Formica Asymmetry - Lucy M. May (2018) - 4 min Give Me Your Heart Tonight - Margie Gillis - 3 min Complex Simplicity of Love - Margie Gillis - 4 min
Lucy M. May
Lucy M. May is a contemporary dance artist, teacher, and writer established in Montréal since 2003. Lucy imagines her moving body as a meeting place, where theories and conversations find confluence with what is local, sensual, or tactile. Attracted to the porousness of collaboration and the ontology of space, Lucy has created performances over the past two years that ask how geo- and bio-social environments thread their way through human movement (Éclosions; Le Goulet; Vivarium; Esemplastic Landing; reaching over a brink of darkness, folding open to a starlight trepanation; Ascendants). From 2009 to 2016, Lucy was a member of Compagnie Marie Chouinard, with whom she developed roles for eight creations and toured extensively. As an independent dancer she has worked with Susanna Hood, Ariane Boulet, Alejandro De Leon, Sasha Kleinplatz, and choreographers based in her natal province of New Brunswick. She has been affiliate of Margie Gillis’s Legacy Project since its inception in 2014. Lucy studied at l’École de danse contemporaine de Montréal and Codarts in The Netherlands, and began studying Krump in 2016. She was recently invited to the “Grouch” Krump family under the name Ravage Grouch. Lucy dances to wonder after what binds micro to macro, macro to micro.
Margie Gillis
Internationally acclaimed modern choreographer/dancer Margie Gillis has been creating original works for over 40 years.
In 1979, Margie was invited to teach and lecture in China, thus becoming the first artist from the West to introduce modern dance after the Cultural Revolution. Two years later the Margie Gillis Dance Foundation was created with the mission to present and support her work. Her repertoire now includes more than one hundred creations, which she performs as solos, duets and group works. Touring has taken Margie to Asia, India, Europe and the Middle East, as well as North and South America. In parallel to her solo work Margie collaborates on projects initiated by her peers. She has worked with some of the most important dance artists and companies of her time such as Les Grand Ballets Canadiens, Paul Taylor Dance Company, Stella Adler Studio of Acting and the prestigious Juilliard School in New York. Teaching and mentoring are important aspects of her career. With Margie’s unique approach of “Dancing from the Inside Out”, she offers workshops for dance professionals and students alike.
Margie Gillis is a socially committed artist. She lectures on dance and the role of art in society. She has been spokesperson for a number of organizations dedicated to the fight against AIDS, as well as OXFAM and the Planned Parenthood Foundation. She is a fierce defender of environmental causes.