History
1989-1994
Since the early 1990s, Danièle Desnoyers has adopted a path of reflection and exploration that both arouses and appeals to the senses. Since her professional dance training at the Université du Québec à Montréal, she has gravitated towards choreographic creation. Her first work, Des héros désaffectés (1986), propelled her to the forefront of the Quebec dance scene. In its early days, Le Carré des Lombes, which she founded in 1989, presented Rouges-Gorges (1989), Mirador-Mi-Clos (1990) and Les bois dormants (1991)— the latter performed in Utrecht, Chatillon and Lille — as well as Ex-Voto (1992). These works derived their force from their restraint, delicacy and sense of mystery. The emotions they elicited sprung from the gestures themselves, almost hand-crafted in effect. Each of these works became favourites with the public. Du souffle de sa tourmente, j’ai vu (1994), created during residencies at Agora de la danse (Montreal), at the Laboratoire du Groupe de la Place Royale (Ottawa) and the Yellow Springs Institute (Pennsylvania), opened the doors to worldwide recognition. In 1995, riding this wave, the company undertook a major tour across Canada, the United States and Europe.
1995-1998
After the Conseil des Arts du Canada awarded her a grant, Danièle Desnoyers travelled to Russia in 1995. She was subsequently invited to undertake a creation residency at the Centre d’Arts Vooruit in Belgium, where she conceived the mood and atmosphere of Discordantia (1997), a synthesis stemming from her impactful encounter with the dissonant, expressive music of Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina. The choreographer here laid the foundations for the elements that would expand her choreographic vocabulary: tumultuous dialogues, clashes between dance and the audio material, competing forces from which evocations of the exterior world would arise. The work made a strong impression at the Festival international de nouvelle danse in Montreal, and then in Japan, where it was presented at the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center as part of the prestigious Theatre Olympics. Danièle Desnoyers was the only Canadian invited to this event, which featured some twenty artists from five continents.
1999-2003
In the late 1990s, the choreographer began to collaborate with sound designer Nancy Tobin, which led to three creations that literally set the body to music: Concerto grosso pour corps et surface métallique (1999), Bataille (2002) and Duos pour corps et instruments (2003).
Concerto grosso pour corps et surface métallique featured five dancers with cleated shoes on a metal-plated stage. Described as “remarkable,” this quintet was awarded a Prix d’auteur by the Conseil général de la Seine-Saint-Denis (France) at the 7th Rencontres chorégraphiques internationales in 2000. This first collaboration led to invitations to the Music Biennale Zagreb (Croatia) and the Kampnagel (Germany) in 2003. Deriving her architectural elements from Baroque music—that of Giuseppe Tartini, in particular—Bataille (2002), the pair’s second collaboration, combined periods and textures and included an on-stage performance by American violinist Malcolm Goldstein. Created during an exceptional residency at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the multimedia project Duos pour corps et instruments (2003) also went well beyond the confines of dance. It had no stage, but rather a space open on three sides, with a visible technical mechanism integrating video fragments, set up near the audience. The performances of three singular female dancers, within three sound stations, unfolded in this intimate setting. The work was presented at the 11th Festival international de nouvelle danse, then at venues and festivals in Germany, Belgium, France, Hungary, Japan and Canada.
2004-2008
Play It Again! (2005) arose from encounters with a musical instrument—the piano—and with Jean-François Laporte, a composer and designer of sound installations, and dramaturge Guy Cools. With echoes from the film Casablanca, the piece appealed to both eye and ear. Dominating a blank space, a piano manipulated by musician Martin Ouellet forms the pivot point for a succession of choreographic fragments that generate a multitude of gestural and aural textures. Danièle Desnoyers drew inspiration from Le roman du piano by Dieter Hildebrandt, which describes the paradox of the instrument: a symbol of the both the greatest virtuosity and the trivialization of music. A sense of play pervades the piece, as it does in her early works. Play It Again! was performed at Agora de la danse (Montreal), the Royal City Theatre (Bruges, Belgium), and the Grand Théâtre de Lorient (France).
