Choreography .. . .

Of Mice and Oth­er Sim­i­lar Devices (1990 – 91)
• A Jour­ney to the West (1) • The Attrac­tor at Ezhikode (2)
60 min.

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The for­mat and edit­ing of the dig­i­tized videos appear­ing on this page (Sc. 1 to 5) date back to 1991 – 93. The dance scenes are part of a doc­u­ment, the dis­sem­i­na­tion of which was meant for archival pur­pos­es and even­tu­al­ly to sup­port the revival of the work.


The chore­og­ra­phy is large­ly set to per­cus­sion music by com­pos­er and per­former Bruno Paquet, fol­lowed by a floor sequence per­formed by Geneviève Pepin to cham­ber music by Cana­di­an com­pos­er Claude Vivi­er (1948 – 83).

See cred­its below.

VIEW
Sc. 1
A hard stone tile serves as an instru­ment for the per­for­mance of excerpts of per­cus­sion music. This sequence sets the rhythm of the piece. The per­cus­sion is inspired by the train­ing of per­cus­sion­ists who learn rhythms by strik­ing a stone tile before mov­ing on to the actu­al instru­ment (the chen­da).

Sc. 2
A walk­ing sequence with tra­jec­to­ries and curved move­ments asso­ci­at­ed with hand ges­tures unfolds to per­cus­sion music com­posed and inter­pret­ed by Bruno Paquet.

Sc. 3
The chore­og­ra­phy devel­ops in a tex­tured com­po­si­tion per­formed a cap­pel­la by Geneviève Pepin.

Sc. 4
Vari­a­tions of mir­rored ges­tures in a duet per­formed by Geneviève Pepin and Francine Gag­né to the chen­da (Ker­ala per­cus­sion music) com­posed and per­formed by Bruno Paquet.

Sc. 5
Char­ac­ter dance by Richard Trem­blay per­formed by Geneviève Pepin, Francine Gag­né, and Sékai to cham­ber music by Cana­di­an com­pos­er Claude Vivier.

Chore­og­ra­phy 
RICHARD TREMBLAY

Per­cus­sion music
BRUNO PAQUET
Son­des I, II (1990),  La prière du ser­pent (1990)

Orches­tral con­tem­po­rary music
CLAUDE VIVIER
Zipan­gu (1980)

Dance inter­pre­ta­tion
GENEVIÈVE PEPIN
FRANCINE GAGNÉ
SEKAI

Kathakali music cita­tions played on stone mar­ble
BRUNO PAQUET

Light
MARC PARENT

Design and stage­craft
ALAIN CADIEUX, LOUISE BESNER

Make­up
ANGELO BARSETTI

Stage man­age­ment
FRANCE COUTURE

Tech­ni­cal direc­tion
MARC PARENT

Agent
HERVEY TURCK

Thanks to Thérèse Des­jardins, Car­o­line Lussier (Dia­gramme), Michael Hogan, Frank Watts, Robert Mas­son, the Cana­di­an Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion, and Cana­da Post. Of Mice and Oth­er Sim­i­lar Devices was cre­at­ed and pro­duced with the sup­port of the Que­bec Min­istry of Cul­tur­al Affairs and the Mon­tre­al Urban Com­mu­ni­ty Arts Coun­cil.

VIDEO PRODUCTION

Cam­era
VICTOR REGALATO

Edit­ing
HERVÉ TURCK

Elec­tron­ic edit­ing
STÉPHANE TREMBLAY

Pro­duc­tion and réal­i­sa­tion
Vic­tor Regal­a­do, Danse Kalashas

DANSE KALASHAS

Admin­is­tra­tion
Érick Van­ches­tein, Pres­i­dent
Danielle Lam­on­tagne, Vice-président

Artis­tic direc­tion
Richard Trem­blay

© Danse Kalashas, 1991 – 2025

Prayer for a Rope, a Pope and a Rogue (2003)
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About…


Formed in the 1980s on the basis of a non-prof­it Kathakali dance orga­ni­za­tion, the Danse Kalashas com­pa­ny has, since its restruc­tur­ing in 1990, been devel­op­ing research, cre­ation, pro­duc­tion and dis­sem­i­na­tion activ­i­ties in the field of chore­o­graph­ic com­po­si­tion. To this end, the com­pa­ny is com­mit­ted to equip­ping itself with the means of pro­duc­tion, oper­a­tion, pro­mo­tion and financ­ing of its activ­i­ties, draw­ing on cut­ting-edge exper­tise in the field of per­form­ing arts and dis­tri­b­u­tion net­works. Build­ing on its long-stand­ing prac­tice, Danse Kalashas is respon­si­ble for estab­lish­ing and man­ag­ing part­ner­ships through pro­to­cols and/or agree­ments aimed, where applic­a­ble, at shar­ing finan­cial struc­tur­ing and mul­ti-sec­toral col­lab­o­ra­tion with­in its scope of activ­i­ties. Com­mit­ted to main­tain­ing its strate­gic posi­tion in its area of ​​exper­tise and to diver­si­fy­ing its activ­i­ties in order to uphold artis­tic stan­dards and to assert its brand image, the com­pa­ny will have to study and reassess from time to time its role in the research and dis­sem­i­na­tion of chore­o­graph­ic arts.

In line with its man­date, and draw­ing on a mature stage prac­tice ground­ed in cul­tur­al ethics, the Danse Kalashas com­pa­ny intends to sup­port, present, pro­duce, and dis­sem­i­nate chore­o­graph­ic works aimed at an adult audi­ence recep­tive to or open to dance cul­ture. It tar­gets in par­tic­u­lar, but not exclu­sive­ly, ad hoc in-devel­op­ment pro­gram­ming net­works with­out neglect­ing access to the­mat­ic dis­sem­i­na­tion, in all cas­es where pro­gram­ming is based on an acces­si­bil­i­ty pol­i­cy moti­vat­ed by the duty of envi­ron­men­tal and social pro­bity. In doing so, it empha­sizes the cre­ation of spe­cial pro­grams fea­tur­ing new works but also reviv­ing past works, where these revivals invite a fresh look at its reper­toire. Exten­sive exper­tise in Kathakali dance, an Asian dance form known for its dis­tinc­tive use of char­ac­ters in dance, has enriched its prac­tice in the 1990s and focus­es on trans­dis­ci­pli­nary approach­es seen as cat­a­lysts in the dynam­ic trans­for­ma­tion of local par­a­digms. From this per­spec­tive, and with respect for cul­tur­al speci­fici­ties in the nego­ti­a­tion of per­for­mance prac­tices, cre­ation is a move­ment of prac­tice linked to reflec­tion and sit­u­at­ed at ‘shift­ing bound­aries’ in response to the clo­sure of aes­thet­ics and ter­ri­to­ries. In oth­er words, the result­ing net­work­ing work intro­duces, in this sense, crit­i­cal reflec­tion and the his­tor­i­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty for the lega­cy and trans­for­ma­tion of prac­tices. The com­pa­ny works in the field of dance in Que­bec and Cana­da and simul­ta­ne­ous­ly under­takes spe­cial projects abroad in order to main­tain a strate­gic advan­tage in its reper­toire, remain­ing out­side of pass­ing trends. Through its pub­lish­ing arm, SILENTCULTURE per­for­mance, the com­pa­ny seeks to devel­op a per­for­ma­tive and crit­i­cal lit­er­a­ture in syn­er­gy with chore­o­graph­ic prac­tice, serv­ing to guide the col­lab­o­ra­tive work that falls to the dramaturg.