Wild Talks Lecture Series with Louise Lecavalier

Louise Lecavalier worked with Édouard Lock and La La La Human Steps from 1981 to 1999, a period of exceptional intensity punctuated by works that have since become mythical along with scintillating collaborations (David Bowie, Frank Zappa…). Her extreme dance, filled with a fiery energy, caught the imagination of a whole generation. Since founding her own company, Fou glorieux, in 2006, her movement research has been emblematic of her whole career, emphasizing the surpassing of limits and risk-taking, a search for the absolute in which she seeks to bring out the “more-than-human in the human.” In 2012, she created So Blue, her first full-length choreography, followed by Battleground in 2016. Both works have toured extensively, nationally and internationally. The solo work, Stations, premiered in February 2020 in Germany, has been presented more than sixty performances in Quebec, Canada and internationally. Lecavalier has received many prestigious awards during her career.

MJ Thompson is a writer and teacher working on dance, performance, and visual art. A fan of dance in all its forms, she has been watching and writing about movement and performance for over twenty years. Committed to popular culture and everyday aesthetics, she has written for a wide variety of publications, including Ballettanz, Border Crossings, The Brooklyn Rail, Canadian Art, Dance Current, Dance Ink, Dance Magazine, The Drama Review, The Globe and Mail, Women and Performance, Theatre Journal, and more. Her academic work is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in Canada, and her essays have appeared in several anthologies, including Performance Studies Canada (McGill-Queen’s Press, 2017). Most recently, she received the National Park Service Arts and Sciences Residency, Cape Cod National Seashore, August 2019, where she worked on a long-form essay about the embodied view (Departures 2020). Her book about Québec dancer Louise Lecavalier is forthcoming (Bloomsbury 2023).

Annie Gérin holds a PhD in the History of Art and Cultural Studies from the University of Leeds, a Master of Art History from York University and a BA in art history from the Université de Montréal. An accomplished administrator, Gérin has held many roles at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM): she served as the interim dean of the Faculté des arts (2019-2020); was the Faculty’s associate dean, research and research-creation from 2018 to 2019 and was chair of the Département d’histoire de l’art from 2013 to 2016. She was also a faculty member in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Regina (2000-2004), and in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Ottawa from 2004 to 2006. Fluent in English, French and Russian, Gérin has published extensively and is well known for her research in Canadian and Soviet art in the 20th and 21st centuries, with a special interest in visual satire, cultural policy, public art and community based practices. Gérin’s work has received continued funding for individual and collaborative research projects from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Société et Culture.