Poster: UQAM 2009, photo : Robert Etcheverry

Montréal, November 2010
Philip Szporer

Jean-Pierre Perreault inspired artists and audiences alike with his authenticity, his intensity in creating work, and in his abilities to transmit the desire to dance.

The Soirée Jean-Pierre Perreault was first conceived when Ginelle Chagnon and the Fondation were approached by the dance department at UQAM to augment the syllabus of the academy’s Spectacle chorégraphique dirigé II class. It was well understood that many of the 25 students would have never seen Perreault’s work, while others might never had even heard of this major artist.

A galvanizing aspect of the project was to steer the students pedagogically to experience the vital qualities of Perreault’s dance language and his vision to use the body in space. Rather than merely gleaning information from archival video footage and then re-constructing and adapting movements through that source material, experts in the field - dance artists who had worked or danced for the choreographer - were enlisted to introduce the undergraduates to three early choreographic works, Continental (1973), Dernière Paille (1977) and Huit minutes (1982). The young dancers plunged into Perreault’s choreographic process, appreciating not only his movement ideas but also his development of set, costume and lighting design concerns.

Even at this early juncture in his career, Perreault was studying the use of weight of the body in movement, delineating the architecture of the body in space, never shying away from the demands of the physicality, the relationships in partnering and contact, and the effort and energy required to embrace the full potential of his work.

Engaging in a process such as this, it’s important to show where we come from, both culturally and socially. These early dances by Jean-Pierre Perreault enhance what we know of his great works.  In working with the dance students at UQAM, the Fondation was able to transfer his fundamentals of interpretation and a genuine understanding of his oeuvre.

Philip Szporer is a well-known writer, journalist, filmmaker and public speaker in the dance community. In the fall of 2009 he was invited by the Fondation to help document the reconstruction process.