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Jardins suspendus | Installation immersive et danse aérienne

August 25 to 28, 2022

Jardins suspendus

Jardins Suspendus

An immersive installation incorporating contemporary and aerial dance, Jardins suspendus surrounds you with its verdant stage where dances that use every inch of Place de la Paix are performed. This interdisciplinary work created by Claire Jeannot and Geneviève Lauzon explores human connections and invites us to get to know each other through sharing and the poetry of movement.

An immersive installation incorporating contemporary and aerial dance, Jardins suspendus surrounds you with its verdant stage where dances that use every inch of Place de la Paix are performed. This interdisciplinary work created by Claire Jeannot and Geneviève Lauzon explores human connections and invites us to get to know each other through sharing and the poetry of movement.

In the daytime, immerse yourself in this ephemeral world, as the installation beckons you to stroll through a tree woven from clothing and listen to the secrets it tells. By night, the space is home to characters who awaken in a strange, dreamy microcosm where there are relationships to build. Suspended, fragmented, dense: the performers’ movements are built on a communication system unique to them. While bonds form all around, approach and become part of the emerging connections.

The project is presented by the Quartier des Spectacles Partnership, the Conseil des arts de Montréal and the National Theatre School of Canada.

Jardins suspendus
Installation immersive et danse aérienne

From August 25 to 28, 2022
Immersive installation: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Two performances per night: 6 pm and 7:30 pm

Place de la Paix, Quartier des Spectacles
Free

A cultural outreach initiative

In the summer of 2022, the Jardins suspendus team invited Montrealers to participate in the creation of sound files for use in the project’s interactive audio installation. Cultural outreach workshops focusing on revealing nonverbal language in everyday life were held in two sections. Through movement, participants were asked to take a poetic look at their daily activities and think about the emotions and sensations inspired by human contact.

The workshop leaders first used several exercises to explore movement in relation to the project’s choreographic research, with the aim of awakening each participant’s senses and creative spirit. The workshops were punctuated by group discussions and brainstorming, giving participants the chance to share words and stories that encapsulate their experiences. Next, they recorded testimonials about their lived experience. Their voices became the foundation of this rich, human and inclusive audio work. In all, around 40 people from 18 to 75 years of age, from a variety of sociocultural backgrounds, participated in creating audio materials in French, English and Spanish.

THE CREATORS

Geneviève Lauzon

Geneviève is a dancer, choreographer and teacher who holds a bachelor’s degree in contemporary dance from UQAM. As a performer, she works with the Sursaut company, whose works for young audiences have been presented across Canada and internationally. She is a versatile artist who also works with choreographers Julie Lebel (Foolish Opérations), Philippe Meunier and Ian Yaworski (Les Archipels), Marie-Pier Gilbert and Julie Tymchuk (Projet HELMUT) and Philippe Dandonneau, on stage and in situ projects alike. She has excelled in pieces featuring contemporary dance, urban dance, contemporary jig, jazz and dance-theatre on several Montreal stages, including Tangente Danse, Festival Quartiers Danses, ZH Festival, Phenomena, Vue sur la relève and Tangente Danse Buissonnière.

As a choreographer, Geneviève has a passion for in situ art, and has undertaken a reflection on the artist’s relationship with the performance space and the audience. Such questions are central to her projects, such as Moi | ioT, a duet presented in Quebec and France (Jouer Dehors, Festival Quartiers Danses, Maison du Québec in St-Malo). Since then, she has advanced her approach and research on public space with À l’aube d’un geste, created in collaboration with the urban art collective Le Pictographe, and the roving performance Connexions Momentanées, of which she is co-artistic director with Marie-Pier Gilbert. Since 2007, she has also specialized in coordinating and creating choreography for large-scale events involving hundreds of participants (Festival Juste pour Rire, Terra Karnaval, Montreal 375, Fête nationale). Geneviève works with several vocal ensembles (Les petits chanteurs de Laval, Les Enchanteurs) as a choreographer and director, using creation as an educational tool to democratize dance through another artistic medium.

Claire Jeannot

Discovering new dreamworlds and, through movement, sharing them with everyone. Dancer and choreographer Claire Jeannot has let words be her guide since her university days. Since completing her bachelor’s degree in dance (performance option) at UQAM (2015), she has continued to refine her technique and artistic sensibility while travelling far and wide. From France (bachelor’s in Art and Culture) to Italy (Art Factory International program) to Australia, where she presented the performance installation Here, Elsewhere at the Adelaide Fringe Festival (2019), Claire has remained committed to kinesthetic empathy as a vehicle for sharing and communication.

As a little girl, she loved climbing trees, and so she was eager to enter the world of vertical or aerial dance on walls in 2021. Armed with a wealth of experience in floorwork, improvisation, somatic methods, ballet and yoga, she embarked on new creative endeavours as co-artistic director with Geneviève Lauzon in 2022.

Her work is ambivalent, featuring ethereal gestures and yet firmly anchored in its environment. It was presented at the visual arts exhibition Fatale Art in 2021, Livart in 2018 and the Festival des Arts de Ruelle (FAR) in 2020 and 2021. At the latter festival she received the CDA prize (2020) and RAR prize (2021). She has also been a performer, including for Compagnie Le Black Hole — Art chorégraphique (LBH) in Montreal since 2015, for the projects of Chloé Bourdages Roy in 2017 and for Claudia Chan Tak in 2018. She is the co-choreographer of Corps Communs (LBH), presented at the St-Ambroise Fringe Festival in June 2022.

