Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
Ex Machina & Côté Danse (Quebec City & Toronto)
Presented with Community Partner Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival and Théâtre la Seizième
Note: This performance contains strobe lights
Since its writing, circa 1599-1601, William Shakespeare’s play The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark has been subject to countless interpretations.
Eschewing words, Ex Machina + Côté Danse’s Hamlet, Prince of Denmark reinvents the archetypal drama into something raw and immediate. Canonical soliloquies that parse the darkest of human instincts and actions: corruption, suicide, betrayal and murder find a riveting new form.
Expanding upon their previous collaboration Frame by Frame (inspired by the work of visionary animator Norman McLaren), co-creators Robert Lepage and Guillaume Côté bring their respective genius to Shakespeare’s most famous work. Côté embodies the central character, wrestling with existential questions of being and nothingness, while Lepage, a master of multiple theatrical disciplines, infuses the Bard’s epic tale of intergenerational trauma with contemporary relevance.
With surtitles functioning as a kind of a Greek chorus, blood-red velvet drapery and pools of golden light from designer Simon Rossiter, the shadowy realm of dark motives and oedipal longing are made manifest. Composer John Gzowski’s original score further fleshes the narrative as the nine members of Côté Danse take on the roster of characters: Hamlet and Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Horatio and Laertes, Gertrude, Claudius, and Polonius.
Through the universal medium of dance, the story is told anew, a play without words, but rich with its own language.
Ex Machina is funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the City of Québec.
Presentation Supporters
Anndraya Luui
Sonya Wall
Hawthorne Charitable Foundation
Top image: Ex Machina & Côté Danse, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark © Sasha Onyshchenko.
March 18-21, 2026 | 8pm
Additional Performance Added
Vancouver Playhouse
600 Hamilton Street
Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes (no intermission)
Hours: 10am-4pm, Monday–Friday
Phone: 604.801.6225
Email: boxoffice@dancehouse.ca
7:15pm each night in the Upper Lobby
Thursday evening’s pre-show chat will be in French.
Wednesday, Friday and Saturday’s chats will be in English.
Guest: Menno Plukker, Agent for Ex Machina
Host for the 18th: Christopher Gaze, Founder and Artistic Director of Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival
Host for the 19th: France Perras, Bilingual actress who often works with Théâtre la Seizième
Host for the 20th & 21st: Mary Hartman, Director of Education at Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival
⚠ Limited tickets available
- March 18, 2026 - 477 seats available
- March 19, 2026 - 265 seats available
- March 20, 2026 - 58 seats available
- March 21, 2026 - 169 seats available
“We are witnessing something that will go down in history. The cast is fabulous. The staging is brilliant, the choreography magnificent.”
Carole Trempe, Journal des citoyens
“Choreography feels both fluid and hunched, elegant with a hint of eeriness, an intriguing blend of contemporary aesthetics and balletic precision.”
Deanne Kearney, The Dance Debrief
A thrill... An exquisite theatrical adventure.”
Warner Crocker
Côté Danse
Côté Danse burst onto the Canadian dance scene in 2021, thanks to the collaboration between Choreographer Guillaume Côté and Producers Etienne Lavigne and Anisa Tejpar. Since then, they have been actively presenting a range of original works and immersive dance experiences.
Under the artistic direction of Guillaume Côté, Côté Danse establishes a unique vision, combining classical dance knowledge with captivating geometries and intense human connections. Their style is characterized by contemporary lines, sleek contours, and refined athleticism, creating a distinct and dynamic aesthetic.
Through collaborations with a diverse group of designers, artists, and partners such as Robert Lepage, Mirari Studios, and Son Lux, Côté Danse has successfully produced four full-length productions. The company attracted significant attention since its very beginning, with 140 performances in 23 cities in its first four years of existence.
Ex Machina
Led by artistic director Robert Lepage, Ex Machina creates, produces and disseminates multidisciplinary artistic works, most often theatrical.
The company brings together creators from several fields of activity and offers a broad range of artistic productions: original plays written and performed solo or collectively, plays based on existing texts, productions in which various disciplines (dance, music, museology) mingle with theater, operas and multimedia productions featuring a predominantly technological dimension. Ex Machina develops the majority of its shows in Quebec City, then presents them abundantly in Quebec, Canada and elsewhere in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Oceania.
Beyond their diversity, the company’s projects have some features in common. Anecdotes lead to the exploration of ideas such as the revelation of identity through exposure to the other. Cultural intersections, the nature of the creative act, interrupted communication and states of dependence are recurring themes. Several dramatic situations oppose the quotidian to the extraordinary, the naturalism to the metaphor, and somehow diffident characters to historical figures. The multilingualism, the massive use of images, the reversal of perspective, the variations in scale, the use of narrative codes borrowed from cinema and the use of technological tools aim to spark meaning and emotion, reflecting a desire to poeticize theatrical expression.
