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Laurence Lemieux, Artistic Director 2-15 Dancers Residency and Outreach Activities Available ABOUT Compagnie de la Citadelle is an award-winning Toronto-based professional dance organization that creates, produces and presents works on local, national and international scales from its home base in a former Salvation Army Citadel in Regent Park. Since 2007, Compagnie de la Citadelle has renovated, revamped and transformed The Citadel into a place where artists rehearse, create and perform and where the community learns, explores and shares. Originally named Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie, founded by Bill Coleman and Laurence Lemieux in 2000, the company was renamed Compagnie de la Citadelle in 2017 to better reflect the stabilizing effect the ownership of The Citadel has had on the organization. The change also signifies a maturing of the organization, from a husband-and-wife run company to a company with a renewed mandate of fostering cultural participation and nurturing creative excellence. Led by artistic director, Laurence Lemieux, Compagnie de la Citadelle's repertoire is intimate and emotionally honest productions and features some of Canada's greatest dancers and choreographers. After nine years as artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada (1996-2005), James Kudelka was named Compagnie de la Citadelle's resident choreographer in 2008. This relationship has allowed Kudelka to revisit some of his finest works and made way for challenging new contemporary creations. The presence of Kudelka's work at Compagnie de la Citadelle has expanded the company's public recognition, and increased audiences eager to see the work of one of the country's finest choreographers. C+C encourages artistic risk and innovation through its performing arts series, Bright Nights, curated by Lemieux. With residencies, workshops and performance opportunities, Bright Nights is entering its fourth season and showcases diverse performances from a wide-range of Canadian dance artists from emerging choreographers like Toronto's Michael Caldwell and Nipissing First Nation's Penny Couchie, to established choreographers, like Serge Bennathan and Tedd Robinson. The series takes place in Regent Park, at The Citadel: Ross Centre for Dance. PRESS A profoundly moving duet…Rich and poignant terrain. I found myself profoundly moved by the troubled drama that Hart and Cerneacov had built together. Sophisticated and highly self-aware... Kudelka’s work is a masterpiece… Lemieux’s judicious mix of simplicity and complexity in Looking for Elvis presents a picture of a man who was overtaken by his fame. Lemieuxʼs powerful presence never falters… Lemieux empowers and politicizes the playful as she presents these sharply delineated forms through her lone dancing body in a way that subtly transforms all of the elements of her choreography into a beautifully layered dance narrative as homage to her father’s detailed and painstaking work... It all makes for an intense theatrical experience in which conventions of dance, opera and theatre are not so much abandoned as reshaped and combined to evoke the central theme of a man in search of himself, yet unwilling to trust in any God ... Against Nature is a must-see. As for the singers and dancers, led by Laurence Lemieux as Lily, they blend their talents seamlessly in a wonderful ensemble performance. Powerful sculptural images crystallize amidst an incessant flux of simple but compelling movements: sudden leaps, whirls, off-balance swayings, stylized gestures of grief, pleading compassion. ... it was their execution that dazzled – the split-second timing during complex partnering, and the gratifying lightness of low-to-the-ground leaps and lifts.
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LINKS citadelcie.com |
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CADENCE ARTS NETWORK, INC