Claire is inquisitive and passionate, and she quickly embraced in situ performance. The approach intensifies the artist’s presence in the moment and builds connections with the audience. She also works in cultural outreach through her administrative position with Agence CAPAS and the U_ne École montréalaise pour tous_ program with Système D/Dominique Porte in 2022.

“Aiming to create a poetic alteration of urban space, we see the site as a living being that transforms and unburdens itself to the beat of human and natural activities. In combination with our desire to democratize dance, we play with spatial arrangements and focus on the installation’s playful side.”
Geneviève Lauzon and Claire Jeannot, co-artistic directors and choreographers.

THE CALL FOR PROJECT

Jardins suspendus is the result of a call for proposals issued in January 2022 in collaboration with the Regroupement des Arts de Rue (RAR). The call was aimed at giving creators the chance to develop and present an artistic performance intended for public space. The Quartier des Spectacles Partnership, the Conseil des arts de Montréal and the National Theatre School of Canada made a commitment to working with the winning collective on the creation and presentation of its work. The project is the second edition of an annual street arts initiative aimed at developing the discipline and giving it exposure.

COMPLETE CREDITS

Artistic directors: Claire Jeannot and Geneviève Lauzon

Choreography, in collaboration with the performers: Marie-Ève Dion, Myriam Foisy, Marie-Pier Gilbert, Mathilde Heuzé, Claire Jeannot, Geneviève Lauzon, Natacha Viau

Scenography (art installation): Le Pictographe (Manon Guiraud and Charlotte Gandin)

Audio installation: Andrew Beaudoin

Wardrobe: Roxanne Bédard

Music: Thomas Floquet (TSF)

Artistic consultant, aerial dance: Mélissa Collelo
Rehearsal director: Lucie Vigneault

Rigging: Crew That (show) and Andrew Mitchell (rehearsal)

Stage Manager: Élisabeth Bergeron

Production Coordinator: Élisabeth Bergeron

Presented by the Quartier des Spectacles Partnership, the Conseil des arts de Montréal and the National Theatre School.

PHOTOS AND VISUAL ASSETS

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The Partners

ABOUT THE COLLECTIVE

Geneviève Lauzon and Claire Jeannot are both graduates of UQAM’s undergraduate dance program. Their careers have combined creation, performance and project management. Their inquisitiveness and desire to share their passion have led them to a wide variety of places and experiences. Geneviève has worked in both contemporary dance and large-scale multidisciplinary performing arts, such as Le Grand Bisou (Juste pour rire) and Montreal’s 375th anniversary celebrations, where audiences were in close contact with monumental works. For her part, Claire enjoys playing with space and gravity, which has led her to present small-scale works at the Festival des arts de ruelles (FAR), in an orchard, and at the Adelaide Fringe Festival. In her works, body, discovery and performance respond to each other through dance. Since both developed an in-situ approach to dance that focuses on human connection, they decided to bring their worlds together for this very first collaboration. Jardins suspendus is a story of encounters.

ABOUT THE QUARTIER DES SPECTACLES AND THE QUARTIER DES SPECTACLES PARTNERSHIP

The Quartier des Spectacles is Montreal’s cultural heart, boasting North America’s most concentrated and diverse group of cultural venues. Year round, the district is home to countless festivals and events, and hosts innovative urban installations involving cutting-edge lighting design, immersive environments or interactive digital spaces. The Quartier des Spectacles is a showcase for new multimedia technology, making Montreal a global leader in the urban exhibition of digital content.

The Quartier des Spectacles Partnership, founded in 2003, is a non-profit organization with more than 85 members active in the district. It is responsible for animating the Quartier des Spectacles by programming cultural activities, managing and animating public spaces, providing distinctive illumination and promoting the Quartier as a must-visit cultural destination. The Partnership benefits from the support of the Ville de Montréal.

More information: quartierdesspectacles.com

ABOUT THE CONSEIL DES ARTS DE MONTRÉAL

A dynamic partner of artistic creativity in Montreal, the Conseil des arts de Montréal identifies, supports and recognizes excellence and innovation in the creation, production and presentation of professional artistic endeavours. It encourages openness, discovery and daring at the heart of Montreal’s artistic landscape, thanks to its initiatives. Since 1956, the Conseil des arts de Montréal has been an influential player in the development of “Montreal, Cultural Metropolis.”

More information : artsmontreal.org

ABOUT THE NATIONAL THEATRE SCHOOL OF CANADA

As a global leader in theatre training, NTS shares its expertise and resources with a broad and diverse community of Canadians to ensure that the performing arts continue to play an important role in society.   To serve the evolving needs of Canadian theatre, NTS:

Provides incomparable training in French and English to actors, directors, playwrights, designers and production specialists to prepare them to work in professional theatre;

Delivers a broad range of community programs in order to make theatre more accessible to all Canadians.

More information: theatretraining.ca

Press Release

Jardins suspendus | A new work combining immersive installation and aerial dance
08.08.22

Blog

Making connections with Jardins suspendus
18.08.22

MEDIAS RELATIONS

Mélanie Mingotaud
Communications Mingotwo
melanie@mingo2.ca
(514) 582-5272