
ABOUT THE SHOW
Nuit (1986) is legendary Canadian choreographer Jean-Pierre Perreault’s seminal work exploring the individual among the collective through fiery, demanding contemporary dance.
This arresting and dynamic work, performed in half-light, expresses a troubling, subterranean vulnerability, rooted in the unflinching integrity that its author succeeded in transmitting to the dancers, who become percussion instruments, beating the ground in intoxication and finally exhaustion. The singular materiality of Nuit and the interpenetration among the multiple components that Perreault created make this a major work not only in Perreault’s legacy but in the history of Canadian choreography.
Approximate run time is 80 minutes.
Choreographer
Jean-Pierre Perreault was a dancer, choreographer, artistic director, teacher and designer whose legacy boasts a large body of choreography and a career of international distinction.
Read more +Although Perreault initially intended to pursue the visual arts, he began training in dance with Jeanne Renaud and Peter Boneham at the age of nineteen. When Renaud formed Le Groupe de la Place Royale in 1966, both Boneham and Perreault were founding members.
Perreault studied classical and modern dance, and by 1968 he was teaching at Le Groupe’s school. He and Boneham became co-directors of the company when Renaud left in 1971, and the 1970s became a time of great choreographic development for Perreault. By the time he left Le Groupe in 1981, he had produced over twenty works for the company. After leaving, he worked as an independent choreographer and teacher in Canada and Europe, including Simon Fraser University, the Laban Centre and the Cullberg Ballet. He returned to Montreal in 1984 creating his own company, La Fondation Jean-Pierre Perreault, and teaching at the Université du
Québec à Montréal until 1991. It was here that he mounted his signature piece, Joe, a ninety-minute work for twenty-four students that has since been remounted several times and celebrated worldwide. The 1980s
and 1990s saw the creation of many of Perreault’s other renowned works such as Stella (1985), Nuit (1986), Les Lieux dits (1988), Îles (1991) and Les Années de Pèlerinage (1996).
Perreault’s works often began as drawings and paintings and, accordingly, he is also well known for his designs, which have been given solo exhibitions all over the world. In total, Perreault produced over forty-eight choreographic works in his lifetime. In 1990 he won the Jean A. Chalmers Award for Choreography and in 1996 the Jean A. Chalmers Award for Distinction in Choreography, an award that recognizes his entire body of work. Jean-Pierre Perreault died of cancer in 2002.
Photo credit: Michael Slobodian
Artistic Director
Laurence Lemieux is a dancer, choreographer, and Artistic Director of Citadel + Compagnie. Born in Québec City, Laurence studied dance at L’École Supérieure de Danse du Québec, and at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre (TDT). She danced for TDT from 1986 to 1998, winning a Dora Mavor Moore award in 1998 for her interpretation of Christopher House’s Cryptoversa.
Read more +Lemieux has choreographed over thirty original works and has danced for some of Canada’s most prominent choreographers, including Margie Gillis, James Kudelka, and Jean-Pierre Perreault. Lemieux is a passionate advocate for the arts and is a member on the board of Daniel Leveillé Danse in Montreal. In 2012, Lemieux created The Citadel Dance Program, bringing high quality, free dance classes to children and youth living in Regent Park.
Photo credit: Aleksandar Antonijevic
Rehearsal Director
Since 1971, Montreal based dance artist Ginelle Chagnon has been working professionally at deepening the dance experience. She completed 10 years of dance studies at Académie des Grands Ballets Canadiens before going on to perform with the company. After acquiring this contemporary dance expertise she turned her attention towards teaching and the creative process.
Read more +For many years she assisted choreographers Jean-Pierre Perreault and Paul-André Fortier, and taught at Concordia University’s Dance Department and in professional training schools across Canada.
Her sensitive gaze also brought her to collaborate with many other Canadian choreographers in their creative and performance processes. In the ’90s and in collaboration with Agora de la Danse, she created workshops for non-dancers and later proposed new workshops that use contemporary dance repertoire. This proposition became the participative component of the dance exhibit “Corps Rebelle” in 2015. At Circuit-Est/Choreographic center’s invitation, she collaborated in many international platforms of artistic exchanges as a dance dramaturg and facilitator. During the last thirty years she has taken an active interest in documenting dance, the relationship to archive, and the preservation of Quebec’s contemporary dance patrimony. This brought on the virtual exhibit of Jean-Pierre Perreault’s choreographic works in 2010 and the creation of the “choreographic toolbox” for the Foundation of the same name. Always fascinated by the depth of the dance experience, she still accompanies performative projects with dance artists engaged in the same quest and, in parallel, presently works in the archivist milieu. In 2022 she was awarded the Ethel Bruneau prize at the Prix de la danse de Montréal.
