La femme ovale - Jannick Houle
For more than thirty years, Louise Bédard has woven together her career as a performer and choreographer. After her time with the Groupe Nouvelle Aire, where she trained and gained her first professional experience as a dancer, she collaborated on the creations of several Montréal choreographers and artists. Recognized for her stage intensity and her ability to enter into choreographic worlds with commitment and passion, she received the Jacqueline-Lemieux Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts.
In 1990, she founded her own company, Louise Bédard Danse. The solo Cartes postales de Chimère (1996) propelled her into the spotlight and, together with Dans les fougères foulées du regard (1995), earned her the Jean A. Chalmers National Dance Award. Her choreographic work, which highlights the central role of the performer in the creative process and the interaction between generations of artists, addresses themes such as otherness, identity, belonging, and femininity. This is exemplified in the restaging and transmission of Cartes postales de Chimère (passed on to Isabelle Poirier and Lucie Vigneault), nominated for the Grand Prix of the Conseil des arts de Montréal in 2016 with Série Solos.
Attentive to social issues, she created La Démarquise (2016 and 2017), echoing society’s views on age, women, and generations. In 2015, she met Catherine Gaudet, who created for her a solo unfolding over three works, the last of which, Tout ce qui va revient, was presented at La Chapelle in spring 2018.
Co-founder of Circuit-Est centre chorégraphique, Louise Bédard strives to bring dance to life through performance, creation, and transmission.
JURY NOTES
The jury wanted to highlight the interpretive work that Louise Bédard accomplished in this solo, which offered us a precious moment. It also wished to acknowledge her ability to engage in dialogue and collaborate with artists from various backgrounds throughout a long career that is both honest and remarkable. It highlighted the finesse, rigour, openness and curiosity of this artist – down to her fingertips – a dancer with an emotional presence whose work as a performer remains both current and timeless.
Angelo Barsetti
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