Artistic Direction and Choreography : Louise Bédard
Dance : Annebruce Falconer
Choreographic remontage : Marc Boivin, Ken Roy
Costume, Make-Up and Photography : Angelo Barsetti
Lights : Jean Gervais
Music : Robert Marcel Lepage, Frédéric Chopin
Remixing and Soundscape : Michel F. Côté
Running Time : 50 minutes
A Louise Bedard Danse production
Ex-Libris was created in February 2005 at Théâtre La Chapelle. About fifteen representations took place between February 2005 and June 2007 in Montreal, St-John's and Toronto.The inspiring AnneBruce Falconer, one of the most renowned virtuoso dancers on the contemporary Canadian scene, was at the birth of the Ex-Libris project. When she expressed to Louise Bédard her desire to experience the perils of the soloist for a first time, the choreographer gave her carte blanche to the collection. From the heart of this repertoire, AnneBruce Falconer chose two magnificent solo works:
Männgard
Commissioned by dancer Marc Boivin and inspired by his own text, Männgard premiered in 1993 as part of a program produced by Danse-Cité. The critically acclaimed work was toured extensively during the years that followed and helped to forge Marc Boivin’s reputation as an exceptional interpreter.
Cascando
Commissioned by Ken Roy in 1999, Cascando was presented as one of the works in a Danse-Cité program devoted entirely to Chopin. The work won its dancer, Ken Roy, an award for artistic interpretation. Cascando has been performed many times since, notably in Lebanon during a festival held in Beirut in May 2004.
Imagined for the bodies of male dancers, Männgard and Cascando are revisited in Ex-Libris from a new perspective — reinvented — because these two choreographies now meet a new body, that of a woman. Ex-libris was recreated with the collaboration of Marc Boivin and Ken Roy, the two original dancers. Louise Bédard also gathered around her some of the most solid artistic collaborators in Montreal — Jean Gervais, Angelo Barsetti and Michel F. Côté.
The passing on and safe-guarding of traces of a dance can sometimes be laborious: video archives leave us with only an image, and one that doesn’t always justly serve a live performance art like dance. Books allow us to put in words the memory, emotions, and theories, so that we can pass on knowledge and ideas. The artistic process behind Ex-Libris lies partly in the transmission of knowledge, one not always palpable: the body’s memory. Working in total complicity, the two original dancers, Marc Boivin and Ken Roy, transmitted the choreography to AnneBruce. When the dancer’s role is so intimately entwined in the work’s elaboration…