Students set sights on Danses Buissonnières
Annual show of choreographic talent could be gateway to a career on professional dance circuit
The end of the fall dance season brings a flurry of end-ofsemester performances by students of Montreal’s college dance academies. Students in Concordia University’s contemporary dance department are performing at the downtown campus this weekend, while next week at Agora de la danse, UQÀM students show their talents in a work created under the direction of choreographer and UQÀM instructor Sylvain Émard. Meanwhile, second- and third-year students at École de danse contemporaine de Montréal, better known by the acronym LADMMI, present performances over an 11-day period starting on Wednesday.
Undoubtedly, some of these young performers have choreographic ambition as well, and will set their eyes on auditioning in the next two months for the 2013 Danses Buissonnières, an annual show of choreographic talent produced by Tangente, the contemporary dance theatre. Tangente is a known quantity in the avant-garde dance world, and for some students Danses Buissonnières could be the gateway leading from academic performances to a career on the professional dance circuit. Although most Danses Buissonnières participants are recent student graduates, there is no requirement that they come out of an academic environment. There’s not even an age limit. Candidates may apply as long as their choreography has never been produced professionally.
This year, Adam Kinner, a musician with little formal dance training, was one of those chosen to show his work, I’m Faking It, in the 2012 edition of Danses Buissonnières, which will present six shows next week over a four-day period.
“We accept self-taught candidates,” said Thierry Huard, 28, a choreographer who was on the jury panel that chose participants from among those who applied, typically about 30 each year.
Two years ago, Huard presented his own work at Danses Buissonni- ères, and the following year became a jury member.
“Adam is a saxophonist and composer, but his type of show dealt with the body and with sensations related to the body, so we were able to include his show as ‘dance,’ ” Huard said.
Like all candidates, Kinner had a 30- to 45-minute interview during which he had to present at least three minutes of an original choreography created specifically for Danses Buissonnières. Excerpts from school projects may also be shown as a way to round out the candidate’s profile. Jury members, who are typically not much older than the candidates, bring their own way of judging candidates.
“Often, it’s an instinctive reaction,” Huard said. “Usually out of 30 candidates, there are one or two whom the entire jury approves. On the rest, we vote. We videotape the auditions and look at the tapes if it comes to a vote.”
LADMMI graduates predominate in this year’s Danses Buissonnières, producing three of the six shows. The collaborative pair of Elise Bergeron and Philippe Poirier will be seen in Alliage composite, Audrey Rochette performs in Cake and another pair, Rosie Contant and Frédéric Wiper, present Rond-Point.
As for the other presentations, veteran dancer and first-time choreographer Kimberley de Jong will be seen in her work Cycle. Vancouver native De Jong has studied in Israel with Batsheva Dance choreographer Ohad Naharin, and during the last several years has danced for Compagnie Marie Chouinard, where she is rehearsal mistress.
The sixth show, 2, is by Annie Gagnon, who graduated in 2009 from Quebec City’s École de danse de Québec. Quebec City’s La Rotonde theatre began staging its own Danses Buissonnières last year. Under an agreement with Tangente, the two theatres send one show to the other’s series. Bergeron and Poirier performed their work in Quebec City last weekend.
This year, Huard noted, Danses Buissonnières has more of the trad- itional notion of dance as movement, as opposed to concept dance or dance-theatre.
“Often tendencies are based on the school,” Huard observed. “LADMMI is based more on movement and physical sensations. UQÀM and Concordia, because they’re universities, are more theoretical.”
However they might approach contemporary dance, the participants in Danses Buissonnières can only be commended for plunging in- to a world whose professional prospects are at best precarious.
“They have a strong desire to create,” Huard said. “It ends up in that.”