Dance featured Fine Arts

Star-studded Danse Danse season showcases contemporary dance from around the world

Danse Danse is the finest showcase for contemporary dance in Montreal and their much-anticipated 2016-2017 season features 11 productions, from renowned international companies to young and exciting choreographers.

Flamenco icon María Pagés stars in Yo, Carmen
Flamenco icon María Pagés stars in Yo, Carmen

Danse Danse kicks off their 19th season at Place des Arts with the great María Pagés, international icon of flamenco. In her piece Yo, Carmen, Pagés is accompanied by eight dancers and seven musicians as she transcends the famous character of Bizet’s opera. Yo, Carmen runs from Sept. 29 to Oct. 1 at Salle Wilfred-Pelletier at 8 nightly.

Next up are Puerto-Rican-born New York dancer and choreographer Bryan Arias (Oct. 11 to 15); and the virtuoso dancers of the Nederlands Dans Theater, back in Montreal after a 20-year absence (Nov. 1 – 5), to perform three pieces nightly, including In the Event by choreographer Crystal Pite, well-known to Montreal audiences.

Dance duo Tentacle Tribe presents Fractals of You (Nov. 15 to 19),  New York rising star Michelle Dorrance reinvents cabaret in ETM: Double Down, featuring tap dance and interactive electronic music technology, with eight dancers and three musicians playing live (Dec. 1 to 3). Then the Batsheva Dance Company, founded in 1964 by the Baroness Batsheva de Rothschild and current company-in-residence at the Suzanne Dellal Centre in Tel Aviv, returns with Last Work, a piece by acclaimed dancer and choreographer Ohad Naharin (Jan. 19 to 21, 2017).

One of this season’s must-see Danse Danse shows is the world premiere of sensational choreographer Dave St-Pierre’s Suie (Feb. 1 to 11, 2017), inspired by Joan of Arc and which looks sure to blow audiences away with eye-popping production values and staging, including an inclined stage.

Revered British choreographer Akram Khan returns for his sixth visit to Montreal (March 17 to 25, 2017) to present Until the Lions on the circular stage of the TOHU. Until the Lions is about the Princess Amba who invokes the gods to seek revenge after being abducted from her marriage ceremony and stripped of her honour, and combines the traditional Indian dance form of Kathak with contemporary dance.

shay_kuebler_telemetry_danse_danse
Shay Kuebler combines dance, martial arts and theatricality in Telemetry

The strapping young dancers of Ballet BC (pictured at top) return to Montreal to perform three pieces nightly, including Solo Echo by choreographer Crystal Pite (April 5 to 8, 2017); and Edmonton-born choreographer Shay Kuebler combines dance, martial arts and theatricality in Telemetry (April 18 to 22, 2017), performed by Shay Kuebler Radical System Art, the company he founded in 2014.

Last but not least, Danse Danse closes the season with Flemish choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, the contemporary dance icon who will present her 2001 masterpiece Rain, performed by her company Rosas at Theatre Maisonneuve (May 4 to 6, 2017).

For Danse Danse tickets and information, visit www.dansedanse.ca.

All photos courtesy Danse Danse.

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Richard Burnett
Dubbed “Mr. Montreal” by CBC Arts, Richard “Bugs” Burnett is an arts and culture journalist and columnist. He is also a pop culture pundit on radio and television. His pioneering column Three Dollar Bill is the only syndicated LGBTQ column in Canadian publishing history, and is now conserved in The ArQuives, the largest independent LGBTQ archive in the world, and he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Chambre de Commerce LGBT du Québec at their 2019 Prix Phénicia Gala. Bugs has interviewed everybody from Cher to Justin Trudeau, got the last-ever sit-down interview with the late James Brown, and knows his hometown like a drag queen knows a cosmetics counter. Tourisme Montréal says, “As Michael Musto is to New York City, Richard Burnett is to Montreal.”
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