Jacques of all trades

>> Dancer, choreographer and composer
Jacques Poulin-Denis mixes his disciplines

SET TO EXPLODE: Poulin-Denis

by MARITES CARINO

It’s hard to wear many hats. Just ask interdisciplinary artist Jacques Poulin-Denis. Composer, dancer, choreographer, actor… When people ask him what he does, his response: “I usually say I’m a composer.”

Poulin-Denis has a bachelor’s degree in electroacoustic composition, and is also a co-founder of Ekumen, an artist collective and label devoted to music and sound art that celebrates its two-year anniversary this month.

“I’ve had a lot of practice organizing music. It’s a lot like that with choreographing material,” says Poulin-Denis, drawing a link. “It’s about organizing movement and pacing, creating an abstract story, a pathway, qualities and then contrasting them.”

Last summer, he was hand-picked to become Studio 303’s artist in residence, which gives an emerging talent 10 weeks of creative space to explore and create. “He’s at a point in his career where he’s about to explode,” says Studio 303 associate director Lys Stevens.

His piece ‘DORS,’ which he calls an “immersive project,” emerged after brainstorming, collaborating and improvising with a dozen participants. The work showcased Poulin-Denis’s playful creativity and versatility and threw the audience into the dark while toying with the ideas of night, insomnia and dreams. Poulin-Denis will resurrect the piece in San Francisco next spring with an all new cast in collaboration with the Dandelion Dancetheater.

“‘DORS’ feels like my big baby. It represents me in many different disciplines that co-exist. It feels like I’ve touched on something that’s fundamental in my art,” he explains. “I don’t want it to be labelled as a dance piece. To me, it feels like a music piece. I felt like a composer.”

Poulin-Denis, originally from Saskatoon, studied music and theatre in a French high school and discovered dance later on as a way to improve his acting skills. He then decided to head to Montreal to continue his studies in French.

It’s a busy winter for Poulin-Denis, the composer, who’s finishing up two commissions. One for O Vertigo’s reviving of La Chambre Blanche, set to premiere in Germany in March, and another for former O Vertigo dancer Mélanie Demers.

Then he’ll be packing his dancing shoes, as he’s heading off to tour with Demers in her theatrical dance duet Les Angles Morts. Lastly, in acting mode, he’s currently working on a one-man show Moi, cible de Dieu that’s about “fate and personal delusion.”

Keep an eye out for this Jacques-of-all-trades who’s sure to make his mark this year.