What would Montreal be without culture? With theatres, concert halls, clubs, museums, art galleries, movie theatres, and festivals big and small, culture is the heartbeat of the city. Montreal companies like Cirque du Soleil, Softimage, Mel’s Cité du Cinéma or the Marie Chouinard Dance Company are recognized around the world. In the field of contemporary dance alone, more than 50 companies, including internationally renowned names such as La La La Human Steps, Carbone 14 and Nyata Nyata, call Montreal home.
Concordia plays a primordial role in this Montreal modern dance success. We have one of the world’s few, and Canada’s only, department of Contemporary Dance.
Massachusetts native Michael Montanaro adores Montreal. Since his arrival here in 1976, he has worked with some of Canada’s greatest performing arts companies, from Le Groupe de la Place Royale to Les Grands Ballets Canadiens and the Opéra de Montréal. He also choreographed one of Cirque du Soleil’s most successful productions, Varekai. “Montreal is North America’s best-kept secret,” he says. “It is unique, because it combines an intense cultural life with an astonishing ability to adapt. People tend to be more passionate here and as a result, creativity flourishes. This is where I really learned to be a choreographer.”
Since 1985, Montanaro has shared his knowledge with hundreds of students from around the world at Concordia, where he is now the Chair of the Contemporary Dance Department. “Concordia is one of the few universities where students are taught to think, create and innovate using a developed global perspective of the world around them,” he said. “For example, in my department, students are exposed to a transdisciplinary approach to dance. They benefit from contact with other disciplines that they initially think of as unrelated, eventually integrating ideas from other art forms and mediums into their artistic works.”
Montanaro is a member of Hexagram, director of his own dance company, Montanaro Danse, and collaborates with a number of companies like Media FX. He teaches by example and encourages his students to search out experience in all sectors. “Concordia offers a unique environment where passion, dynamism, curiosity and openness meet. If this profile fits you, come check us out. The door is open.”
I was the president of Hexagram’s Board of Directors for two years, and I can tell you that Concordia’s unwavering and seamless support was vital to the development of Hexagram. The institutional culture at Concordia is represented by its pragmatic approach and attention to detail and results. That’s why all of the main Hexagram labs are based at Concordia.
Alain Gourd,
President, Alain Gourd Communications Inc.
Concordia’s Sandeep Bhagwati, Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Inter-X Art Practice and Theory, is creating a unique real-time performance for the 2009 Stuttgart Festival. On a stage split into areas representing love, laws and war, performers will improvise music, singing and movement in reaction to real-time-generated on-screen commands and on-screen displays. Musicians and singers will sight-read a real-time composition, generated and distributed by an algorithmic score created by a real-time composer/conductor. Performers will be guided by real-time movement prompts (e.g. 3D models of dancers) and commands from a live director, matched to the live music. The necessary tools (software, processes and lighting) are still in development—which gives some idea of the scale of the challenge.
Page Title: Visibility Cluster - Culture - Michael Montanaro - Concordia University - Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Page URL:http://www.concordia.ca/clusters/culture/index.php
Date Printed: Mon May 21, 2012
