Réunion.s is a rite with six women from a bygone optimistic era. A meeting point between kaleidoscopic gestures and temporal fractures, their practice carves a cyclical, polyrhythmic path that only sisterhood can withstand. As their cadenced movements collapse intofractal patterns, is this gathered group truly who we think they are?
Chanted spirographs Sorority folklore Quadraphony of gesture Uchronia of the communal Let us gather in quiet strength Look towards the center to better see ahead
Artistic credits
A creation by Marie Béland With: Meihan Carrier-Brisson, Marilyn Daoust, Karina Iraola, Alexia Martel, Dominique Porte and Marilyne St-Sauveur Artistic advisors: Kathy Casey and Sophie Michaud Design: Tiffanie Boffa, Marilène Bastien and Mykalle Bielinski Techical direction: Justin Houde Visual: Guillaume Bougie Riopel Partnerships and residencies: La danse sur les routes du Québec, Espace Le vrai monde…, La Chapelle Scènes Contemporaines, Quai 5160 – Maison de la culture de Verdun Artists who took part in the creation process : Anne-Flore de Rochambeau, Marie Mougeolle, Laura Toma, Mara Dupas
The company is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des Arts etdes Lettres du Québec and the Conseil des Arts de Montréal, and is a member of Circuit-Est centre chorégraphique and Art circulation.
Marie Béland graduated in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree in contemporary dance creation. She then founded her company, MARIBÉ — SORS DE CE CORPS, to support her choreographic work. For the past 20 years, Marie has distinguished herself through works that invite reflection from both young and general publics, and that have been presented in theaters, festivals, private and public spaces in Quebec, Canada, Europe and Africa. Drawing from our different uses of the body and the gestures that make up our daily lives, Marie organizes banal movement to make it danceable and complex. The stage acts to reveal the troubled zones of fiction inverting the true, the false and the plausible. Her creations approach live performance as a social and aesthetic phenomenon, an opportunity to study the transformations that our ordinary bodies undergo in contact with the stage. Marie is also a co-founder of La 2e Porte à Gauche (2003-2018), and is publishing her master’s thesis in 2019 entitled Cartographie de la scène: les forces en jeu dans le spectacle vivant, which seeks to question the object of performance and understand its workings.
Alexia Martel
Alexia Martel completed her training at L’École de danse contemporaine de Montréal (EDCMTL) in May 2012. Through the school, Alexia has been able to immerse herself in the choreographic worlds of creators from here and abroad, including Marie Béland, Marie Chouinard, Daniel Léveillé and Lise Vachon, who will particularly influence her vision of dance. In parallel to her training, Alexia is interested in theatre and the way in which theatre and dance enter into symbiosis. As an interpreter, Alexia currently works with Isabelle Boulanger (La grande fente) and Patricia Gagnon.
A graduated of the Cégep de Saint-Laurent and Université du Québec à Montréal, Marilyne St-Sauveur danced in the works of Marie-Julie Asselin, Marie Béland, Lynda Gaudreau, Frédérick Gravel, Emmanuel Jouthe, OSEZ! /Karine Ledoyen, Dean Makarenko, Andrew Tay and Katie Ward. These projects have taken her everywhere on the Quebec and Canadian stages, but also in the United States, France, England and Belgium. Marilyne has taught dance at UQAM, Collège Montmorency and has taught at the Dance Department of Cégep de Saint-Laurent since 2004. She also works as rehearsal coach in dance and theatre. Thanks to her Ageless Grace certification, she shares her dance with seniors with the company Danse Carpe Diem.
