappear till 2003. What did you do throughout these years?
I did workshops and grasp courses, however most significantly, I gave start to twin daughters who are actually 22, and so they reside upstairs within the duplex. Their father is a jazz musician.
I believed I’d by no means have children. It was such a humorous concept to me, though I all the time appreciated them. For instance, among the Lock dancers had youngsters with them after we had been on tour, and I all the time obtained together with them, besides close to showtime. Then they might make me nervous and I didn’t need them round. That each one modified after I had my very own children.
What made you resolve to turn out to be a choreographer?
It occurred by chance. In 2006, Benoît Lachambre had created a solo on me, and I phoned him about doing a duet collectively. I used to be used to choreographers giving me steps, however Benoît refused to do it, so within the duet Is You Me (2008), we every created our personal half, and motion simply poured out of me. This gave me the braveness to create So Blue that premiered in Düsseldorf in 2012, and Benoît was the muse that made it occur.
Let’s discuss Stations, the dance you’re bringing to Toronto. What’s the piece about?
There are 4 stations throughout the piece, and every corresponds to a selected theme that I discover in motion — fluidity, management, meditation, and obsession. I could begin with one thing, however I don’t essentially finish there. Stations is a chunk that simply grew by itself. I see it as representing a cycle.
I started with the medieval mystic Marguerite Porete. In 2018, the Montreal theatre firm UBU was creating a chunk about her known as Les Marguerites. They envisioned presenting her life in three components utilizing a dancer, an actress, and a younger lady. Marguerite wrote a guide known as The Mirror of Easy Souls, which the Church deemed heresy, and he or she was burned on the stake in 1310. Throughout her trial she remained silent and by no means defended herself. After the play, I felt there was good materials right here, and so I continued my very own analysis. Marguerite was somebody I needed to pursue. She impressed the primary station.
I perceive that music performs an enormous half in Stations.
In actual fact, I needed a musical world that was a robust blast of assorted musical inspirations.
For the second station, I fell in love with American saxophonist Colin Stetson and knew I needed to do one thing along with his music. The third station options songs from the joint album by two Montreal teams — Jerusalem in My Coronary heart (digital experimental Arabic folks music), and the rock band Suuns. The final station is a mixture of Colin Stetson and the collaboration between Italian Teho Teardo and German Blixa Bargeld, whose music is taken into account German industrial. A few of the songs on this station have phrases.
Antoine Berthiaume composed the music for Station One, and in addition organized the soundtrack.
That’s fairly a mixture of inspirations.
These 4 sections got here collectively as a result of issues are a lot extra linked than we predict they’re. As people, we’re not only one factor; we’re made up of many aspects. The 4 phrases that signify the stations usually are not the one issues within the piece. It’s extra advanced than that. As a dance work, Stations speaks otherwise to me at completely different occasions, and can converse otherwise to completely different individuals as properly.
In your prime as a dancer, you dazzled along with your outstanding physicality and technical wizardry. What’s your choreography like, since you’re creating for your self?
My choreographic language evolves out of my motion analysis. I’d describe it as energetic, fluctuating, stuffed with contrasts, deserted however managed, a unusual motion of opposites, and all pushed to the furthest restrict.
I have to level out that after I’m exploring motion by improvising to music, I inevitably find yourself with completely different music for the precise piece. I discover it a aid to play with music. It’s a sensual expertise that lightens the dance. It provides me an explosion of enjoyment
Similar to I used to be with Edouard, I hold the choreography the identical in efficiency, however discover my liberty inside it. A dancer ought to by no means be sloppy. Precision is necessary throughout the interpretation. I may by no means improvise inside a choreography, as a result of I’ve to go deep into one thing that’s established. That’s the liberty of dance that I really like.
It’s onerous to separate the dancer from the choreography. I name myself an artist. Every little thing in my life is blended collectively. My artwork and my youngsters are all one factor. I’m unified and never fragmented, On stage, I’m giving all of it — all that I’ve — and I dance as I reside. Every little thing is in my dance.
You debuted Stations in 2020 at tanzhaus nrw in Düsseldorf. Plainly Europe performs an enormous half in your profession.
It all the time has, proper from the Lock years. I tour principally to Germany and France, but in addition Spain, Italy and London — and, in fact, Canada. The USA, nonetheless, stays blocked. I miss Japan, however I’m not grasping for locations. If I’ve 25 bookings, I think about {that a} good yr.
I think about tanzhaus to be a second house to me, and I’ve premiered a number of items there. I really like the best way the viewers is seated so that everybody can see. The director may be very considering my work. Our relationship started after I despatched him a textual content and a few footage of a piece that wasn’t even completed, not to mention named, and he took it for his program.
My routine is to make a piece after which tour it. I’m at the moment creating a chunk with director/clown François Bluin to debut in Düsseldorf in 2024.
I do know you’ve a particular affinity for Toronto.
I really like showing right here as a result of Toronto audiences all the time obtained what Edouard was making an attempt to do. Whereas I take pleasure in creating new audiences, it’s nice performing in a spot that is aware of your historical past. There’s a continuity. The viewers is aware of the place the piece comes from. They perceive the trail of creation.
- Stations opens tonight at Toronto’s Harbourfront, with performances till the twenty fifth. Tickets and extra data [HERE].
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Paula Citron is a Toronto-based freelance arts journalist and broadcaster who hosts her personal web site, paulacitron.ca. For over 25 years, she was senior dance author for The Globe and Mail, affiliate editor of Opera Canada journal, arts reviewer for Classical 96.3 FM, and dance previews contributor to Toronto Life journal. She has been a visitor lecturer for numerous cultural teams and universities, notably on the position of the critic/reviewer, and has been a panellist on COC podcasts. Earlier than assuming a full-time journalism profession, Ms. Citron was a member of the drama division of the Claude Watson Faculty for the Arts.
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