MAYDAY's award-winning Confession Publique is an act of radical exposure, May 26 and 27
Drum kits, dance, and microphones, as Montreal’s Mélanie Demers creates a solo for her muse Angélique Willkie
Confession Publique’s veteran performer Angélique Willkie draws on multiple disciplines, using her voice as a primary tool.
Plastic orchid factory presents MAYDAY’s Confession Publique at the Scotiabank Dance Centre on May 26 and 27
TWO FIERCE AND fearless women from Montreal’s dance scene combine forces on an unforgettable solo that’s coming to Vancouver’s Scotiabank Dance Centre for two nights this weekend.
From the opening moment of riveting performer Angélique Willkie cathartically banging away at a drum kit, you’ll know you’re about to witness something different.
In fact, the piece Confession Publique is an autobiographical solo by choreographic superstar Mélanie Demers created for her muse, Willkie. Vancouverites will remember Demers for her wild, all-female, vocally charged dance-theatre work La Goddam Voie Lactée, performed here care of The Dance Centre and PuSh International Performing Arts Festival in February 2022. The artist used to dance for hyperenergized O Vertigo before founding MAYDAY in 2007; her work didn’t debut on the West Coast till 2017, when plastic orchid factory staged her fantastically outré Animal Triste, a provocative critique of human evolution that found its mostly male dancers cavorting and contorting in symbolic strings of pearls.
Demers’s Confession Publique tackles privacy, confession, and secrecy, delving into ideas of self-interrogation and the agency of Black women. Think swinging microphones, collaged poetry, images, and sounds, adding up to a work of radical exposure and authenticity.
Willkie is just as intriguing as an artist, fluidly crossing genres of dance, theatre, music, and circus. She began her dance training after completing a Master’s degree in Economics at McGill University, graduating from the Toronto Dance Theatre school. From there, she headed to Europe where, over 25 years, she based herself in Belgium and performed for the likes of Alain Platel/Les Ballets C. de la B., Jan Lauwers/Needcompany, Sidi LarbiCherkaoui, and as a singer with world-music group Mama, and bands Arno, dEUS, 7Dub, DAAU, Ez3kiel, and Zita Swoon Group. As viewers who catch Confession Publique will witness, she uses her mesmerizing voice as a primary tool in her work.
The plastic orchid factory folks have reported that this piece “absolutely blew our minds when we saw it at the FTA festival last year. It’s really powerful.” Artistic producer Natalie LeFebvre Gnam adds the show is “one of the most vulnerable and commanding performances I’ve witnessed in my life.” Not surprisingly, Confession Publique won best choreographic work and interpretation at Les Prix de la danse de Montréal.
In other words, this is a rare opportunity. Check out the trailer below for an idea of what you’re in for the strange, magnetic trip this is.
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