Vancouver Playhouse (600 Hamilton Street)
Running time: 60 minutes (no intermission)
Note: This performance includes nudity.
2004 Dora Mavor Moore award, in category “Outstanding New Choreography”
The body, in all its plaintive and humble beauty, forms the fundament of Daniel Léveillé’s masterwork Amour, acide et noix (Love, Acid and Nuts). Winner of the Grand Prix de la danse de Montréal (2017), Léveillé’s artistic integrity, vision, and creative impact have shaped Canadian dance. His iconic work returns with a critical lesson: “We must love one another or die,” as the poet W.H. Auden wrote. A maxim that is rendered explicit as the quartet of performers enact rituals of supplication, rejection, and finally unity.
With its reference to the paradoxical/quixotic nature of passion, the title offers an entry point, but that is only the beginning of the journey. Set against a score of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, pop music, and birdsong, Léveillé uses the mechanics of arms, legs, torsos and skulls to plumb the very nature of the human condition. As the dancers move through a series of entanglements, the shock of nudity disappears, helped along by a lick of humour that runs underneath the solos, duets, and ensemble work.
It is the body that remains: the pliant mounds of buttocks, the weave of arms and legs, pubic thatches and the bellow of lungs, a slow roll of spine, a splay of toes. The language of skin and sinew, muscle and bone offer a lexicon that is immediately understandable yet infinitely mysterious. The shared commonality of the physical is reborn in all its delicacy and resolve.
“The deliberate baldness of the vocabulary and the richness of the music…
releases a rage hard as steel and, paradoxically, soft as the skin.” - Le Monde, Paris
“[Léveillé] forces us into the participatory act of confronting our taboos and desires.“ - The Village Voice, New York
As a creation and production company, Daniel Leveille Danse (DLD) invests in dance and performing arts creators who are deeply committed to artistic research. Guided by its artistic director, the organization offers personalized and strategic support to help creators make their voices heard both at home and abroad. In addition, DLD develops structuring projects that contribute to the fabric of its community.
The company supports the work of Frédérick Gravel, its artistic director, in addition to promoting projects by Catherine Gaudet, Alix Dufresne, Ellen Furey, Stéphane Gladyszewski, Étienne Lepage, Manuel Roque and Daniel Léveillé.
Daniel Léveillé
A well-known Canadian choreographer and dance teacher, Daniel Léveillé holds a place of high regard on the national and international scenes of contemporary dance. In forty years of practice, he has contributed to the development of choreographic art by creating a corpus of major works performed by exceptional dancers.
An alumni of Groupe Nouvelle Aire, Daniel Léveillé worked for many years as an independent choreographer before founding his own company, Daniel Léveillé Danse, in 1991. While penning choreographies for different dance and theatre companies, he was a Professor of creation and interpretation at Université du Québec à Montréal’s (UQAM) Dance department from 1988 until 2012. Pursuing this double career path, he refines and deepens his choreographic style and develops a unique approach to the interpretation of dance, without submitting to the demands of the art market.
Daniel Léveillé was awarded the Grand Prix de la danse de Montréal in 2017 for his impact on the dance community and the longevity of his career. The jury sought to recognize Léveillé’s unique signature, his artistic integrity, and the remarkable support and transmission efforts enabled through Daniel Léveillé Danse. In 2018, Daniel Léveillé steps down as artistic director of the company and is replaced by Frédérick Gravel. He remains active in the company as a choreographer.
Top image: Daniel Léveillé, Amour, acide et noix (Love, Acid and Nuts) © Julie Artacho.
