Time and
space to create

April 10 to 30, 2022, Agora de la danse hosts Italian choreographer Francesca Pennini, accompanied by Alberto Favretto and Angelo Pedroni, for the creation of the Abracadabra project in the Espace Blanc. This first residency in Quebec marks the starting point for this international residency project.

Francesca Pennini (Ferrara, 1984) transitioned from gymnastics to contemporary dance, studying at the Balletto di Toscana and the Laban Centre in London, while exploring everything from butoh to martial arts. After dancing for Sasha Waltz & Guests, she founded the CollettivO CineticO company in 2007, a flexible network of more than fifty multidisciplinary artists. Her work crosses genres, reformats performative codes, and questions the relationship with the audience with a rigorous and ironic approach. She also teaches at the IUAV University of Venice.

For the second year of this exchange, Agora de la danse hosts the Italian choreographer Luna Cenere, From April 24 to May 10, 2023, where she pursues the research and creation of Vanishing Place in Espace blanc.

LUNA CENERE Luna Cenere is a dancer and choreographer born in Naples (IT), associated artist of the Körper National Center of Production.

In this new project, Vanishing Place, that will be presented at the Venice Biennale next July, Luna’s intention is to dig deeper in the practice of hiding and reveal, experimenting the use of objects such as panels and start a chromatic research. Manipulating this setting, the performers will also move/manipulate the space. Working mainly with nudity and experimenting new postures/architectures of the body putting them in dialogue with the surrounding space, objects and movement. While in Montreal, Luna will pursue her research with two performers, Ilaria Quaglia, Davide Travaglini.

As part of its creative residency exchange project between Quebec and Italy, Agora de la danse is hosting choreographer Ezio Schiavulli, along with performer Gabriele Montaruli and musician and composer Antonello Arciuli, from May 19 to 29, 2025. Together, they will pursue the creation of the choreographic project entitled “Segnali di risonanza – Les signaux de résonances” at Espace Blanc.

This new work, directed by Ezio Schiavulli, explores the butterfly effect and chaos theory through the prism of social identity and human relationships. This choreographic project highlights the complexity of social systems and their response to external influences. It examines how these concepts apply to social identity, illustrating how external interventions affect identity transformations and social relationships at different scales. “Segnali di risonanza – Les signaux de résonnances ” takes the form of a choreographic triptych, bringing together three social groups in response to a disruptive event. A solo, a duo and a quartet will be guided by an invisible red thread that will highlight the physical and psychological evolution following an upheaval.

September 20 to October 8, 2022, the dance company Andrea Peña & Artists is in a creative residency in Italy. The first Quebec artist to benefit from this cultural exchange, the choreographer Andrea Peña, accompanied by the dancers Frédérique Rodier and Jean-Benoît Labrecque, embarks on new choreographic research at the Teatro Nuovo in Naples, thanks to support of Teatro Pubblico Campano and TAN Teatri Associati di Napoli.

Andrea Peña & Artists is a company renowned for creating critical, alternative and spatial worlds that break with our notions and understanding of a sentient humanity. Intrigued by the depths of individuality, a theme rooted in her bi-cultural origins, Peña’s choreography is imbued with vulnerability, complexity and dynamic physicality, extending beyond simple movement by means of conceptual research. With a background in industrial design, her works are influenced by the visual arts and spatial qualities, focusing on the body as matter that exists in relation to time and space.

August 9 to 30, 2023, Compagnie Virginie Brunelle is in residence at the Teatro Verdi in Sassari, Sardinia. The choreographer, accompanied by Sophie Breton and Alexandre Carlos, is developing new choreographic work with the support of the RTO (temporary group of organizations) and the AGIS (Associazione Generale Italiana dello Spettacolo).

Founded in 2009, the company directed by Virginie Brunelle has produced a dozen contemporary works that have been performed in more than fifty cities in Quebec and internationally. Her creative approach draws on musicality to generate distinctive stage imagery. Like musical scores, these images are transposed into a meticulous work combining rhythms, suspensions, ferocity and delicacy, gazes and breaths. This formal research reveals a poetics of vulnerability, bringing forth the evocative power of gesture and creating poignant and visually striking scenic experiences.

October 20 to November 6, 2024: Choreographer Dorian Nuskind-Oder is in residence in Reggio Emilia, thanks to the Fondazione I Teatri. She is developing her new work, BULLS, alongside Simon Grenier-Poirier and Alison Clancy.

Born in North Carolina and based in Montreal, Dorian explores social dynamics and humor through unusual forms. Her creations include Looper (2024), Nos Ruelles (2021), Speed Glue (2019), and Memory Palace (2016), presented at the Festival TransAmériques, the MAC, and in various international contexts.

Since 2017, she has co-directed Le Radeau, a creative organization in residence at the Cité-des-Hospitalières.

From September 15 to October 5, 2025, the company Grand Poney will embark on a creative residency in Italy. As the fourth artist from Quebec to benefit from this exchange, choreographer Jacques Poulin-Denis will embark on a new choreographic exploration, supported by La Fondazione Teatro Comunale Città di Vicenza and AMAT – Associazione Marchigiana Attività Teatrali.

BALLET is a group work that explores the codes of classical ballet through a contemporary lens. Rather than parodying or rejecting these codes, Jacques Poulin-Denis seeks to appropriate their formal constraints and codified vocabulary, using them as the raw material for a personal and interdisciplinary reinvention. The piece unfolds in a tension between rigorous physical structure and the expressive complexity of contemporary bodies.