At the crossroads of dance, experimental music and the visual arts, Là où je vis, which premiered at the Festival TransAmériques (2008), reveals the troubling mechanics underlying a meticulous orchestration of bodies—bodies which act as translators of the agitation within them, in a space that transforms itself through the interventions of media artist Manon De Pauw. From a luminous worktable on stage, the artist creates a visual and performative dynamic in line with her own artistic practice. Trompe-l’œil effects, optical illusions and other strategies unfold via sequences filmed and projected in real time. The work created quite a stir: at December Dance (Belgium); the Cervantino Festival (Mexico); at events devoted to Quebec artistic creation; in Seville, Grenada and Malaga (Spain), where the company performed for the first time; at the Artdanthé Festival in Vanves; at the Théâtre Onyx in St-Herblain; and the Grand Théâtre de Lorient (France).
2009-2013
In 2009, Danse Danse (Montreal) gave carte blanche to Danièle Desnoyers for the creation of a new piece. The choreographer decided to move away from the multidisciplinary approach of her last few works and re-establish her intimate dialogue with the body. In January 2010, at the Centre Pierre-Péladeau, Dévorer le ciel was unveiled, an evocation of expansion and freedom. In 2012, it was presented at the Sir James Dunn Theatre in Halifax, and was selected by the Conseil des arts de Montréal for a city-wide tour. In the spring of 2013, this work for six dancers began a six-city European tour—in France, Belgium and Holland. To close the season, the company performed at the Guangdong Dance Festival in China.
After residencies at Circuit-Est in Montreal, the Baryshnikov Art Center in New York, the Atelier de Paris-Carolyn Carlson, and TanzWerkstatt in Berlin, Danièle Desnoyers created Sous la peau, la nuit (2012), in association with the Festival TransAmériques. The work’s long, finely textured phrases remind us that dance has the power to fuel the imagination, unfurling its silent score within the music that completes it. Time is distended in a series of choreographic cameos portraying wandering souls of the night. The Conseil des arts de Montréal once again selected the work for a tour of its boroughs. France and Belgium also welcomed the work.
2014-2017
In addition to these activities of Le Carré des Lombes, Danièle Desnoyers completed three commissions: Blue Hour: Stunde der Wölfe (2015), a piece for 12 dancers for the Staatstheater Mainz (Germany), now part of the repertoire of the theatre’s resident company; The Song We Share, a duet featuring Ed Watson, principal dancer of the Royal Ballet of London, and Wendy Whelan, dancer emeritus and former principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, performed at London’s Linbury Studio at the invitation of the Royal Opera House and New York City Center; and For a Quartet
(2016), marking the 15th anniversary of the contemporary dance troupe Mocean Dance (Halifax).
Last but not least, a major premiere was held in 2016: Anatomie d’un souffle, commissioned by the Montreal Symphony (MSO) and co-produced by Danse Danse. This unique work for six performers and a ten-member choir—an extraordinary meeting between contemporary dance and the organ—can be seen as the culmination of a career shaped by a passion for diverse musical aesthetics. Music ranging from the 16th to 21st centuries are here combined with Libera me, an original composition by John Rea performed on the MSO’s Grand Orgue Pierre-Béïque by its organist in residence, Jean-Willy Kunz.
2017—2019
Recreated at Agora de la danse in 2014 to mark the 25th anniversary of Danièle Desnoyers’ career, Duos pour corps et instruments (2003) continued to reinforce the work’s international track record: in recent years it has been featured at the Centre national de la danse in 2015 (Paris, France), the Beijing New Dance Festival in 2017 (China), and the Suzanne Dellal Center in 2019 (Tel Aviv, Israel).
UNFOLD | 7 perspectives, a work for seven performers, made its world premiere at the Festival TransAmériques (Montreal) in the spring of 2019. Pulsating to the sharp-edged soundtrack of composer Ben Shemie, his first collaboration with the choreographer, UNFOLD I 7 perspectives combines an apocalyptic atmosphere with moments of refined gentleness and sensuality. With a surprising stage structure designed by Geneviève Lizotte, Desnoyers tests the resistance of the body and the limits of its equilibrium. A magnetic and powerful duel between diverging forces, the piece enthralls with its finesse and furious energy.
