Choreography and Artistic Direction: Marie Chouinard
Dancers at creation: Marie-Josée Paradis, Mathilde Monnard, Daniel Éthier, Dominique Porte, Pamela Newell, José Navas, Jeremy Weichsel
Dancers today: Valeria Gallucio, Leon Kupferschmid, Lucy M. May, Michael Nameishi, Mariusz Ostrowski, Carol Prieur, Gérard Reyes, Dorotea Saykaly, James Viveiros, Megan Walbaum
Music: Signatures sonores, Rober Racine, 1992, 12 minutes
The Rite of Spring, Igor Stravinsky, 1913. By arrangement with Boosey & Hawkes, Inc., publisher and copyright owner, 35 minutes
Lighting and set design: Marie Chouinard
Costumes: Vandal
Props: Zaven Paré
Make-up: Jacques-Lee Pelletier
Hairstyles: Daniel Éthier

Touring Crew
Rehearsal Director: Ami Shulman
Tour Manager: Marie-Pier Chevrette
Technical Director and Lighting Manager: Jean-François Bernier
Stage Manager: Noémie Avidar
Sound Engineer: Maxime Lambert

A COMPAGNIE MARIE CHOUINARD production, co-produced with the National Arts Centre (Ottawa), the Festival international de nouvelle danse (Montréal) and the Kunstentrum Vooruit (Ghent, Belgium).

The COMPAGNIE MARIE CHOUINARD wishes to thank the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des Arts de Montréal.

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www.mariechouinard.com

In Marie Chouinard's work, The Rite of Spring occupies a special position. In choosing to reexamine this powerful hymn to life, she has created her first choreography based on a musical score. Igor Stravinsky's. The Rite of Spring explores a New World and marks the entry of dance into modernity. In this avant-garde work, Marie Chouinard again finds an original pulsation that is essential to her movement. Far from contradicting the rhythm of her dance, the cadence and force of the music inspire, accompany and energize her, forming both the echo and the musical counterpoint of an organic, vigourous and vivid choreography.

For Marie Chouinard, all forms are the movement through space of a specific vital energy. Unlike previous choreographers working with Stravinsky's piece, she constructed her Rite around solos, seeking to awaken in strong, clear movements the intimate mystery of each dancer.

" There is no story in my Rite", she explains, "no development, no cause and effect. Only synchronicity. It is as if I were dealing with the very moment after the instant life first appeared. The performance is the unfolding of that moment. I have the feeling that before that moment there was an extraordinary burst of light, a flash of lightning."

In 1978, Marie Chouinard presented her first dance work, Cristallisation, establishing her reputation as a highly original artist driven by the need for authentic communication. This first piece was followed by thirty unforgettable solos, including landmarks in contemporary dance of the past 30 years: Marie Chien Noir (1982), S.T.A.B (Space, Time and Beyond) (1986), and Afternoon of a Faun (1987).

In 1990, the soloist-choreographer founded her own company. Since then, the COMPAGNIE MARIE CHOUINARD has performed over 1000 times throughout the world and has participated in the most prestigious international festivals. Chouinard’s works are performed by dancers of exceptional talent, such as Carol Prieur, named Dancer of the Year, 2010, by Tanz magazine, a leading reference in the world of contemporary dance, and Lucie Mongrain, the fabulous solo performer of Etude No. 1 (2001).

Always visually compelling, the work of Marie Chouinard reflects her deepest concerns as an artist; dance is to be approached as a sacred art and virtuoso performance; each new work must invent and explore an whole new universe.  Her raw material is not only muscle, bone and flesh, but also the aura, instinct and throb of life in the human body, an inexhaustible intelligence.

In addition to choreography, Chouinard sometimes designs the scenography and lighting for her pieces, and photographs them. Her multimedia and visual creations include Cantique No. 3, an interactive installation with Louis Dufort, and Icônes, a video installation with Luc Courchesne), as well as a film (bODY_rEMIX / gOLDBERG_vARIATIONS, based on the dance work of the same name).

Appointed Officer of the Order of Canada in 2007, Marie Chouinard has received numerous awards recognizing her contribution to the world of dance and the arts:  Prix du Québec and Prix Denise-Pelletier  (2010);  the Imperial Tobacco Foundation Arts Achievement Award (2010), established to recognize "sustained artistic excellence and innovative achievements of a Canadian arts organization.” Marie was also appointed a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres from the French Ministry of Culture. Marie Chouinard’s name entered the Petit Larousse illustré in 2010 and appears in the 2011 edition of the Dixel.

The COMPAGNIE MARIE CHOUINARD has co-produced its creations with top names in the arts world, including the Venice Biennale, the ImPulsTanz-Vienna International Dance Festival, the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, the Fondazione Musica Per Roma in Rome, the Festival TransAmériques at Place des Arts in Montreal, and the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. One of its best-known works, The Rite of Spring, created in 1993, is still performed today. In 2008, 24 Preludes by Chopin, created in 1999, was introduced into the repertoire of the National Ballet of Canada (Toronto) and, since 2010, Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun (1994) has been performed by the São Paulo Companhia de Dança.

Since 2007, the company has occupied its own work space, Espace Marie Chouinard, in Montreal. There, in 2009, after a twenty-year absence from the stage, Marie Chouinard returned with her solo morning glories :)-(: In 2008, Chantier des extases, a collection of her poetry, was published by les éditions du passage. The book was followed in 2010 by COMPAGNIE_MARIE_CHOUINARD_COMPANY, a superb volume illustrated with numerous colour photos, highlighting two rich decades of creation, culminating in the company’s most recent work, THE GOLDEN MEAN (LIVE).

Rober Racine studied literature, art history and film at the Université de Montréal. His works have been presented in numerous galleries and museums in Canada, the United States, Europe, Australia and Japan. He exhibited his works at the Sydney Biennial in Australia (1990), the Venice Biennial (1990), and at Documenta in Kassel, Germany (1992). In 2001, the National Gallery of Canada mounted a retrospective of his works. He has published the following novels: Le Mal de Vienne (1992), Là-bas, tout près (1997) and L’Ombre de la terre (2002); a short narrative: Le Dictionnaire (1998), and a dramatic text: Le Cœur de Mattingly. In 1999, he was awarded two prestigious Canadian awards: the Prix Ozias Leduc and the Prix Louis Comtois for the body of his work. Rober Racine has collaborated with Marie Chouinard since 1978.