Montreal's LE PATIN LIBRE to Skate Back to The Yard

Le Patin Libre returns after their sold out American debut performances on the Vineyard in 2016, continuing The Yard's multi-year commitment to this extraordinary Quebecois ensemble of pioneering skaters who are inventing a new future for art on ice.

One audience member summarized their experience of Le Patin Libre's 2016 performance in a written letter to Yard staff: "The skating dancing gliding flying show was phenomenal. They moved, five of them, synchronously, the way a flock of birds or a school of fish might, in perfect harmony as if there were a psychic thread connecting them. And then one or another would separate from the group and strike out as an individual in a kind of lonely freedom, or in anger, or just because.... the group formed, split, re-formed. The dancers expressed so much - humor, rage, extreme beauty, comradeship, disdain, happiness, joy, isolation, loneliness and intangible feelings. Their work was poetry, and it is hard to put it exactly into words..."

Vertical Influences is a contemporary ice skating double-bill, comprised of two related pieces:VerticalandInfluences. Influencesaddressesthemesofleadership,rivalry, individualism, bullying, and the potential for harmony within a group. While Influences is watched from the side lines, Vertical brings audience members onto the physical ice for an up close, personal and unforgettable view. Together, Vertical and Influences highlight the experience of both individual and group, the joyous rush of the singular self and the undeniable strength of camaraderie.

Developed over the course of two years, Vertical Influences began in a creation residency made possible by the Jerwood Project and Sadler's Wells Theater in London, UK, during which Le Patin Libre worked with dramaturge Ruth Little. The production was completed in September 2014, during a second intensive creation residency with Little.

IF YOU GO:

The Yard presents

LE PATIN LIBRE

Vertical Influences

Two performances only, Saturday, February 25, 2017

Performances will take place at the MV Ice Arena in Oak Bluffs (next to the YMCA, opposite the MV Regional High School)

2 shows, Saturday, February 25, at 11am & 7pm Tickets: $20 General; $5 Children under 12

Tickets & Groups 508-645-9662

Note: A special LPL Skate Workshop will be offered.

Since its founding in 2005, Le Patin Libre has transformed ice skating into a mediator between sports fans and contemporary art lovers. Alexandre Hamel, an international figure skating competitor looking for a means to challenge the aging stereotypes of the "On Ice" show business, founded the company with fellow ex figure skaters. A renegade group from its inception, Le Patin Libre's first performances took place beyond the traditional ice rink arena on frozen ponds during local winter carnivals near their home in Montréal. Between 2010 and 2013, the company further developed and honed their original form of contemporary ice skating through numerous research residencies and independent self-presentation projects across Europe. Since 2014, the company has been touring Vertical Influences to prestigious artistic institutions around the globe, including Theatre de la Ville de Paris, Sadler's Wells, Dance Umbrella, among others. Le Patin Libre was awarded the Total Theatre Award & The Place Award for Dance during the Edinburgh Festival in 2015 and are presently nominated in the category "Best Modern Choreography" for the National Dance Award in the United Kingdom.

The Yard is co-commissioning a new LPL work that will come to the Vineyard in the summer of 2018.

LPL's Artistic Approach: What started as a little spontaneous explosion is now refined into an intelligent artistic project. "The new skating style" slowly became a new performance art form in its own right. At the base of our work, there is one great question: "What is skating?" So far, our research projects always bring us back to the same thing: glide. Glide is the possibility to imprint movement on immobile bodies. It is the uniqueness of our dance. It is the magic we play with, for our own enjoyment and that of our public.

Mission: The Yard supports artists in both their creative processes and social instrumentality through paid research residency, public performance, and long- term educational and community engagement across all ages and diverse cultural populations of Martha's Vineyard, and in broad application to New England and the nation.

In so doing: The Yard promotes creation, education, and community building through artistic practice-with a special emphasis on contemporary dance and related collaborative forms-in the defining rural/island environment of Martha's Vineyard.

The Yard acts, on behalf of its core commitments, as an active collaborator, co- commissioner, and touring partner with other leading institutions across a regional/national/international context to raise up a "culture of cultures" ecology that reflects-and benefits-the demographic life and times of the island of Martha's Vineyard and the country.

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