The Stephanie Lake Company Makes Its Danse Danse Debut COLOSSUS

The Stephanie Lake Company makes its Danse Danse debut with its new work, Colossus, featuring students from the Ecole de danse contemporaine de Montréal and the Ecole supérieure de ballet du Québec. Presented from March 8 to 11, 2023, in Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier at Place des Arts.

For this large-scale show, renowned choreographer Stephanie Lake, a key figure in Australian dance, teams up with dance schools from each city in which Colossus is presented. This is a necessity for such a show, in which over 50 dancers gather on stage to share with the audience the joy and excitement of the collective experience.

In a spirit of sharing and communication, the piece transforms itself according to the host city, be it Paris or Sydney. In Montréal, which will feature her largest cast to date (64 dancers), Stephanie Lake calls upon students from the Ecole de danse contemporaine de Montréal and the Ecole supérieure de ballet du Québec.

The dancers emerge from the darkness, a dizzying mass of bodies moving in unison with fierce individuality. Brimming with life, they embody the cohesive power of the group, adopting motifs found in nature-the dance of a school of fish or the flights of starlings-to explore the relationship between the individual and the community, how we share space, how we cooperate, and whether a crowd can be more than the sum of its parts.

Colossus is the latest piece in an internationally acclaimed body of ambitious and striking work. Its arrival in Montréal represents the culmination of Stephanie Lake's unique and constantly evolving creative process, honed on the festival circuit alongside an impressive roster of creative colleagues.

Stephanie Lake is the multi award-winning choreographer, dancer and director of Stephanie Lake Company. Her acclaimed works, including Colossus, Pile of Bones, Skeleton Tree, DUAL, If Never Was Now and Aorta, have toured to France, Belgium, Ireland, Hong Kong, Denmark, Scotland, Luxembourg, Singapore and New Zealand as well as across Australia. Stephanie has created works for Sydney Dance Company, Chunky Move, New Zealand Dance Company, Queensland Ballet, Frontier Danceland (Singapore), Tasdance, Dancenorth, Expressions and Beijing Dance/LDTX. She is the current recipient of the Australia Council Fellowship for Dance and previously the prestigious Sidney Myer and Dame Peggy Van Praagh Fellowships. She was the inaugural Resident Director of Lucy Guerin Inc and currently sits on the Advisory Board for the Victorian College of the Arts. Her performance career spans 20 years, working closely with Chunky Move and Lucy Guerin Inc as well as Antony Hamilton & Byron Perry and Ballet Lab. Stephanie collaborates across theatre, film, music video and visual art and has directed several large-scale works with over 1,000 participants. Her works have won Helpmann, Green Room and Australian Dance Awards for Best Choreography.

The Melbourne based Stephanie Lake Company was established in 2014 to create and tour contemporary dance works. Known for its gutsy, original choreographic style and striking visual aesthetic, Stephanie Lake Company strives to create performances that are affecting and relevant. Working in collaboration with Australia's leading dancers, designers, and composers, the company has been presented in major festivals and venues around Australia and has toured internationally to France, Germany, Hong Kong, Denmark, Singapore and the UK. She won the Australian Dance Award in 2018 (Pile of Bones) and 2014 (AORTA) for Outstanding Choreography, the Helpmann Award for Outstanding Choreography in 2014 (A Small Prometheus) and the Green Room Award for Best Choreography (Mix Tape) in 2011.

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