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Young Dancers Push Bodies and Boundaries with EvoLucidanse

by Janine Theriault, staff writer

MONTREAL(RPRN) 5/28/09 - Genevieve Bolla and Emilie Gratton are on a mission. As with most young artists, they are taking their fresh-out-of-school enthusiasm (in their case, the École Supérieure de Ballet Contemporain in Montreal), infusing it with a healthy dose of determination, and mixing it all together with an intention to create outside the usual confines of their artistic medium.

The two dancers formed EvoLucidanse with this creative aim squarely in their sights. Choreographer Bolla and fellow EvoLucidanse co-founder Gratton have been busy since the company’s July ’07 inception, producing EvoLucidanse pieces when not working with other established artists such as Dave St. Pierre (his provocative piece for Mandala Situ Danse, “Warning”, garnered praise for both dancers).

The different collaborations, though hectic, suit the dance company’s mission perfectly.

“We are definitely pro-collaboration with different styles of arts, pushing our limits,” says Bolla to RPRN. For EvoLucidanse, though, even collaborating doesn’t follow the dance world’s beaten path.

“She doesn’t work to music,” says Gratton of Bolla. In reference to the company’s May 27th world premiere of Bolla’s latest work, “Others” - to be performed at Montreal’s venerated Salla Rosa - Gratton continues, “ we got the music (for the piece) last week.”

This is decidedly outside the norm, affording Bolla as choreographer the ultimate creative control and initial creative impulse; to be the party collaborated with, as opposed to the more usual dance model of building on someone else’s foundation.

“The music is more for the energy and atmosphere of the piece,” Bolla explains to RPRN. “ It’s about the energy of the moment, we create our own rhythm with the movement,” she continues.

This leaves Bolla’s two-time collaborator, electro-musician Ngabo, to write his accompaniment around the movement, a method which has worked for both parties in “Others” and a previous partnership, “Roots”.

But all the unique collaborating doesn’t end with music; Bolla has an on-going partnership with local award-winning filmmaker Francois Miron. The artists’ first project together, a short entitled “Hymn to Pan” in which Bolla starred, won first prize for Best Creation 2007 from the Conseil des Arts et Lettres du Quebec, and was seen at the Toronto International Film Festival the same year. Next up for the two - a BravoFact-funded video exploration of “Others”, slated to shoot this June.

Taking these many elements together, it looks like EvoLucidanse has the momentum to keep moving for a good long time.

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