This work benefited from the support of several partners: co-produced by the Festival TransAmériques and created in residence at the Montpellier Danse festival at L’Agora, cité internationale de la danse (France), at Armunia in Castiglioncello (Italy), at the Banff Centre for the Arts, and at Circuit-Est centre chorégraphique, with the support of the Faculté des arts and dance department of the Université du Québec à Montréal.
In line with the work’s creative process, a series of projects were deployed over two consecutive seasons. First, a documentation project developed by Danièle Desnoyers, entitled Ce que la danse ne dit pas, explored the notion of archiving in the performing arts, supported by the Fonds de recherche du Québec: Société et culture. From this project a danced conference was born, in which the choreographer shared not only her own work obsessions, but also those of her dancer-collaborators. Xavier Curnillon produced a full-length recording entitled UNFOLD | Une conférence dansée.
2020-2021
At the beginning of 2020, the pandemic situation compelled Danièle Desnoyers to pursue her research and creation projects in other forms and formats. She first directed a short film, La forêt des lisses on Île d’Orléans, a prologue to the first atypical in situ work of her career.
The choreographer also developed Compagnonnage 21, a system devoted to research in the performing arts, inspired by a horticultural technique transposed to dance. From January to March 2021, she brought together some thirty artists involved in multiple projects of Le Carré des Lombes, alongside other artists in the performing arts. Anne Thériault, a long-time collaborator of the choreographer, was the guest curator of this first edition of Compagnonnage.
The documentary 7 perspectives, directed by Xavier Curnillon in collaboration with Danièle Desnoyers, premiered in March 2021 at the 39th International Festival of Films on Art, and was then screened at the Light Moves Festival in Limerick, Ireland in September 2021. In this film, the choreographer and performers offer emotionally charged insights into the mysteries of creation. In addition, in October 2021, a full recording of UNFOLD | 7 perspectives was presented online at the SIDance Festival in Seoul, and in theatre at the GUNSAN festival.
In the summer of 2021, Danièle Desnoyers worked on the first of her Scénographies-Paysages, a series of in situ choreographic works highlighting the artistic potential of rich and unique natural spaces, inspired by the very essence of the site. In August of the same year an outdoor creation, La Forêt Mixte, was presented by La Rotonde at the Parc maritime du Saint-Laurent on Île d’Orléans. At dusk, spectators and artists took over the strangely beautiful natural dome formed by the Forêt des lisses, where nature has reclaimed the tracts and pathways of a former shipyard. That same summer, Desnoyers created La Véranda at the Jardins de Métis, in a scenic space designed by architect Pierre Thibault. Choreographic interventions took place on all sides, drawing on the rich lexicon that the choreographer has built up over the past 30 years.
2022-2024
In the spring of 2022, Compagnonnage 22 focused on choreographic and interdisciplinary research. Artists Lila Geneix, Jean-Benoit Labrecque and Milan Panet-Gigon were invited to develop and expand their creative projects with the support of Le Carré des Lombes. The choreographer, for her part, devised a research environment in which she explored new rehearsal rituals. In all, some twenty artists took part in this edition.
A new site-specific work in the Scénographies-Paysages cycle, Faunes-Variations, a second invitation from the Jardins de Métis, was created in the summer of 2022 in collaboration with the performers and the Conservatoire de musique de Rimouski. The piece unfolds in an immersive manner. The artists occupy different parts of the gardens, assimilating its spirit in order to blend in. Then, in a more intimate setting, a string quartet and the performers come together for a final celebration of life.
With Montréal-Marrakech, which its world premiere took place at the Montpellier Dance Festival in June 2023, Danièle Desnoyers and the Moroccan choreographer Taoufiq Izeddiou will venture into unknown territory, exploring the fertile yet fragile ground of co-creation. Three creation residencies, staggered over time, will take place in Montreal, Montpellier and Marrakech. Four performers from Marrakech and Montreal, two men and two women, will appear in this atypical work open to otherness, dialogue and exchange.
At the invitation of the Fondazione Nazionale della Danza/Aterballetto in Reggio Emilia, Italy, Danièle Desnoyers created With Drooping Wings, a choreographic work for eight dancers and an ensemble of four musicians. Part of a program entitled Double Side, it features contemporary dance and baroque music. The world premiere of this large-scale performance was held in October 2022 at the Aperto Festival, a multidisciplinary event bringing together the greatest names in contemporary creation.