Dancehouse Opens Season With Work From Montreal Choreographer Daniel Léveillé

DanceHouse presents Daniel Léveillé’s masterwork, Amour, acide et noix (Love, Acid and Nuts), on stage October 24 and 25, 2025 at 8pm at the Vancouver Playhouse. The raw, full-length piece features four dancers performing fully nude, who use the mechanics of their arms, legs, torsos, and skulls to plumb the very nature of the human condition.

“Amour, acide et noix is a landmark in dance–an unflinching, minimalist masterpiece that confronts beauty, vulnerability, and the human body with rare honesty,” says Jim Smith, Artistic and Executive Director of DanceHouse. “For DanceHouse audiences, it offers a vital encounter with a work that transformed Montréal’s dance scene upon its premiere in 2001, and continues to resonate globally more than 20 years later.”

Set against a stirring backdrop of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, pop music, and birdsong, the dancers move through a series of solos, duets, and ensemble work throughout the episodic piece. As the work unfolds, the shock of nudity quickly dissipates to reveal universal truths that lie beneath the surface: our often conflicting desires for connection and solitude, for grounding and escape, and for fragile vulnerability amidst the heaviness of life 

Free of any costumes or pretense, the work “is as disturbing as it is compelling. Léveillé isn’t just showing passive spectators a world of naked people; he forces [the audience] into the participatory act of confronting our taboos and desires” (The Village Voice). The shared language and mystery of the body allows the dancers to evoke humanity as a whole, and the commonality of the physical is reborn in all its delicacy and resolve.

A renowned Montréal choreographer, dance teacher, and artistic director of his eponymous dance company for 27 years, Léveillé was honoured with the prestigious Grand Prix de la danse de Montréal in 2017 for his influence on Canadian contemporary dance. Over his 40-year career, Léveillé has created more than 30 works as an independent choreographer. His work, Solitudes Solo, was recognized as the best choreographic work by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec in 2013. Léveillé creates choreographies that reach the borders of the impossible, that help to reveal the beauty of the human being in all his imperfections and he chooses nudity as the only possible costume in order to avoid any possible dissimulation.

Following the performances in Vancouver, Amour, acide et noix (Love, Acid and Nuts) will next be presented in Toronto and Montréal.

DanceHouse’s presentation of Amour, acide et noix (Love, Acid and Nuts) will also feature a pre-show talk at 7:15pm each evening. There will also be a post-show reception following Friday’s performance in the Salon.

For tickets and further information, visit: dancehouse.ca

About DanceHouse (dancehouse.ca)

DanceHouse connects Vancouver audiences, and the local arts community, to the international world of dance by presenting exceptional companies that are recognized for their excellence, innovation, and international reputation. Since 2008, DanceHouse has presented vibrant and inspiring companies from Canada and around the world. In addition to the performances on stage, DanceHouse offers a suite of engagement opportunities and a chance for the general public and local artistic community to engage with the presented artists and their work.

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