Shake it to make it

Inner geographies, animal emotions
and sexual discovery make their mark

DANCING FROM THE INSIDE OUT: Dévorer le Ciel

by MARITES CARINO

After weeding through a weighty stack of press releases, here’s a shortlist of dance picks to pull you through to the spring.

Danse Danse opens their winter season with a new work by local choreographer Danièle Desnoyers and her troupe Le Carré des Lombes. Her latest intimate sextet Dévorer le Ciel takes a peek inside her dancers’ inner geographies, Jan. 14–16, at Centre Pierre Péladeau (300 de Maisonneuve E.).

The same weekend, Tangente (840 Cherrier) welcomes 2010 with dynamic choreographer-dancer Dana Michel, whose touring duet, 1976, will morph each time it stops in a new city. Michel will collaborate with a local dancer and composer in each place—for the Montreal edition, she’s working with dancer Ashlea Watkin and electronic music producer Montag.

At the end of January, Margie Gillis and invited artists take the stage for Filatures a new choreography that looks at what binds us together, and the threads that make up our lives. It’s at Agora de la Danse (840 Cherrier), Jan. 28–Feb. 6.

A clash of musical genres was the inspiration behind Dominique Porte’s latest, Ulysse, nous et les sirènes. The quartet, in which Porte dances, was born of a meeting of jazz and opera. The show will include live performances by mezzo-soprano Isabelle Ligot and local chanteuse Nadine Medawar, Feb. 3–6, Cinquième Salle at Place des Arts (175 Ste-Catherine W.). Roadkill by Brisbane collective Splintergroup takes the Cinquième stage a week later (Feb. 10–13) and continues the popular Australian dance series that started last fall. If you’re a fan of thrillers and contemporary dance, this show’s for you. The collective closes the Aussie contemporary dance line-up with a psychological work that introduces us to three characters whose car breaks down in the middle of the Australian outback.

Furry feelings

Fans of Brussels-based American choreographer Meg Stuart and her company Damaged Goods will be happy to know that she’s back this winter with her newest creation, Do Animals Cry, Feb. 24–27 at Usine C (1345 Lalonde). Stuart, whose work is often love-it-or-hate-it, dances in her theatrical sextet that zooms in on the ins and outs of the family unit with a tad of twisted humour, melancholy and nostalgia. New York-based dance-theatre troupe the Nature Theater of Oklahoma, a quartet that deconstructs everyday movement, presents Poetics: A Ballet Brut at Usine C, April 15–17.

Vancouver choreographer Wen Wei Wang, who uses elements from Chinese opera, ballet and contemporary dance, closes the season with what is bound to be another visually engaging creation. Wang’s starting points for Cock-Pit, are his vivid memories of living with four other boys while he studied dance in China, during the time when they were discovering their sexuality. Four men, one woman and long, wispy feathers are part of Wang’s world that touches on male bonding, violence and desire at Agora de la Danse, April 21–24.