Marie Béland born February 26, 1980 in Montreal, Quebec, is a Quebec choreographer specializing in contemporary and experimental dance.

Early Life and Career

edit

Marie Béland completed her bachelor's degree in dance at the Université du Québec à Montréal in 2003, where she was awarded the William Douglas Excellence Scholarship. In 2005, she founded her own company, MARIBÉ - SORS DE CE CORPS, in Montreal, to support her choreographic work.

As a creator, project manager and collaborator, she began her career in search of a singular gestural signature..[1]. First she debuted maribé - live in Montréal (2005), created following a summer residency at Studio 303, this was then followed by the show Twis-manivelle (2005), which was named one of the top five dance shows of the year by ICI magazine [2]. This approach was quickly replaced by the creation of experimental and performative works, with the intention of questioning the fabrication of performance, the commonplace reflexes in dance creation and the artifices of the stage. Then comes Dieu ne t’a pas créé juste pour danser, presented at Tangente in October 2008 which received the ARRIMAGES award during its tour of Montreal's Maisons de la culture (a system of neighbourhood theatres) thanks to the Montreal Arts Council, and was completely revamped in 2018 to tour again throughout Quebec [3]. Her next work RAYON X: a true decoy story (2010), co-presented by Tangente and Festival Les Coups de Théâtre, was seen on nearly 25 occasions in Quebec [4].

At the dawn of the 2010’s, Marie Béland opened a new chapter in her work by paying close attention to the choreography produced by our bodies in the process of speaking, a state she describes as “body-speak”. The result of this work includes BEHIND: une danse dont vous êtes le héros (2010) performed at Tangente, the FTA, the Festival ArtDanThé de Vanves (FR) [5] and then at the Agora de la danse. Vie et mort de l'élégance (2012) which won the silver medal in competition at the Jeux de la Francophonie in 2013 (FR) [6], BLEU - VERT - ROUGE (2013), presented at the Agora de la danse, Révélations (2014) which was first presented at Festival GREC (ES) and in its final version at Tangente, Persona (2015) created for graduates of École de Danse Contemporaine Montréal (EDCM) and presented in Côte d'ivoire during the Jeux de la Francophonie 2017, and finally BETWEEN (2015), presented in a double program with BEHIND: une danse dont vous êtes le héros at the Festival ArtDanThé, then at Théâtre 140 (BEL), Agora de la danse and the Sounded Bodies Festival in Zagreb (CRO) [7].

Since her debut, she has completed several residencies in Quebec and abroad (La Rotonde Québec [8] , TanzWerkstatt Berlin[9], La Caldera Barcelona, Dance 4 center for choreography Nottingham, Cardiff Dance Festival [10], Centro per la Scena Comtemporanea Bassano del Grappa [11]). Her practice has led her to collaborate with some of the finest performers on the Montreal scene, including Anne Thériault, Marilyne St-Sauveur, Simon-Xavier Lefebvre, Rachel Harris, Peter Trosztmer and Andrew Turner, to name but a few.

In 2019, Marie finalizes BESIDE, the last work in this cycle of body and speech, which closes the B+B+B trilogy, still in partnership with Montréal Danse, and which has been presented in France, England and Canada [12]. From this work emerges the installation RADIOMATON, co-created with digital artist Simon Laroche, and ASIDE, an experimental video resulting from RADIOMATON [13]. Marie also teamed up with artists Anne Thériault and Francis Thibaud to create two seasons of an immersive, dance-based experimental podcast, Déplacements sonores [14].

In 2024, a new cycle opens, that of retro-futurism, resulting in the solo GRACE choreographed for Laurie-Anne Langis, and the piece for six women Réunion.s, premiered at La Chapelle Scènes Contemporaines in May 2024 [15].  

Alongside her work on stage, Marie Béland is engaged in site-specific dance, multidisciplinary work and teaching [1]. She is a founding member of the production house La 2e Porte à Gauche, an organization that for 15 years created and produced contemporary dance events that took place in apartments, stores, bars, parks, and questioned the relationship between dance and the public [16]. La 2e Porte à Gauche's work includes Le Bal Moderne, 4quART, Danse à 10, and Rendez-vous à l'hôtel and PLUTON [17]. In 2018, she completed her master's thesis entitled Cartographie de la scène: les forces en jeu dans le spectacle vivant, which seeks to question the spectacle object and understand its inner workings [18]. She is also a faculty member at EDCM, and a lecturer at UQAM [19]

MARIBÉ SORS DE CE CORPS

edit

In 2005, Marie Béland founded her own company, MARIBÉ - SORS DE CE CORPS, in Montreal, to support her choreographic work[20]

References

edit
  1. ^ a b "Marie Béland". Montréal Danse. Retrieved 2024-11-07.
  2. ^ François, Dufort (2005). "Top 5 des meilleurs spectacles 2005" (PDF). Journal Ici: 29.
  3. ^ Brody, Stéphanie (2008-10-20). "Dieu ne t'a pas créé juste pour danser : on se moque, mais c'est de bon coeur". La Presse (in Canadian French). Retrieved 2024-11-07.
  4. ^ Lalonde, Catherine (2010-11-20). "Danse - Voir en rayons X: révéler tout ou presque rien". Le Devoir (in French). Retrieved 2024-11-07.
  5. ^ Grappin-Schmitt, Sophie. "Marie Béland, Daniel Léveillé Ma Gang de Montreal". PARIS-ART.com.
  6. ^ "Maribé - Sors de ce corps | Jeux de la francophonie". www.jeux.francophonie.org. Retrieved 2024-11-07.
  7. ^ "Culturenet.hr - 2. Sounded Bodies festival". www.culturenet.hr. Retrieved 2024-11-07.
  8. ^ "Marie Béland". La Rotonde (in French). 2022-06-08. Retrieved 2024-11-07.
  9. ^ Swoboda, Victor. "Choreographer invites reflection" (PDF). The Montréal Gazette.
  10. ^ "Open Studio: BESIDE - Cardiff Dance Festival". dance.wales. Retrieved 2024-11-07.
  11. ^ Internazionale, Ministero degli Affari Esteri e della Cooperazione. "The Italian choreographer Siro Guglielmi in Montreal". iicmontreal.esteri.it. Retrieved 2024-11-07.
  12. ^ "BESIDE". Montréal Danse. Retrieved 2024-11-07.
  13. ^ "RADIOMATON". La danse sur les routes. Retrieved 2024-11-07.
  14. ^ "Déplacements sonores". Lorganisme (in French). 2021-10-06. Retrieved 2024-11-07.
  15. ^ "Réunion.s → Saison 2023 - 2024 | La Chapelle". lachapelle.org (in French). Retrieved 2024-11-07.
  16. ^ "Accueil". La 2ᵉ porte à gauche (in Canadian French). Retrieved 2024-11-07.
  17. ^ Gauche, Le blog de La 2e Porte à (2013-09-26). "Bal Moderne". Le blogue de La 2e Porte à Gauche (in Canadian French). Retrieved 2024-11-07.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  18. ^ Béland, Marie (May 2019). "Cartographie de la scène : les forces en jeu dans le spectacle vivant". archipel.uqam.ca. Andrée Martin. Retrieved 2024-11-07.
  19. ^ "Marie Béland". Montréal Danse (in French). Retrieved 2024-11-07.
  20. ^ "Marie Béland | MARIBÉ – SORS DE CE CORPS". 2015-08-05. Retrieved 2024-11-07.