Photo credit: Marc Boivin
Performer
Morgyn (she/they) is a freelance contemporary dance artist and an arts educator. They are a co-creator of ‘Blank Space’, a series of movement-based community workshops.
Read more +Upon graduating at the School of Toronto Dance Theatre they travelled to Mexico for a residency with La Escuela Profesional de Danza de Mazatlán. Since then, she has worked with Frog in Hand, Human Body Expression, Kaeja d’Dance, Peggy Baker, the Citadel + Compagnie, the Wind in the Leaves Collective, and Tiger Princess Dance Projects.
Performer/Costume coordination
Valerie Calam is a dance artist interested in finding pathways to refresh and support herself. She works with fabric, patterns, sound, numbers, the nervous system, the body, and likes to edit/adapt/repurpose things. Most of all, Val enjoys working alongside dancers, artists & queer creatives. She umbrellas much of her work under the name Company Vice Versa and works frequently with Fantastical Realms, Toronto Dance Theatre, Diane Borsato, Bad New Days Theatre and Allison Cummings. Val is designing costumes for Atri Nundy, choreographing a new stage work for Toronto Metropolitan University, and collaborating with filmmakers Franci Duran and Michele Kaye. She is the Membership & Operations Manager for CADA/East and completed a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Choreography in 2014.
Read more +She umbrellas much of her work under the name Company Vice Versa and works frequently with Fantastical Realms, Toronto Dance Theatre, Diane Borsato, Bad New Days Theatre and Allison Cummings. Val is designing costumes for Atri Nundy, choreographing a new stage work for Toronto Metropolitan University, and collaborating with filmmakers Franci Duran and Michele Kaye. She is the Membership & Operations Manager for CADA/East and completed a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Choreography in 2014.
Photo credit: McKenzie James
Performer
Irvin Chow graduated with a BFA in Dance at York University. Through the years he has toured across Canada and internationally working with many choreographers such as: Angela Blumberg, Sylvie Bouchard, Aria Evans, Michael Greyeyes, Laurence Lemieux and Yvonne Ng.
Read more +Irvin has had the pleasure of performing in David Earle’s, Miserere, as part of Toronto Heritage Dance, as well as in William Yong’s, vox:lumen. He has worked with Toronto Dance Theatre under the direction of Christopher House, and with Julia Sasso in a remount of her acclaimed work, Sporting Life. Irvin is very much looking forward to dancing with Citadel + Compagnie in this iteration of Jean-Pierre Perreault’s, Nuit.
Photo credit: Kristen Lynd
Performer
Tyler Gledhill trained at The National Ballet School in Toronto, Het National Balletacademie in Amsterdam, and The Pacific Northwest Ballet School in Seattle. He received the Peter Dwyer Scholarship for the Performing Arts and the Lawrence Hasket Memorial Award.
Read more +He began his career in The Netherlands with Intordans, touring throughout Europe and Asia. Next, he danced with The Göteborg Ballet and Cullberg Ballet in Sweden. He works with Hit & Run Productions, Opera Atelier, The Chimera Project, ProArte Danza, The Dietrich Group, Citadel + Compagnie and Desiraeda Dance Theatre. For his role in DA Hoskins’ PARIS1994\Gallery in 2010, Tyler was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for outstanding performance in a dance show.
Photo credit: Marko Mijailovic
Performer
Connor Mitton is a graduate of Toronto Metropolitan University’s Performance Dance Program and a 2018 and 2019 Dora Mavor Moore Award Nominee for Outstanding Performance, Ensemble, for Jusqu’à Vimy (choreographed by Laurence Lemieux) and Resonance (Choreographed by Hanna Kiel).
Read more +Originally from Ottawa, Ontario, Connor has toured with Red Sky performance, ProArteDanza, Citadel + Compangnie, Human body expressions and has performed in James Kudelka’s Fifteen Heterosexual Duets, Elvis and the Man in Black, Romeo and Juiliet before Parting, and Heros. Recognized by Now Magazine as one of 2017’s breakthrough Toronto stage artists, Connor has had the privilege of working with many renowned choreographers and artists including Guillame Cote, Jerra Wolf, Thomas Fonua, William Yong, Hanna Kiel, Kate Hilliard, Heidi Strauss, Robert Glumbek, Roberto Campanella, Release Dance Project, ACE Dance Theatre, Zata Omm Dance Projects, Avinoam Silverman and Allen Kaeja.
