BIOGRAPHY ANGÉLIQUE WILLKIE
A multidisciplinary artist, Angélique Willkie began her dance training after completing a Master’s degree in Economics at McGill University. A graduate of The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, she subsequently pursued a career in Europe where, over 25 years, she performed with dance companies and independent projects throughout Europe, most notably Alain Platel/Les Ballets C. de la B., Jan Lauwers/Needcompany, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Helena Waldmann and as a singer with the Belgian world-music group Zap Mama, bands Arno, dEUS, 7Dub, DAAU, Ez3kiel, and Zita Swoon Group, with jazz vocalist David Linx and contemporary composers Walter Hus, Kaat De Windt and Fabrizio Cassol.
Performer, singer, dramaturge and pedagogue, Angélique has been among the more sought-after contemporary technique teachers on the European professional circuit, teaching companies, schools and festivals including ImpulsTanz (Vienna), Henny Jurriens Stichting (Amsterdam), SEAD (Salzburg), Wim Vandekeybus/Ultima Vez (Brussels), Circuit-Est centre chorégraphique (Montreal) among others. She spent 8 years at École Supérieure des Arts du Cirque (ESAC) in Brussels as a teacher and dramaturgical advisor to the students as well as Pedagogical Coordinator of the school under Gérard Fasoli, current director of the Centre national des arts du cirque (CNAC) in France.
Her dramaturgical work has included projects in dance-, music- and circus-theatre with artists as varied as Belgian director/choreographer Isabella Soupart, French trapezist Mélissa Von Vépy and Dutch choreographers Arno Schuitemaker and Pia Meuthen/PanamaPictures. An ongoing collaboration of some 15 years, Angélique and Pia actively explore approaches to incorporating circus disciplines into dance-theatre productions, developing a hybrid aesthetic and movement language that is fully anchored in both art forms.
Since resettling in Montreal in 2014, Angélique has continued to be active in Montreal’s professional community as a teacher, performer and dramaturg, working with among others choreographers Mélanie Demers/MayDay, Clara Furey, Helen Simard and Daina Ashbee. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Contemporary Dance of Concordia University and director of LePARC, the Performing Arts Research Cluster of the Milieux Institute of Arts, Culture and Technology. Her current research interests focus primarily on dramaturgical practices in interdisciplinary creation, decolonial dramaturgies, and the dramaturgy of the performer.
Photo: Lisa Graves
ORGANIZATIONS ANGÉLIQUE IS INVOLVED IN
Festival TransAmériques: The biggest performing arts festival in North America, the Festival TransAmériques is a driving force for the promotion of contemporary theatre and dance. The FTA delves deep into artistic disciplines, probing their limits in its quest for bold, outstanding artistic voices. Since the very first edition in 1985, the FTA has promoted the inventiveness of artists, the broad scope of their works and the power of art to expand the imagination. A showcase for contemporary theatre and dance, it features works by artists driven by an urgent need to give voice to the present. More info here.
La Chapelle: Founded in 1990, La Chapelle is located in the heart of Montreal within a stone’s throw of the bustling St-Laurent Boulevard. This creative space is also a center of cultural dissemination and a non-profit organization devoted to performing arts that aims to be at the forefront of multi-disciplinary young creation. The programming of La Chapelle emphasizes art in which experimentation and research prevail. It navigates between francophone and anglophone theatre, contemporary dance, performance art, music, new artistic practices and multidisciplinary shows that transcend boundaries. La Chapelle is a meeting and reflection place for local and international artists, a catalyst venue for contemporary creation, and a motor for the presentation of performing arts in all their diversity and complexity. Driven by a passion for cultural dissemination of innovative events and committed to the promotion of creators, La Chapelle aims to spur the professional milieu, to develop an audience sensitive to subversive approaches and above all, to enrich the contemporary artistic heritage. More info here.
LePARC [the Performing Arts Research Cluster] is a cluster focused on research and creation in the performing and temporal arts. We are a group of 12 faculty members with diverse performance-related research interests, such as the creative process, new collaborative practices, sound and music, acting, oral history, listening, participatory performance, performance and politics, intermedia performance, dramaturgy, contemporary circus, playwriting, educational research in the performing arts, collective improvisation, notation, embodiment, space, and time, among many others. More info here.
EAHR | Media [Ethnocultural Art Histories Research in Media] is made up of faculty members and graduate students across the university working at the intersections of ethnocultural art research, media, and digital art history. Departments and Institutes represented by our members include Art History, Studio Arts, Dance, Design and Computation Arts, Animation, Cinema, Theatre, Communication Studies, the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art and the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS). More info here.
Panama Pictures is dynamic, unpolished and at times spectacular, but also vulnerable and intimate. Panama Pictures makes performances on the cutting edge of dance and circus in which the disciplines blend effortlessly with one another and personal stories literally start to move. More info here.
EC2_Espaces Choréographiques 2 explores different traces and memories of dance. It invites visitors to recreate and re-enact, to reflect and discuss. It showcases the multiple ways in which contemporary dance in Quebec is documented and transmitted from one generation to the next. EC2_Espaces chorégraphiques 2 also pays tribute to the visionary Jean-Pierre Perreault, the first choreographer in Quebec to found a space for dance creation: Espace chorégraphique. Angélique is a board member at EC2. More info here.
Regroupement québécois de la danse [RQD] is a non-profit association, active at the municipal, provincial and federal levels, that represents and defends the interests of over 500 dance professionals. Founded in 1984 in response to the Québec dance community’s need for a common voice, the RQD represents all stakeholders in professional dance: performers, choreographers, teachers, researchers, rehearsal directors, cultural workers, specialized presenters, dance companies, professional dance schools and service organizations. This broad-based membership allows the RQD to play a leadership role in implementing long-term development projects for the entire discipline. Angélique is currently a board member of the RQD. More info here.
Circuit-Est centre chorégraphique has supported, for more than 30 years, professionals on both technical and artistic levels, offering them spaces and services adapted to research, creation, advanced training, and professional development in contemporary dance and getting involved in its milieu. Open to the whole community, this resource-sharing-based organization counts ten member companies. Angélique has been teaching workshops at Circuit-Est for more than 20 years. More info here.
