a few words from Marie
An organic and organised inquiry into the foundational wavelength.
My source has always been the body itself, and especially the silence and the breath which make up the “invisible” stuff of life. At the root of each new work there is always what I call the “mystery”, an unknown wavelength that calls out to me in an almost obsessive manner. My work consists of capturing this primordial wavelength, of “tuning” it in a sense, and of arranging it in space and time with a structure and form proper to it. Since 1978, this is what I have been doing: listening attentively to the vital pulsation of the body to the point of crystallising it in a new order. Each time, I start afresh from zero. Each time, I focus and re-direct my “antennae”, I seek out a new “state”, I track this wavelength until everything is in line, like in a reinvented classical structure in which, I hope, the viewer’s own “mystery” will be revealed to her.
Marie Chouinard, 2000
biographical notes
Marie Chouinard was born in Quebec. At the age of 16, her life was transformed after spending 4 months alone in Percé. As a choreographer, she traveled the world over as soloist for 12 years before founding the COMPAGNIE MARIE CHOUINARD in 1990. Her works, radical and profound, with a unique signature are nonetheless enduring and appear in the repertoires of major international ballet companies.
Marie Chouinard is a director (films, applications, virtual reality works), an author (Zéro Douze, Chantiers des extases), a visual artist (photographs, drawings, installations), and she also creates choreographies for site-specific installations, for the screen, and in real-time for the web. Named Officière des Arts et des Lettre in France, recipient of a Bessie Award in New York, she has received some thirty of the most prestigious awards and honors. She founded the Prix de la Danse de Montréal in 2011 and was director of dance at the Venice Biennale from 2017 to 2020. Marie Chouinard is preparing a solo exhibition.
Awards and recognitions
2016 : Prize for best international work for the film MARIE CHOUINARD: THE RITE OF SPRING, 20th “Coreografo Elettronico” International Festival of Video-dance
2016 : Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts
2016 : Positano Prize "Choreographer of the Year"
2016 : Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement
2015 : Ordre national du Québec
2015 : Ordre des arts et des lettres du Québec
2014 : Prix Samuel de Champlain
2012 : Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec Award for best choreography work for THE GOLDEN MEAN (LIVE)
2012 : Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal
2011 : The name of Marie Chouinard became a dictionary entry in Le Robert
2010 : The name of Marie Chouinard became a dictionary entry in Le Petit Larousse illustré
2010 : Prix du Quebec - Denise Pelletier Award
2010 : The Imperial Tobacco Foundation's Arts Achievement Award
2009 : Title of Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France)
2009 : Gemini Award to the COMPAGNIE MARIE CHOUINARD dancers for their
performance in the film bODY_rEMIX/gOLDBERG_vARIATIONS
2007 : Officer of the Order of Canada
2007 : Canada's National Arts Centre Associate Dance Artist
2006 : Grand Prix du Conseil des arts de Montréal
2006 : Archangel Award at the Edinburgh Festival for the opera the Seven Deadly Sins, directed by François Girard and chorographed by Marie Chouinard
2003 : Governor General of Canada’s Performing Arts Awards (National Arts Centre Award, Ottawa)
2003 : Prize for interpretation for the performance of Carol Prieur and Benoît Lachambre in the film Cantique no. 1, Moving Pictures Film Festival, Toronto
2003 : The French Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers Award (SACD), Paris
2000 : Bessie Award for sustained achievement, New York
1994 : Paper Boat Award (Glasgow, Scotland) for The Rite of Spring
1993 : Artist Lifetime Achievement Award
1987 : Prix Jean A. Chalmers de chorégraphie
1986 : Prix Jacqueline-Lemieux
1981 : Studio du Québec à New York (Government of Quebec), First Guest