Dancing in Every Direction – How I Arrived Here

I was born into a francophone family and raised in Montréal. Québec was home the first twenty years of my life. Even after years of traveling the world and living in Toronto, Montréal remains my true home. And now on with the story.

Movement was part of growing up. My mother was a naturally good dancer and she used to teach me basic dance combinations - a bit of cha cha cha, salsa, or jive moves - during family parties. When she felt good, she danced and included me in it. Her natural capacity for performance took root in me at an early age. There are short films of our family that I recently discovered and you can see me always performing for the camera, dancing away and entertaining my parents, brother, aunts and uncles, running (badly as still is the case today), or playing football with my cousins.

My brother and I were well taken care of, but life was not always grand. My father was dedicated to his children’s education: I attended boarding schools and was educated in a strict classical studies curriculum. There was not much exposure to the arts, but my father did, however, invest in private ballet classes for me at age seven. I don’t recall that it was something I wanted to do but perhaps he thought it would be a nice activity for me.

Boarding school was extremely strict and we were not allowed to speak in class, in the dormitory, in the cafeteria and, of course, never in the chapel. Needless to say, when permitted, I became very animated (silence didn’t suit me). I excelled in Latin and English languages. Aside from singing briefly in a girls’ choir - taking both soprano and alto parts – artistic activity at school was scant. There was no music, no visual arts, no dance. To escape from the burden of hours of homework every night, I found amusements. At age 10, I used to dance with a tennis racket to Honky Tonk Woman in a little recreation room at the boarding school. But only until the nuns chased me out!

One exception at l’Institut Marie-Clarac had a huge impact on my life. I had my first glimmer of real artistic experience with the arrival of the only male person allowed into the school (except for our dedicated priest). This young actor was hired to bring ‘artistic experience’ to the students. A small group of us were allowed this special class from 4:30 to 5:30 every Thursday. He bravely led us through theatre, dance and visual art exercises that culminated in a performance in the gym. The details have receded in my memory, but I remember coming alive. I loved it. All of it. 

At 16, I entered Cégep Marie-Victorin to study preschool education. A brand new three-year program, I was part of the very first cohort of students. In addition to intense study, writing, and working in the field, I continued dancing.  I enrolled in recreational classes because I could not yet imagine that dance and art would be the work of my life.

By second year, at age 17, I found myself dreading the final terms papers required for psychology and philosophy. So I proposed to my instructors that, instead of writing, I would create a dance performance to explore the tension between children and adults. To my surprise, the instructors agreed! 

I prepared for a year, setting lunch time rehearsals, teaching the ‘moves’ I’d learned in my dance classes and engaging all the theatrics. I persuaded some students to coordinate costumes and makeup while I designed the set, and chose music. The production was entitled Zoogep (because CEGEP is a zoo!) and ran for 50 minutes. I had acquired the personal phone number (from our Cegep counsellor) for the noted Québec composer François Dompierre - (composer of the iconic québécois song  ‘On est six millions faut s’ parler) - as I had choreographed the full production to some musical tracks from his album entitled Dompierre and invited him to attend the show.  He accepted, showed up and loved it; we hung out afterwards with the full cast at a restaurant. The first of many such nights in my life.

When I think about it now, it’s clear my first focus was choreographing and directing before I even knew how to dance.