NEW CREATION:
aSH, a piece by Aurélien Bory for Shantala Shivalingappa
MARGIE
GILLIS
DANCE
FOUNDATION
© Michael Slobodian
" My approach to dance is based on listening to the connection between spirit and body that transmits the information as to how, and with what quality to move."
– Margie Gillis
“One doesn’t come across the flamelike intensity of a dancer like Margie Gillis too often. A celebration of the life of the senses.”
- Anna Kisselgoff, The New York Times
©Laurent_Paillier
Internationally acclaimed choreographer and dancer Margie Gillis’ art has spanned five decades, breaking norms and inspiring people along the way. In 2023, Margie Gillis celebrated 50 years of creation and dance, with a repertoire of more than one hundred works. She launched the Legacy Project (2015), an initiative dedicated to transmitting Margie’s concepts of creation, teaching and humanitarian vision. Her numerous awards and distinctions include the Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award from the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award. She is also Knight of the Ordre national du Québec and Officer of the Order of Canada. In 2020, she received an Honorary Doctorate degree from Concordia University in recognition of her extraordinary contributions to modern dance, teaching and activism as one of the most influential dancers and choreographers in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Sasha Onyshchenko
Sasha Onyshchenko
Sasha Onyshchenko
Sasha Onyshchenko
LITERATURE OF THE BODY- 2023
MODERN-CONTEMPORARY DANCE
Choreographer | Margie Gillis
With The Dancers of The Legacy Project
Lighting Director | Pierre Lavoie
Dancers | Geneviève Boulet, Alexandra Caron, Marc Daigle, Caitlin Griffin, Tessa Rae Kuz, Ruth Naomi Levin, Kyana Lyne, Hoor Malas, Susan Paulson,
Alisia Pobega and others…
Music | Azam Ali, Loga R. Torkian
Text | James Joyce from Ulysses
Excerpts read by | Geneviève Boulet, Gaétan Leboeuf, Siobhan McKenna
and Jim Norton
Costumes | Rose and Original costumes from Margie Gillis’ Archives as well as eclectic costumes by Sonya Bayer and Margie Gillis
Lighting Design | Pierre Lavoie
Lighting Assistant | Öykü Onder
DURATION 75 minutes (including a 15 minutes intermission)
CREW 8 to 10 dancers +1 choreographer + 1 technician
+ 1 administrator
SET-UP 15 hours
STAGE DIMENSIONS
Width13m / Depth 9m / Height 6.1-7.3m
Width 30ft / Depth 24ft / Height 20ft
AUDIENCE SIZE Small, medium and large venues
OUTREACH
- Talkbacks
- Workshops with Margie Gillis and other Legacy Project dancers
- Conference: Conversations with Margie Gillis
VIEW TECHNICAL RIDER ( French )
Sensual and evocative movement that guides us into embracing our humanity. Under Margie Gillis’ artistic direction, the Legacy Project dancers reunite to bring you a poetic and somatic, impactful program.
Through two group works, the audience is treated to the inner workings of our soul’s journey, while shining a spotlight on the poetry that resides in the art of dance. The fi rst faces the hard truth that 1/3 of the world’s population are refugees and that number is expected to explode with Climate change. The second is from the world of James Joyce, who wrote the inner workings of a woman; Molly Bloom. Her world, her community, and her husband all start off in traditional gender but what follows is a river run of gender mixing.
Notions of vulnerability, forced social change, loss and disruption, and the joy and sensuality of life, all feature in this assemblage of works.
“Inner visions embodied by sensuous physicality, revealed with searing honesty and poetic passion."
© Melika Dez for the FQD
© Melika Dez for the FQD
THE PULL OF THE SEASONS - 2022
MODERN-CONTEMPORARY DANCE
CHOREOGRAPHY: Margie Gillis in collaboration with the performers
DANCERS: Geneviève Boulet, Alexandra Caron, Marc Daigle,
Tessa Rae Kuz, Ruth Naomi Levin, Hoor Malas, Susan Paulson,
Alisia Pobega
MUSIC: Rhiannon
LIGHT DESIGN: Pierre Lavoie
DURATION 60 minutes
CREW 10 dancers + 1 choreographer + 1 technician + 1 administrator
SET-UP 15 hours
STAGE DIMENSIONS
Width 13m / Depth 9m / Height 6.1-7.3m
Width 30ft / Depth 24ft / Height 20ft
AUDIENCE SIZE Small to large venues
OUTREACH
- Talkbacks
- Workshops with Margie Gillis and other Legacy Project dancers
In this playful and boisterous new work, Margie Gillis celebrates Nature. A call from the heart to her home province of Quebec, where each season unfolds fiercely, each one more vibrant than the next and shaping who we are. Add into the mix, a long and fruitful collaboration with renowned improvisational singer Rhiannon. Working between their homes in Montreal and Hawaii, Margie also drew her inspiration from ‘Big Island’. Here Nature is personified and honored. Pele, the Goddess of volcanoes, dance, and fire, and creator of the Islands, is the symbol of life. And so, this joyful, angry, fragile, formidable, loud, and precious piece was born.
Nature is embodied by 10 dancers and an improvisational singer; all flying and flowing through the stage to offer us both a delicate and rambunctious, dazzling landscape.
An ode to life and to Nature in all its dimensions, where wit and audacity come together in a poignant performance.
“We are all Nature.”
- Margie Gillis
© Sasha Onyshchenko
© Sasha Onyshchenko
HISTOIRES D'ISOLEMENT - 2021
MODERN-CONTEMPORARY DANCE
CHOREOGRAPHY: Margie Gillis in collaboration with the performers
DANCERS: Geneviève Boulet, Alexandra Caron, Marc Daigle,
Tessa Rae Kuz, Ruth Naomi Levin, Hoor Malas, Susan Paulson,
Alisia Pobega
MUSIC: Sebastian Zawadzki, Marie Uguay, Eugene Friesen
LIGHT DESIGN: Pierre Lavoie
DURATION 60 minutes
CREW 7 dancers + 1 choreographer + 1 technician + 1 administrator
SET-UP 15 hours
STAGE DIMENSIONS
Width 13m / Depth 9m / Height 6.1-7.3m
Width 30ft / Depth 24ft / Height 20ft
AUDIENCE SIZE Small to large venues
OUTREACH
- Talkbacks
- Workshops with Margie Gillis and other Legacy Project dancers
Created during Covid with the Margie Gillis Dance Foundation Legacy Project dancers. These solos and duets spring from the challenges, joys, and foibles of the uncertain world of the pandemic.
The dancer’s lives were the starting point for each of the works. Subjects explored were: isolation, overwhelming responsibility, the desire to help others, searching for deeper strength, being in suspended time, exploding with frustrations, the insistent passion of spring and new growth, finding the gentle heart, yielding and vulnerability.
The need to dance was essential to us. The moments fl owed out of us with urgency. Margie codifi ed them into ‘crystals’ or ‘poems’, that reveal
the essence of our individual and collective lives during the pandemic. The need to know and reveal this ‘New world’ through experiential wisdom was achingly deep.
“Breathtaking - Wild - Compassionate - Masterwork”
WHERE TO SEE MARGIE GILLIS
DANCE FOUNDATION
NEXT
Bloom by Margie Gillis, April 29 & 30, 2023, St. Jeans Theater, New York, USA