legends of jil & yill
choreographic poem
for hands, percussion, and water

This quite recent contemporary dance work, the opening night of which was presented in the unusual set of the Biosphere, on the Montreal St. Helena Island, is a little uncommon in the dance milieu of Montreal. The choreography is full of surprises from the invented language sequences, the use of the mnemonic syllables of the tabla oral tradition, the excerpt from poet Paul Bélanger's "The Days of the Eclipse", and other texts by the choreographer. Above all, the choreography arranges hieratic postures in sharp contrast with the flow of body movements and hand gestures by dancer Sophie Janssens.

Merging the movement, music and theatre, the choreographyu is driven by a figure similar to the one of the Coryphaeus of the Greek tragedy or the Sutradharaha of the Sanskrit theatre. The central character draws the course of the piece through five intense and coloured episodes of movement to the Kathakali percussion music. Sequences excerpted from the Kathakali dance-theatre are superimposed on the dance and the narrative with the help of video projections on large screens.

Three characters share the stage: the guide (Richard Tremblay), the dance character (Sophie Janssens), and the percussionist and composer Bruno Paquet. Text, movement and percussion music give life to this enthralling dance.

Jil et Yill is a simple work merging with complex rhythms and evocative scenes. From their Kathakali perspective, Richard Tremblay and Bruno Paquet provide a particular insight into the dance work, which is at the same time Eastern and entirely contemporary. Of roughly an hour, and intended for an audience of general culture.

excerpts from the text
- Read or recited -

I saw two white butterflies fluttering over the mustard flowers under the lively and contrasted light of the late summer. Having contemplated for a moment their whirling in their perfect duet to the singing of the cicada, and the movement of their slow and continuous ascent in axis so vertically harmonized that it seemed to attract them infinitely upward, I asked myself how we, human beings ...

to a sleepless companion
Use bay leaves... Instead of collecting them to make a crown, scatter them with moderation in one's infusion of tea.

no weight
We are told that, one day, Einstein was the witness of a spectacular accident: A construction worker had fallen from a building of several stories, and had miraculously survived. Einstein hurried to visit him because he had an urgent and very precise question in mind. The question of the physicist was as follows: "What, dear Sir, did you feel while falling"? The answer of the worker was as remarkable as the question put to him by the physicist: "I felt, Sir, that I had no weight"...

prescription for a choreographer
Every day at dawn, stare at the sun beams if possible during five minutes to clear up the sight.

letter to the friends (paul bélanger)
... Time expels us from its sphere, seasons cancel each other out. The low walls of solitude become blurred, become transparent, the words, these lost words call for somebody. They run and fly in front of one another...

For upcoming events, see the performance history