Guillaume Côté, Choreographer
Guillaume Côté, a native of Québec, is a renowned Principal Dancer with The National Ballet of Canada. He has performed major classical roles and worked with the world’s most esteemed choreographers. As a guest artist, he has danced with prestigious companies worldwide, including The Royal Ballet, the Bolshoi Ballet, American Ballet Theater, New York City Ballet, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, English National Ballet, the Mikhailosky Theater of St-Petersburg, Teatro Colón de Buenos Aires, Berlin’s Staatsoper, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Stuttgart Ballet, Hamburg Ballett, Verona Opera and the South African Ballet Theater. In 2012, he co-founded Anymotion Productions to produce high-quality independent dance works. Côté also serves as a Choreographic Associate with The National Ballet of Canada, with eight of his works in the company’s repertoire. His ballets have received critical acclaim, including Enkeli, which won the Audience Choice Award for Best Choreography in 2012. He collaborated with director Robert Lepage to create Frame by Frame in 2018. In 2021, he founded his own company, Côté Danse, and premiered innovative works such as Burn Baby, Burn; X (Dix); Cyrpto and Touch. Côté has received numerous awards and was named Chevalier de l’Ordre national du Québec in 2021.
Robert Lepage, Director
Robert Lepage is a renowned multidisciplinary artist, celebrated as an actor, director, playwright, and stage director. Known for his original, contemporary works that blend history with cutting-edge technologies, he began his career after enrolling at the Conservatoire dʼart dramatique de Québec in 1975. In 1994, Lepage founded Ex Machina, a multidisciplinary creation company, and later established La Caserne and the venue Le Diamant in Quebec City. His most significant works include The Seven Streams of the River Ota, The Dragonsʼ Trilogy, The Far Side of the Moon, The Image Mill, and his collaborations with Cirque du Soleil, KÀ and TOTEM.
Guest Speaker:
Menno Plukker was born in 1958 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He studied English language and literature as well as political science at the University of Amsterdam and he obtained a degree in Accountancy in Amsterdam in 1984.
Since 1981, he has been involved in theatre and dance management. From 1981-1985 he directed a foundation for multi-ethnic theatre in The Netherlands (S.T.I.P.T.) and programmed a multi-cultural theatre festival (Stagedoor) in Amsterdam in 1983-1984. He was Administrative Director of Theater De Balie in Amsterdam from 1986-1988, and founded his own theatre booking agency in 1987, providing financial, production and promotion services to a wide array of theatre and dance companies in the Netherlands through 1990. In 1989, he started to represent and produce artists and companies from Québec and Canada in Europe.
In 1990 he moved to Montréal and he has dedicated himself mostly to worldwide representation of Canadian theatre and dance artists since.
Host for the 18th:
Christopher Gaze is the Founder and Artistic Director of Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival, which celebrates its 37th Season in 2026. He also plays a leading role in BC as an advocate for the arts in general, and his passionate dedication to Bard on the Beach has fuelled its growth into one of the largest professional theatre companies in Canada. His many honours include Canada’s Meritorious Service Medal, Honorary Doctorates from UBC and SFU, the Mayor’s Arts Award for Theatre, the Order of British Columbia, and most recently, the King Charles III Coronation Medal.
Host for the 19th:
France Perras is a bilingual actress (stage, screen, voice-overs, moderating, live announcing) who has been working in Vancouver and across Canada, for the past many years…
She often works with Théâtre la Seizième, the only professional French theatre company in BC. (www.seizieme.ca) She has had the immense pleasure of moderating at The Vancouver Writers Fest for many years in the YA realm, and has Hosted and MC’d throughout the years, whether at the Shipyards 5th Year Anniversary Bash, or The Canadian Association of Broadcasters Conferences or LIVE bilingual announcing at The Invictus Games Opening and Closing Ceremonies. https://www.franceperras.com/
Host for the 20th and 21st:
With a background as a professional actor and director, Mary Hartman has given countless people the opportunity to play Shakespeare for more than 30 years. As Director of Education at Bard on the Beach, she is responsible for design and development of programs for students, teachers, theatre professionals, and the public, all with the mission of Bard Education in mind: to inspire community through dynamic, engaging experiences with Shakespeare. She holds a master’s degree from King’s College, London, and a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College, and has received numerous awards and honours.
Dates & Times
March 18, 2026 | 8:00 PM
March 19, 2026 | 8:00 PM
March 20, 2026 | 8:00 PM
March 21, 2026 | 8:00 PM
