DanceHouse announces Jean-Pierre Perreault’s Joe for its second Digidance offering
The iconic 1984 work by the late choreographer streams March 17 to 23
Joe has a kind of cult status in Canadian contemporary-dance, but it never toured to the West Coast. Photo by Robert Etcheverry
AS PART OF its new Digidance online programming, DanceHouse said it would bring back classic works in the Canadian canon.
Now it’s announced that the second work in its streaming offerings will be late Montreal choreographer Jean-Pierre Perreault’s Joe. The filmed production follows the streaming of Crystal Pite’s Body and Soul, which ends today.
Having premiered in 1984, Joe features a mass of 32 dancers in overcoats and fedoras, stamping work boots percussively on the floor.
The broadcast will mark Vancouver audiences' first opportunity to experience the kinetic spectacle, as the work never toured to the West Coast and has not been staged since 2005.
The digital broadcast was filmed in 1995, produced by Bernard Picard for Radio-Canada. It features dancers from Perreault’s own company, La Fondation Jean-Pierre Perreault, alongside artists from Winnipeg Contemporary Dancers and Dancemakers.
Perreault influenced a generation of Canadian contemporary-dance artists and Joe is considered a cult hit. Perrault won the Governor General’s Award for the Arts, creating total artworks that found him taking on stage design, choreography, lighting, and sound design. He was known for placing human beings amid vast architectural spaces.
Digidance is a national initiative formed in response to COVID-19 theatre shutdowns between four of Canada’s leading dance presenters: DanceHouse alongside Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre, Ottawa’s the National Arts Centre, and Montreal’s Danse Danse.
You can find more information and tickets here.
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