Helen Simard is a choreographer who has been working since 2000 in Tiohtiá:ke/Montréal. After working with Solid State Breakdance for twelve years, an artist collective that combined street and contemporary dance, and participating in the creation of nine shows, she switched gears in 2012 to lead her own artistic projects. Helen Simard collaborates with musicians and dancers to create raw, visceral interdisciplinary shows. She uses the codes and aesthetics of rock music, creating lively, interactive, performances that challenge the conventions of stage dance forms. For six years, her research was focused on the icon of American punk rock, Iggy Pop. Inspired by the music, persona, and cathartic dances of this legendary performer, she created a hallucinatory trilogy of works — No Fun (2014), Idiot (2017), and Requiem Pop (2019).  In November 2020, she presented her latest creation, Papillon, live streamed from La Chapelle Scènes Contemporaines, and in co-production with Danse-Cité. Helen is currently artist in residence at Playwrights's Workshop Montréal for the 2019-2021 season, through their interdisciplinary writers lab. She is using this opportunity to write her first play, When Your Baby Dies. A graduate of the BFA in Contemporary Dance from Concordia University (2000), Helen Simard also holds a MA in Dance from UQAM (2014). In 2019, she founded the company We All Fall Down Interdisciplinary Creations with composer Roger White. Helen Simard’s first creation for young audiences, Dans les bras de Morphée, emerged from a multi-phase creative lab carried out over the 2021–2022 season. The process unfolded in the company’s studios, in close collaboration with its dancers. The piece premiered at Agora de la danse in February 2024.

Project : Quand je ferme mes yeux

Queer, non-Indigenous dance artist Nicholas Bellefleur lives, works and performs in Tio’tia:ke Mooniyaang (Montreal). His work studies the creation of open choreographic systems and seeks to remove the inhibitions around dance for all bodies. His practice explores cohabitation, dissent and utopias for purposes of destabilizing our relationship with ourselves and others. After completing his training at the École supérieure de ballet du Québec, Nicholas served as an apprentice with the company Ballet BC before joining Cas Public under the direction of Hélène Blackburn. In a career marked by travel, Nicholas has performed in Canada, the United States, Mexico, Europe and China. In 2019, Nicholas returned to Tio’tia:ke with an all-new perspective on his intersectional identity and his privileged place in society. A SAFE(R) SPACE, the fluid and expansive laboratory at the crossroads between the dance and LGBTQIA+ communities, has been in operation since that time. With this initiative, the artist has sought to decentralize and place mutual help and restorative justice front and centre in his work. Nicholas is currently working with Wynn Holmes and supporting her efforts to oversee the organization Lo Fi Dance Theory as assistant director. As a performer, he takes the stage to embody the ideas of Dave St-Pierre, Virginie Brunelle, Le Fils d’Adrien danse and Andrea Peña & Artists. It benefited from privileged access to our studio for several residency periods throughout the 2022–2023 season.

Project : A SAFE(R) SPACE