Monday 20 May 2013

Guelph Dance Festival 2013 Sneak Peek: Mayday

In the weeks leading up to Guelph Dance Festival 2013, some of the amazing dance artists who will perform at the Festival will also share their vision with us here on the blog. These intimate, behind-the-scenes looks will bring us closer to the artistry, process, and experience of dance. We encourage you to not just read these amazing stories, but to ask questions or engage in conversation about dance in our comments section below. Welcome to our 15th anniversary year!

Mélanie Demers, choreographer and founder of Mayday, offers us a French-language video interview that examines the major creative forces behind her work, featuring Junkyard/Paradise and other pieces. Mayday presents at our On the Stage B performance on Saturday, June 1, 8pm, at the River Run Centre. Talkback session to follow. Book your tickets now!

Mélanie: Choosing choreography as a career is a really reckless statement. It's not dangerous but it's delicate. In my case, it only allows me to create through other people's bodies. It gives a strange sense of power while surrendering most of my views to other people sensibility. After 5 years at the head of Mayday, I was given the chance to reflect upon the path behind and the road ahead. Followed and interviewed by director Xavier Curnillon, during a few stepping stones in the last few years, I got to reveal the motivations behind the need to move and to make other people move. The Mayday crew is formed by a group of committed artists and most of my inspirations come from and is embodied through their highly articulated body intelligence. And with them, Mayday becomes something that goes beyond my only preoccupations, trying to grasp the era and the society in which we live in. In a way, dance, for me, is a genuine attempt to propel us further in the perpetual movement of life.


Since its creation in 2007 by Mélanie Demers, Mayday has been a place of creation and reflection where physicality and poetry are characteristic elements of her singular works and testimony to her concerns for contemporary issues. Well-known for sensible, political, and poetic pieces, Mayday presents works across North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. 

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