by MARITES CARINO

It's been a rough year for the dance community. First off, the official going under of the city's once renowned Festival international de nouvelle danse (FIND) left a perceptible hole in the scene, as there was zilch in the way of festivals to replace it. And then, more recently, we had the shutdown of company La Fondation Jean-Pierre Perreault.

Maya Ostrofsky, one of the 32 dancers who embarked on a tour of Perreault's landmark piece Joe says, "The company went out on a limb, as there's never been a tour of that size in Quebec's modern dance scene." The ambitious tour left the company in financial tatters, but dancers decided to continue performing without pay and are still owed money. "In the wake of the FIND going under last year," says Ostrofsky, "there's a sense in the dance community that our structure is falling apart and we have to do something about it." So more than a month ago, the group sent an open letter to the government in a call for help. Still no response.

But is there hope? Dena Davida, artistic director of Tangente thinks so. "I'm more optimistic than most people," she admits. "There's an awful lot going on in the future of dance and I'm meeting a lot of extraordinary graduates." Like emerging artist Ghislaine Doté who used kung fu movements as inspiration for her impressive, succinct solo, Performance, for which she composed both movement and music.

And back in the spring, former O Vertigo dancer Marie-Claude Rodrigue made a move into a choreographic phase of her career by sharing her love of tango in Palestra Tanguera, an imaginative duo featuring Rodrigue and Mélanie Demers. Here, the pair took classic tango moves as a base, but creatively morphed them into movements that stepped beyond that clichéd sultry strut for two.

November marked a month of blockbuster shows, including Wim Vandekeybus's brash two-hour epic Blush, which bombarded the audience with uncomfortable situations, like the opening, where a woman attempted to make love with her partner as he snored away, oblivious. And Montrealers hit the road to Ottawa to witness Pina Bausch's light-hearted Masurca Fogo, which elicited the following reaction from my neighbour: "This is the worst thing I've seen in my life!" While I contentedly stuck around, his seat remained empty after intermission.

The pleasure is theirs

On a smaller scale, it's a treat when you sense performers are genuinely enjoying themselves. That was the case in Bâche, a playful sextet by Dutch choreographer Koen Augustijnen, who concocted a quirky mix between traditional and modern. Throughout the work, a wandering minstrel type sung works by Henry Purcell, while dancer-actors addressed the theme of fear and masterfully sucked us into their world of highs and lows through a medley of movement from the circus arts, improvisation, breakdance and modern dance.

Taiwanese company Cloud Gate Dance Theatre proved to us that tai chi can go beyond the park in their performance of Moon Water. Despite an unexpected crescendo of coughing followed by nervous giggles as the curtain went up, all attention immediately shifted to the stage where dancers masterfully moved using their unique combination of training in tai chi, ballet, meditation and modern dance and delivered a fluid, breathtaking performance mirrored in shimmering, muted reflections.

To a reflection of the past, Les Petites Sociétés was both a homage and a retrospective linking a dozen duets taken from Jean-Pierre Perreault's impressive lifetime repertoire. The moody piece showcased dancers in fleeting moments of meetings and departures while gently playing with shadows and light. Looking back at the beauty of that piece, however, triggers a jarring contrast with the hardships the company is undergoing currently.

What would Jean-Pierre think of all these problems, anyway? "It's a question that makes me very sad," says Ostrofsky. "He's probably rolling in his grave. It's only been two years since he's died, the building is shut down and we don't know for how long. But we'll see, if it's something that will wake us up, it's not a loss."