Residencies and creation

Artists in Residence

Time and space to create. A veritable incubator for the creation of new contemporary dance works, Agora de la danse welcomes a number of artists throughout the year to its Montreal studios for residencies of one, two or more weeks, an opportunity for them to explore new dance ideas, workshop choreography with collaborators and polish technical aspects of their pieces. This support is the cornerstone of an ever fertile and innovative dance milieu.

Associate Artists

Long-term, supportive partnership. Artists make themselves at home at the Agora in a long-term residency (2 or 3 years), receiving support throughout the process of creating a new work. In return they contribute to the dance milieu and to audience outreach activities (mentoring, workshops, open rehearsals, etc.).

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La 2e Porte à Gauche

For the past decade, La 2e Porte has been a platform for dance that is open to the community. The company specializes in artistic research and development, and its adventurous projects question forms of representation in favour of collaboration with other artists, so as to rethink how the spectator relates to dance. Managed by Marie Béland, Frédérick Gravel, Katya Montaignac and Aude Watier, La 2e Porte à Gauche brings together several creative artists to explore new production models and new spaces for performance and presentation.

www.la2eporteagauche.ca

© Julie Artacho – La 2e Porte à Gauche

Daina Ashbee

A Montreal-based artist, dancer and choreographer, Daina Ashbee received the 2016 CALQ Award (best dance piece of the year) for When the ice melts, will we drink the water?, as well as the Prix de la Danse de Montréal award in the Discovery category for Unrelated. Her work is often influenced by her Cree, Métis and Dutch heritage and her experiences as a young woman, and makes use of both contemporary and traditional means of expression. Most notably, her work has been presented by the Global Alliance against Female Genital Mutilation (Switzerland 2015), and also at the Musée d’ethnographie de Genève (MEG),  La Chapelle: Scènes Contemporaines (Montreal 2015, 2016) and the OFFTA (2016).

In autumn 2016 her piece Unrelated was presented in Bergen, Norway and London, England. Daina Ashbee has been awarded mentorships and residencies at Circuit-Est Centre Chorégraphique, the MAI (Montreal, Arts Interculturels) centre and Studio 303 in Montreal

© Patrice Mathieu – Choreographer, Daina Ashbee

Isabelle Van Grimde

A choreographer, founder and artistic director of the Montreal dance company Van Grimde Corps Secrets, Isabelle Van Grimde has had an international career marked by interdisciplinary collaborations that expand the horizons of contemporary dance while multiplying possible perceptions of the body and the piece being staged. Her work is characterized by the quality of the dialogue she encourages between dance and music and, since 2008, by the harmonious integration of new technologies. Open to the world, she conducts theoretical and basic research on the body, research that nourishes and supports her artistic approach. She has been moving away from theatre venues in favour of presenting dance in galleries, public spaces or on the Web. In 2011 the Canada Council for the Arts awarded her the Jacqueline Lemieux Prize for her contribution to enriching artistic life in Canada and abroad.

© Michael Slobodian – Choreographer, Isabelle Van Grimde

Mélanie Demers

After a 10-year career as a dancer for O Vertigo, Mélanie Demers founded her own company, MAYDAY, where she explores the strong connection between poetics and politics. A socially engaged artist, she has taught dance in Kenya, Niger, Brazil and Haiti. The political and social conditions of developing countries have led her to create art whose force lies in its capacity to encourage action and reflection. It was in that perspective that she created Les Angles Morts (2006), Sauver sa peau (2008), Junkyard/Paradis (2010), Goodbye (2012), MAYDAY remix (2014) and WOULD (2015). In 2016, she began a new creation cycle with Animal Triste, which opened Agora’s first season in the new Wilder Building in February 2017, and Icône Pop. She has a repertoire of some twenty original works that have been presented in over thirty cities in Europe, America, Africa and Asia.

© Sabrina Reeves

Jacques Poulin-Denis

Jacques Poulin-Denis is a true artisan of the performing arts. A composer, choreographer and performer, he embarks on projects that blur the boundaries between dance, music and theatre. His works have been presented in some twenty cities in Canada, and also in the U.S., Europe and Asia. He collaborates closely with the choreographer Mélanie Demers, with whom he has worked as a performer and composer since 2006.

© Hugo B. Lefort

Technical and Creative Residencies

Residencies this season

Daina Ashbee, Marc Boivin, Collectif La Tresse, Mélanie Demers, Catherine Gaudet, Lucie Grégoire, Priscilla Guy + Sébastien Provencher, La 2e Porte à Gauche, Caroline Laurin-Beaucage + Montréal Danse, Karine Ledoyen, Ismaël Mouaraki, Line Nault, Jacques Poulin-Denis, Emmalie Ruest, Isabelle Van Grimde

The creative art of today is the heritage of tomorrow!Francine Bernier