About ON/OFF
ON/OFF is a dance work designed for teenagers and adults where five dancers perform on an unusual and wondrous machine: an oversized treadmill. On this rolling and confined surface, movement is restrained and ecstatic, exhilarated and acrobatic. At times in group or alone, the performers address the themes of identity, self-fulfillment, determination, coexistence, freedom, exhaustion and the unending feelings and sensations that makeup the complexity of life. The treadmill is a meeting place where the characters seek to understand their place in the world. Sometimes at its mercy, sometimes in control of this intriguing, unpredictable and mobilizing machine, the dancers play with time. They suspend actions in space in order to dig out the details of gestures, questions and interactions. The machine becomes a metaphor for the passage from childhood to adulthood. It is the path that we choose to travel and the life that we learn to tame.
About Grand Poney
Established in Montreal in 2009 by founder Jacques Poulin-Denis, the interdisciplinary company devises a hybrid and collaborative process based on choreographic abstraction, musical composition and theatrical dramaturgy. It draws its narrative from the infinite traits of the human existence: our physical and psychic states, our impulses and principles and our relationship to others and to ourselves. Grand Poney consistently utilizes a measure of unfeasibility to bridge the imaginary to the everyday.
Choreography Jacques Poulin-Denis
Dancers Émilie Winson, Félix Cossette, Nolwenn Duhaut, Ernesto Quesada & Léo Coupal
When & Where
Wednesday, June 10 at 7:00pm ET
at Le Sésame Theatre
Duration
45-50 minutes
About the artists
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Ernesto Quesada Perez
PERFORMER
Ernesto Quesada Perez (Tiko) began dancing at the age of nine in Cuba, his country of birth, where he learned Cuban popular and traditional dances. After moving to Montréal, he gained a range of experience in the dance community before turning professional. Since graduating from Collège Montmorency and the École de danse contemporaine de Montréal, Ernesto has continued to deepen every style he practices (Cuban dances, Hip Hop freestyle, etc.) and to share his knowledge through teaching. -
Nolwenn Duhaut
PERFORMER
Originally from Northern France, Nolwenn Duhaut became interested in dance around the age of eleven. She went on to explore several dance styles as well as other disciplines such as theatre and circus arts. A 2022 graduate of the École de danse contemporaine de Montréal, she has worked with Suzanne Miller and with the company Grand Poney. Alongside her performance work, she continues to refine her practice through extended improvisation sessions and ballet training. -
Émilie Winson
PERFORMER
Originally from Saguenay and now based in Montreal, Émilie Winson is an artist, choreographer, and dance teacher. -
Félix Cossette
PERFORMER
A graduate of the École de danse contemporaine de Montréal (EDCM) in 2014, Félix Cossette first performed primarily with Destins Croisés, Van Grimde Corps Secrets, and Sylvain Émard Danse. After a long break following the school project Sëlekt, he dives back into the ever-shifting world of Jacques Poulin-Denis with Grand Poney’s ON/OFF, a high-velocity work combining dance and theatre, set to the relentless rhythm of a treadmill. In parallel, he is working on Grand Poney’s upcoming piece Non Verbal as well as Euphoric Thresholds, a new production by Morin/Leroux • Arts Vivants. -
Léo “Hit” Coupal
PERFORMER
Léo “Hit” Coupal is a multidisciplinary artist working in dance and spoken-word poetry (slam). A breakdancer and performing arts creator, he was crowned National Slam Poetry Champion in 2016 and 2022. He also performs as a guest poet in schools and at various events. Since 2023, he has been integrating these practices into the creation project Nowhere (Nulle part), which explores existential and ecological questions. -
Jacques Poulin-Denis
CHOREOGRAPHER
Jacques Poulin-Denis is a choreographer and a craftsman of the performing arts with an unconventional sense of imagination. His works address the powerful vulnerability and the resistance of human beings confronted by the stiffness of our modern systems. They explore our individual hunger for self-determination and our – sometimes flawed – capacity to act upon our own lives.
Jacques' choreographic approach, marked by theatricality, is driven by his musical training and by the creation of devices such as prosthetics, machines and sensors that shape movement into a form of assisted choreography echoing his own disability.
Counting over twelve different productions, Jacques Poulin-Denis’ work has been seen in over twenty cities across Canada, as well as in the United States, Europe and Asia. He was a resident artist at La Chapelle Theatre from 2014 to 2018 and at the Agora de la danse in Montreal from 2018 to 2022. His most recent works include ON/OFF (2022), Punch Line (2020), Running Piece (2018) and the choreographic installation Turnover (2021) presented at the Musée d’art de Joliette.
He develops an interdisciplinary approach to creation, which he regularly teaches through workshops and master classes. He is also a close collaborator of choreographer Mélanie Demers and has been active with her company, Mayday, as a performer and composer since 2007. In 2009, he founded Grand Poney, an interdisciplinary dance company of which he is the general and artistic director.
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