The multi-award-winning dance film Amelia (2002) explores the use of point technique using extended intertwining solos, complex partnering sequences and extreme speed to generate powerful performances with unexpected moments of tender emotion and serenity. Lock uses intricate choreography for both camera and dancers, creating amazing and constantly shifting points of view. Trademark performances, brilliant and relentless, combined with the delicate sensual lighting of André Turpin and the minimalist environment of a giant wooden box with rounded forms that seems to have no exit, create a disturbingly exquisite and moving experience. The original score, written by David Lang for violin, cello, piano and voice, combines evocative minimalism with lyrics from five of Lou Reed’s most famous works, created in the 60s for the Velvet Underground.

Source : Epidemic

La La La Human Steps Founder, Artistic Director and Choreographer Édouard Lock began his choreographic career at the age of 20, creating works from 1974 to 1979 for a variety of Canadian dance companies and institutions, including Groupe Nouvelle Aire, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts and the Musée d'Art Contemporain de Montréal. In 1980 he founded La La La Human Steps, a company that has garnered strong national and international recognition and that celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2006. Over the years Mr. Lock has been invited to create works for some of the world's leading dance companies, including the Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris, the Nederlands Dans Theater and Het Nationale Ballet of Holland. His works have garnered many awards, including Canada's most important choreographic award. Mr. Lock co-conceived and was Artistic Director for David Bowie's world tour, "Sound and Vision", in 1990. He also collaborated with Frank Zappa on "the Yellow Shark concert" -an occasion that marked Mr. Zappa's final performances-alongside Germany's Ensemble Modern, Frankfurt's Alte Oper, the Berlin Philharmonic and Vienna's KonzertHaus. Since "Human Sex" in 1985, which catapulted La La La Human Steps to the forefront of the international dance scene, the troupe has performed shows - "New Demons" (1987), "Infante, c'est destroy" (1991), 2 (1995), "Exaucé/Salt" (1998), "Amelia" (2002) and "Amjad" (2007) -on international tours, two years for each creation, in the major capitals of Europe, Asia and America. Edouard Lock created "The Seasons" (2014) for the Sao Paulo Dance Company, revisiting Vivaldi's Four Seasons. The company has been dissolved in 2015.

Source : Maison de la Danse press file ; Epidemic.net

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Artistic direction: Edouard Lock

Creation: 1980

La La La Human Steps was founded in 1980 around a three-week series of performances in the small theatre l'Eskabel in Montréal's St-Henri district, which led the troupe to The Kitchen in New York City, the epicentre of contemporary dance at the time. Since then, the troupe has become one of the world's most recognized dance companies, thanks to the unique choreographic language it developed and has constantly reinvented since its inception. Choreographic complexity, the alteration of balletic structures and the intertwining of choreographic, musical and cinematic strands are among the elements that create a sense of perceptual distortion and renewal, that encourage audiences to both reinvent and rediscover the body and its dance. The company requires that its dancers constantly redefine, question and renew themselves, to bring out performances that move from extreme physical challenge to the greatest of lyricism. The Montréal troupe has collaborated with institutions both prestigious and eclectic, from the Opéra de Paris to Frank Zappa. Since Human Sex in 1985, which catapulted La La La Human Steps to the forefront of the international dance scene, the troupe has performed shows - "New Demons" (1987), "Infante, c’est destroy" (1991), "2" (1995), "Exaucé/Salt" (1998), "Amelia" (2002) et "Amjad" (2007) - on international tours, two years for each creation, in the major capitals of Europe, Asia and America. The company was dissolved in 2015.

Source: Epidemic

More information: epidemic.net