Born in China and adopted into a Canadian family, Meihan Carrier-Brisson begins her life in Quebec and quickly discovers her love of dance in a local dance studio with passionate individuals who will give her confidence to pursue her potential in this vast art form. Meihan starts her journey to become a professional dancer by attending Cégep de Saint-Laurent, where she learns various techniques such as Limon, Graham, Cecchetti, contact improvisation, etc. There, she excels and receives a scholarship fund for her academic performance in the Dance Departement in 2019. Prior to graduating, she makes her way to l’École de danse contemporaine de Montréal where she works with well-known choreographers such as Virginie Brunelle, José Navas, Manuel Roque who will push her towards new creative processes and artistic styles. Alongside her teachers such as Marc Boivin, Marie-Ève Lafontaine & Jamie Wright, she has enriched herself and discovered her love for physicality and form of movement through the dancing body, human psychology and relationships, and mostly music. Meihan takes great interest in cinema, art, and technology and how we can connect these medias and reach interdisciplinary art products. Her open-mindedness to learning new things and desire to challenge herself are some of her motives and inspirations. In the future, Meihan wishes to pursue her path to demystifying her personal and cultural identity, carry on growing and blooming as a dancer and as a human whilst sharing her love for movement and art.
Marilyn Daoust is a performer and creator in dance, theater and everything in between. After graduating in dance interpretation from UQAM (2011), she now works as both a dancer and actor, depending on the project. She has worked with Manon Oligny, Louise Bédard, Marie Béland, Angela Konrad, Jessica Poirier-Chang, Julie Artacho, Liliane Moussa, Jean-François Guilbault, Théâtre I.N.K., Julien Blais, Daina Ashbee, Lucie Grégoire and Cirque du Soleil. Since 2016, Marilyn has signed multiple theatrical choreographic commissions each year, most recently “Je t’écris au milieu d’un bel orage” (2023) and “Le Misanthrope” (2024) at the TNM. With Gabriel Léger-Savard, she wrote “Le temps des fruits” (Intégrale en Sélection Nationale de RIDEAU 2022 et 2023, and on tour 2022-24) and “L du Déluge”, a play with 12 performers on stage (Théâtre La Chapelle, 2022). She co-created “Material Relations” with Anna Stamp, in Aarhus and Copenhagen (Denmark, 2020 and 2021). Marilyn recently began research for the play “Vivaces” during a month-long residency in Brussels (2023). Finally, she had the honor of being the Quebec artist selected for a 2-month residency between Bassano del Grappa (Italy) and Montreal, thanks to CALQ, Circuit-Est center chorégraphique and Centro per la Scena Contemporanea (2023). She is currently a “accueil de luxe” artist at Théâtre Aux Écuries (2023-25).
Karina Iraola spent some time at the Ateliers de danse moderne de Montréal (École de danse contemporaine de Montréal). She then pursued her training as a performer through various contemporary dance, flamenco and theater workshops (Ateliers Danielle Fichaud and René Gagnon Formation d’acteur). She has danced for Rae Bowhay, Pierre Lecours, Patricia Iraola, Manon Oligny, David Pressault, Lynda Gaudreau, the BBT collective, David Rancourt and Virginie Brunelle in the Mandala Sitù company, Brice Noeser and Lara Kramer, among others. In recent years, she has also pursued her own career as a choreographer. She has presented her work at Studio 303, Tangente, Festivalissimo, Maisons de la culture de Montréal, Festival Vue sur la relève and MAI. She has also worked as an actor and dancer for the Pas de Panique company, for the children’s company Le Moulin à musique, and for playwright and director Hanna Abd El Nour.
Dominique Porte
Based in Montreal since 1989, Dominique Porte has developed her work as a choreographer by pushing back the limits of expression through the music of the body. Initially recognized as a virtuoso performer with Compagnie Marie Chouinard, her career has also been marked by choreographers William Douglas, José Navas and Kim Itoh. Imbued with an organic, animal, sensory approach as much as with architectural work in form, it was from her experience as a performer that her own choreographic identity was born. Fascinated by nature and the human condition, Dominique Porte’s creations mainly explore themes linked to communication, relationships with others, identity and the perception of the senses.
Artistic Director of Montréal Danse since 1996, Kathy Casey works as a dramaturge with choreographers who are rethinking, redefining and reworking what is dance. Through a process of deep questioning of performance and the body, she encourages bold ideas and discovering ways to express them and give them form. She also organizes and facilitates an annual choreographic research workshop, runs research labs and facilitates or co-facilitates dance and interdisciplinary dramaturgy workshops. In addition to her responsibilities with Montréal Danse, Kathy Casey works as an artistic advisor for several independent choreographers in Montreal.
