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GRAND PONEY

CONTEMPORARY DANCE

Territoire: Monde

grandponey.com

Grand Poney is an interdisciplinary company established in Montreal by founder Jacques Poulin-Denis in 2009. The company devises a hybrid and collaborative process based on choreographic abstraction, musical composition and theatrical dramaturgy. It draws its narrative from the infinite traits of the human existence: our physical and psychic states, our impulses and principles and our relationship to others and to ourselves. Grand Poney consistently utilizes a measure of unfeasibility to bridge the imaginary to the obvious.

NEWS

SHOWS AVAILABLE

Internationale Dance Day

OFFICIAL SELECTION | RIDEAU 2022

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Punch Line

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SHOW 1

PUNCH LINE

SYNOPSIS - PUNCH LINE

Punch Line, a solo work by Jacques Poulin-Denis, borrows as much from the comedic style of a one man show as it does from the intimacy and depth of a confession. In the guise of an artist talk, Jacques Poulin-Denis shares his takes on life and loses himself in thought. Through stories and anecdotes filled with joyful irony, insight and humour, he reveals himself. Characters emerge from this flow of ideas, embodying the multiplicity of our existence, the many avatars that compose us and the at times absurd strategies we use to hold our contradictions together. Treading the thin line that separates reality from fiction, Jacques materializes our inner monologues into sensory experiences, both subtle and intense. He is a transmitter of words, thoughts and gestures.

Punch Line is, of course, the culmination of a joke. In very few words, they create a situation that we subscribe to, accepting any turn of events, no matter how unreal. Punch Line is a salute to the imagination of both artist and spectator, to our need to create and believe in fiction, and to disguise reality to make it more palatable.

show 2

ON / OFF

SYNOPSIS - ON / OFF

ON / OFF is a dance work designed for teenagers

and adults where a quartet of dancers performs on

an unusual and wondrous machine: an oversized

treadmill.

On this rolling and confining surface, physical

movement is both restrained and ecstatic, exhilarated

and acrobatic. Together and alone, the performers

address themes such as identity, self fulfillment,

determination, coexistence, freedom, exhaustion and

the unending feelings and sensations that makeup

the complexity of life. The treadmill is a meeting place

where the characters seek to understand their place

in the world. Sometimes at the mercy, sometimes

in control of this intriguing, unpredictable and

mobilizing machine, they play with time and suspend

actions in space in order to dig out the details of

gestures, questions and interactions. The forever

forward moving device becomes a metaphor for the

passage from childhood to adulthood. It is the path

that we choose to travel and the life that we learn

to tame.

show 3

ON / OFF | OUTDOOR

SYNOPSIS - ON / OFF OUTDOOR

ON / OFF is a dance work designed for teenagers

and adults where a quartet of dancers performs on

an unusual and wondrous machine: an oversized

treadmill.

On this rolling and confining surface, physical

movement is both restrained and ecstatic, exhilarated

and acrobatic. Together and alone, the performers

address themes such as identity, self fulfillment,

determination, coexistence, freedom, exhaustion and

the unending feelings and sensations that makeup

the complexity of life. The treadmill is a meeting place

where the characters seek to understand their place

in the world. Sometimes at the mercy, sometimes

in control of this intriguing, unpredictable and

mobilizing machine, they play with time and suspend

actions in space in order to dig out the details of

gestures, questions and interactions. The forever

forward moving device becomes a metaphor for the

passage from childhood to adulthood. It is the path

that we choose to travel and the life that we learn

to tame.