Marie Chouinard presents "M" in national premiere: the "artist of the body" at Teatro Nuovo Gian Carlo Menotti

Spoleto, July 5, 2023 - The Dance section of the sixty-sixth edition of the Spoleto Festival closes with "M," the new work by Canadian choreographer Marie Chouinard presented in its national premiere at the Teatro Nuovo Gian Carlo Menotti on Saturday, July 8 (at 7:30 p.m.) and Sunday, July 9 (at 4 p.m.). Over the course of her remarkable career, Chouinard has earned the name "artist of the body," "architect" - as she likes to call herself - and "priestess of choreography choc," as she has been called in the aftermath of her most debated choreographies. "M" is a radical exploration of breath, a succession of movements that depend as much as possible on the sounds emitted by the dancers. The body is from always her starting point. to about choosing to study dance from as a child she says: "I needed to feel that I owned a body: when I was swimming I realized it, but outside - in normal life - I didn't feel it on me. So I started to taking dance classes."

" M " starts from micro-movements - from an impulse that stirs the lungs and bones - to set in motion the awakening of emotions and the delirious mechanics of being "living men and women." Without ever ceasing to listen to the vital pulse of the body, Chouinard brings to the stage an ode to life, with a soundtrack whose raw material is the breath of the twelve dancers.

A dancer and choreographer from Quebec, in the 1990s Chouinard became a point of reference in the world of live arts: after fifteen years of solo work, where she was able to experiment on herself with the most varied expressive possibilities through movement and body communication, in 1986 she founded to Montreal the Compagnie Marie Chouinard, which she still directs. An eclectic personality, Chouinard is also a director, author, visual artist and choreographer for site-specific installations, the screen and the web.

Her primitive yet highly refined lexicon has earned her some of the most prestigious awards and recognition, including the Prix Gouverneur général pour les arts du spectacle. She founded the Prix de la Danse de Montréal in 2011 and was Director of the Dance section at the Venice Biennale from 2017 to 2020. Sensitive to environmental issues, Marie Chouinard joined, together with the company from she founded, the "Carbone boréal" project created with the aim of reforesting desertified land in the boreal forests.