Sophie Michaud began her dance career in the early 1980s. After exploring dance through the means of interpretation and choreography, she made her own the profession of «repeater». By juxtaposing graduate studies (UQAM) and praxis, she deepened her reflection on the role she plays alongside choreographers and dancers. For more than 20 years now, she has worked as an artistic advisor, choreography assistant, rehearsal director and mentor. His main engagements include long collaborations with the companies Cas Public, Manon fait de la danse, Sinha Danse, Corpuscule Danse and Bouge de là. In addition, he collaborated with Lucie Grégoire Danse, Fabrication Danse, maribé – sors de ce corps, Caroline-Laurin Beaucage and Catherine Gaudet, to name a few. At UQAM, she has assisted several teachers and has accompanied many students in their creative process to the baccalaureate, the master’s in dance and the doctorate in artistic practice. Since 2008, the Regroupement Québécois de la Danse has entrusted him and David Pressault with the training program for emerging choreographers. This involvement is one of the actions she favours to renew her practice and contribute to the evolution of the discipline.
Marilène Bastien has designed sets, costumes and props for theatre, circus and dance. After almost six years stage managing the international tours of La compagnie Marie Chouinard and La compagnie O Vertigo, she became a steady collaborator of Ginette Laurin in 2011, creating sets and costumes forLe sacre du printemps(CCN – Ballet de Lorraine and l’Opéra National de Lorraine) andKhaos(O Vertigo, 2012), as well as costumes forSoif(O Vertigo, 2014). She is also a close collaborator of choreographer Manuel Roque with whom she has worked since his first creation. She is part of the creative team of the festival Montréal Complètement Cirque and in the summer of 2015 she created costumes for the homage to Beau Dommage,Le monde est fou, a Cirque du Soleil production directed by Jean-Guy Legault. She has recently participated in creations with directors Michel-Maxime Legault (Ce que nous avons faitby Pascal Brullemans), Kristian Frédric (La vraie vie de Gennaro Costagiolaby François Douan andJazby Koffi Kwahulé) and Bernard Meney (Je ne tomberai pas – Vaslav Nijinski, an adaptation of Vaslav Nijinski’s Journal).
Mykalle Bielinski
As a singer, multidisciplinary artist, composer, sound designer, author and producer, Mykalle has now been creating at the crossroads of music and live arts for over a decade. Specialized in vocal performance, her work blends song, music, poetry and ritual gestures. Her trilogy on the sacred (2015–2021) consists of three musical performances that place the artist’s voice at the heart of a spiritual journey: Gloria (2015), a 360-degree solo multimedia opera, Mythe (2018), a mystical ceremony for five voices, and Warm up (2021), an ecological ritual in which the artist generates her own power. Since her graduation as a performer from l’UQAM’s École supérieure de théâtre in 2011, she has composed and performed for over fifty theatre, dance, film and podcast projects. She also worked as a radio commentator, lent her voice to various productions (7 doigts, Cirque du Soleil), and wrote Mythe, précédé de Gloria, a book of poems published at Les Éditions du passage in 2021. So far, she has performed all across Québec, Canada, and in Europe.
Tiffanie Boffa
As a performing artist, set and lighting designer, Tiffanie Boffa uses her multiple resources to create living, sensitive spaces. She began her career in dance, performing for Kimberly de Jong, Benoît Lachambre, Laura Acosta and Chloé Bourdages-Roy. After a few years, she developed a particular interest in set design. With a degree in Theatre Design (Concordia University, 2019), she creates lighting designs for dance and theater. She has worked with Jon Lachlan Stewart, Cathia Pagotto, Youtheatre and choreographers Erin Robinsong, Sybille Hanna Müller, Brice Noesser, George Stamos and Katya Montaignac. She collaborates with other lighting designers such as Paul Chambers, Hugo Dalphond and Cédric Delorme-Bouchard.
