LES JOLIES CHOSES Comes to DanceHouse Next Month

DanceHouse will present Compagnie Catherine Gaudet’s hypnotic Les jolies choses (The Pretty Things) on stage November 22 & 23, 2024 at 8pm at the Vancouver Playhouse. Choreographed by Compagnie Catherine Gaudet’s General and Artistic Director, Catherine Gaudet, the full-length work turns the body itself into a spectacle through rigorous repetition and mechanistic rituals, accompanied by a minimalist score by Antoine Berthiaume.

“We couldn’t be more thrilled to have Compagnie Catherine Gaudet and Les jolies choses returning to Vancouver for their DanceHouse debut,“ says Jim Smith, Artistic and Executive Director of DanceHouse. “Catherine Gaudet’s work delves into the unconscious and elusive aspects of human nature, portraying the body as a site of conflicting, often contradictory demands. In this particular piece, her fascination with extremity manifests as visceral, impactful choreography.”

In Les jolies choses (The Pretty Things), five dancers simultaneously generate and are drawn into an enormous machine, moving in constant synchronized rhythm. This creates a state of shared empathy and catharsis, resulting in "a dance that oscillates between the civilized world and the realm of impulses, where bodies alternate between social constraints and bursts of animality and sensuality" (La pointe).

The demanding pace of the seemingly orderly collective performance exudes a veneer of artificial harmony, which soon begins to crack. As the gaudy guise of cheap entertainment falls away, what remains is the raw, broken poetry of human struggle.

After completing a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in contemporary dance at UQAM, Catherine Gaudet quickly established a reputation as a choreographer with a strong, distinctive style. Slipping under the mask of social conventions, she tracks down the convulsive movements of the subconscious in the body, the micro movements that reveal emotions and sensations we try to hide.

After performing in Vancouver, Compagnie Catherine Gaudet will continue the Canadian leg of their tour to Quebec City, Gaspé, and finally Baie-Comeau.

DanceHouse’s presentation of Les jolies choses (The Pretty Things) 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.

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