Danse Kalashas

Chore­o­graph­ic Arts

Estab­lished in the 1980s upon the foun­da­tions of a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to Kathakali dance, Danse Kalashas has, since 1990, orga­nized research, cre­ation, pro­duc­tion, and dis­sem­i­na­tion activ­i­ties in the field of chore­o­graph­ic com­po­si­tion. The com­pa­ny pro­duces and dis­sem­i­nates chore­o­g­ra­ph­er Richard Tremblay’s body of work in the chore­o­graph­ic arts – the ‘Série Diachronie’ series – as well as his Kathakali dance works with­in the World Epics Her­itage series, there­by high­light­ing the diver­si­ty of the choreographer’s artis­tic out­put. Of Mice and Oth­er Sim­i­lar Devices (pre­sent­ed at Tan­gente in Novem­ber – Decem­ber 1990) stands as the company’s foun­da­tion­al work, herald­ing a decade char­ac­ter­ized by the inten­sive pre­sen­ta­tion of the choreographer’s cre­ations. Danse Kalashas served as go between with Quebec’s over­seas cul­tur­al ser­vices, facil­i­tat­ing a response to an invi­ta­tion from chore­o­g­ra­ph­er Odile Duboc for an extend­ed res­i­den­cy at the Cen­tre choré­graphique de Belfort-Sochaux (France, 1998). Cre­at­ed in 2003 — and host­ed as a pro­duc­tion res­i­den­cy at the Usine C the­ater venue (Mon­tre­al) in part­ner­ship with the Mahapooram per­cus­sion ensem­ble under the direc­tion of com­pos­er Bruno Paquet — , Prayer for a Rope, a Pope and a Rogue brings togeth­er six dancers and four per­cus­sion­ists under the choreographer’s direc­tion, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with French stage artist Jean-Guy Lecat. Sub­se­quent short-term res­i­den­cies took place with­in Montreal’s net­work of Maisons de la cul­ture. Danse Kalashas has sup­port­ed and con­tin­ues to sup­port the chore­o­g­ra­pher’s work in Kathakali dance, includ­ing numer­ous orig­i­nal cre­ations endorsed by his peers in India, and con­tributes to their pre­sen­ta­tion through pro­duc­tion part­ner­ships. The com­pa­ny sup­port­ed Ren­con­tres choré­graphiques (1997 – 98), a series of inter­views between the chore­o­g­ra­ph­er and his peers pro­duced by the Cana­di­an Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (Société Radio-Cana­da) in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Mai­son de la cul­ture de Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (Botrel, Mon­tre­al), fea­tur­ing chore­o­g­ra­phers such as Serge Ben­nathan, Chan­dralekha, Marie Chouinard, Rina Sing­ha, and Luc Trem­blay. In asso­ci­a­tion with insti­tu­tion­al and pri­vate part­ners, Danse Kalashas also sup­ports the choreographer’s work in restag­ing and reen­act­ment (the repo­si­tion­ing of past per­for­mances) through an ad hoc series designed to bet­ter sit­u­ate the lega­cy of dance with­in con­tem­po­rary chore­o­graph­ic discourse.

ISNI : https://​isni​.org/​i​s​n​i​/​0​0​0​0​0​0​0​5​2​9​5​8​4​609