Performer
Natasha Poon Woo began training and performing with Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre (CCDT) in her hometown of Toronto. She then studied at the Conservatory of Dance at SUNY Purchase, graduating summa cum laude with a BFA and the President’s Award for Achievement.
Read more +Natasha is a frequent performer with Rock Bottom Movement and Côté Danse, and has worked with Conny Janssen Danst, Kevin Wynn Collection, BoucharDanse, The Dietrich Group, Roderick George, Benjamin Landsberg, Ryan Lee, Gadfly, Little Pear Garden, and Hit & Run Dance Productions, among others. She is a Dora Award-winning performer with Rock Bottom for its acclaimed production, hollow mountain.
Natasha has been the Associate Artistic Director of CCDT since 2019 and the company’s Rehearsal Director since 2012. She enjoys rehearsal direction for various independent artists and is a sought-after dance educator specializing in Limón-based modern technique.
Photo credit: Drew Berry
Performer
Brodie Stevenson was born in the village of Wuikinuxv on British Columbia’s central coast and now calls Toronto his home.
As a dancer Stevenson began his career at Toronto Dance Theatre under the direction of Christopher House and has since worked with a diverse range of choreographers and companies in the contemporary dance milieu.
Read more +As a choreographer, his interests are centred around the rigorous practices of collaboration and collective decision making. Stevenson has been creating and performing as part of the award-winning trio, Throwdown Collective, since 2008. He is a Dora Award winning performer with The Dietrich Group as well as a recipient for outstanding choreography with Throwdown Collective.
Photo credit: Trish Lindström
Performer
Heidi Strauss is a dance artist with a curiosity in examining human behavior from different perspectives. Often responding to our current social and environmental moment, she explores relationships as a way to consider the ‘realness’ of where and who we are, here and now.
Read more +A KM Hunter and multi-Dora Award winning choreographer, she is the artistic director of Toronto-based adelheid through which she collaborates on performance creation for theatre, non-theatre and digital environments. She is a resident artist at the Citadel, is currently developing a new solo and pursuing an MFA at Transart Institute. https://adelheid.ca
Photo credit: Jeremy Mimnagh
Performer (Understudy)
Sierra Chin Sawdy is an independent dance artist and arts educator based in Tkaronto. Since graduating from Toronto Metropolitan University, she has had the opportunity to work and perform with Alysa Pires Dance Projects, BoucharDanse, Brodie Stevenson, Citadel + Compagnie, Dancetheatre David Earle, Dusk Dances, Emma Kerson, Hanna Kiel, Peggy Baker Dance Projects, Aria Evans/Political Movement, Tiger Princess Dance Projects, and Toronto Heritage Dance.
Read more +She has toured throughout Canada, China, Europe, Mexico and the UAE.
Photo credit: Alvin Collantes
Performer (Understudy)
River Waterhen is an Indigenous Cree dancer from Island Lake Cree Nation (Saskatchewan) Treaty 6. His specialty is freestyle dance. River began dancing at the age of 6 and is now based in Toronto living his life as a dancer.
Read more +River attended the Centre for Indigenous Theatre for two years, where he gained experience and training in Theatre. River performed as part of Night Shift 2021 alongside Winter Hawk. River has been teaching dance to youth from communities across Canada and more recently in Loon Lake reserve in Saskatchewan.
Photo credit: Jeremy Mimnagh
Show Credits
Jean-Pierre Perreault, Choreographer
Jean Gervais, Original Lighting
Jean-Pierre Perreault, Original Music, Set Design and Costumes
Simon Rossiter, Lighting and Set Design Adaptation
Laurence Lemieux, Artistic Director, Citadel + Compagnie
Ginelle Chagnon, Rehearsal Direction
Marianna Rosato, Stage Management
Johanna Bergfelt, Rehearsal Assistant
Morgyn Aronyk-Schell, Performer
Valerie Calam, Performer
Irvin Chow, Performer
Tyler Gledhill, Performer
Connor Mitton, Performer
Natasha Poon Woo, Performer
Brodie Stevenson, Performer
Heidi Strauss, Performer
Sierra Chin Sawdy, Understudy
River Waterhen, Understudy