July 25th, 2009, 3:00 – 4:00 p.m., followed by a reception
OneCole Presentation Centre, 500 Dundas Street West, Toronto, Ontario
FREE

APAP Booth Number 101,Rhinelander Gallery
ALL PERFORMANCES: City Center, 131 West 55th Street, New York, NY 10019
No reservations or tickets required.

Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie and The Music Gallery proudly present the world premiere of Hymn to the Universe: A celebration of music and dance at the outer limits, created for the gala launch of the 2008 X-Avant / Space is the Place Festival.

Sun Ra is "the missing link between Duke Ellington and Public Enemy." – Rolling Stone

Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie are "literally … taking dance to places where it has never been before." – The Toronto Star

This poignant celebration of humanity's potential for a new-found attunement to the universe is choreographed by Bill Coleman and features some of Canada's greatest dancers performing live with the legendary 14-piece Sun Ra Arkestra — formed by African-American visionary Sun Ra and now under the direction of Marshall Allen.

A series of breathtaking meditations inspired by Teilhard de Chardin's Phenomenon of Man, the production takes place in the lavish, Jazz Age ballroom of the Palais Royale. Contemporary choreography meets 1930s-style hoofing — cosmic visual creations performed to the Arkestra's trademark mix of big-band jazz and free-form, space-age improvisation. The diverse cast of performers will form a community that celebrates humanity's ascent towards the future.

The production is supported by award-winning Métis visual artist Edward Poitras and Toronto fashion icons, Hoax Couture designers Jim Searle and Chris Tyrell.

Tuesday, October 21st @ 8pm
Palais Royale, 1601 Lake Shore West
Tickets: $30 - $60

Box Office: www.ticketweb.ca

For festival information, please visit: www.musicgallery.org.

At the peak of the summer season, Montreal’s renowned Coleman Lemieux Dance Company descends upon a quiet village in Newfoundland’s Gros Morne National Park with an artistic team of Canada’s finest solo dance artists to create a site specific work. Filmmaker Anne Troake (Pretty Big Dig, My Ancestors Were Rogues and Murderers) turns the camera on the cultural exchange between townspeople and art stars and captures the moment of creation along with the spectacular work itself.

The March 2008 edition of the newsletter Internationalization of Art and Culture in China, produced by the Canadian Embassy in Beijing, contains a review of the Coleman Lemieux performances in China and Mongolia in late 2007.

Soar to the heavens with the breathtaking dancers of Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie's In Paradisum, a program of works by one of Canada's greatest choreographers, James Kudelka.

Featuring Laurence Lemieux (CLC), Gioconda Barbuto (Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal & Nederlands Dans Theater III ), Kevin Thomas (Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal & Dance Theatre of Harlem), and Robert Regala (Limón Dance Company ) with Michael Sean Marye, Andrew Giday, Sasha Ivanochko, Kate Alton, Kiri Figueiredo, Jay Gawer Taylor, Laura Bolton, and Peter Trosztmer.

Let yourself be swept up in the swirling, hypnotic work In Paradisum itself, an "outpouring of movement invention", a "maelstrom of anguish, grief and acceptance" (The New York Times), a masterpiece of emotional power and technical brilliance.

On the other end of the spectrum is the haunting, poignant Soudain, l'hiver dernier, a delicate duet that leaves the spectator "spellbound by the emotional drama on the stage" (The Gazette, Montreal).

And finally, Fifteen Heterosexual Duets, one of Kudelka's most beloved dances, "a work of great ingenuity and charm, a plotless comedy that touches on the sublime" (The Globe and Mail, Toronto) - originally commissioned by Toronto Dance Theatre in 1991 and winner of a Dora Mavor Moore Award, the work explores "amorous emotion from passion to tenderness to humor" (Times Argus) and features duets that are "remarkable for their fluency and variety" (The Globe and Mail).

James Kudelka is a prolific artist who expertly and effortlessly blends classical and modern dance. Resident choreographer and artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada from 1996 to 2005, creator of over seventy dances for companies and artists as diverse as the San Francisco Ballet, the American Ballet Theater, Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal, Margie Gillis and Peggy Baker, Kudelka "creates movement so exhilarating, it makes everybody watching wish they could dance" (In Profile, Toronto).

Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie (CLC), led by the husband-and-wife team of Bill Coleman and Laurence Lemieux, is one of Canada's most accomplished and innovative dance organizations, known for its original stage productions, its reconstructions of major modern dance works, its collaborations with avant garde composers and visual artists, and its ground-breaking community-based events. With In Paradisum, they bring together some of Canada's finest dancers for an exhilarating voyage to heights of paradise and the depths of the heart: Coleman and Lemieux, Sasha Ivanochko, Michael Sean Marye, Robert Regala,

CLC have recently returned home from their tour of China and Mongolia. They were presented at the 5th International Beijing Dance Festival amongst a line up including Pina Bausch Tanztheater Wuppertal and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. Their presentation of the highly successful In Paradisum program by James Kudelka was enthusiastically received after a crowd warming speech (in Chinese) by newly appointed Canadian Cultural attaché Bill Siggins.

In Mongolia CLC was hosted by The Mongolian Arts Council and created quite a sensation, not only by being the first major dance company to tour Mongolia, but also by bringing a program of contemporary dance (In Paradisum) to that country. The public's curiosity was aroused by the group of 14 Canadians traveling not only in the capital Ulan Batar but to the small rural town of Zuunmod where they were greeted with overwhelming enthusiasm by whole community. Contemporary dance and what the company's first impressions were of Mongolia, were the topic of questions on morning talk shows, news programs, in print and after show talks.

'Cultural relationships between Canada and Mongolia are developing strongly as a result of artistic and heritage projects in Mongolia. This month, Canadian dance troupe ‘Coleman Lemieux and Compagnie’ (CLC) make their Mongolian debut!' -- The Mongol Messenger (Mongolia's National Newspaper)

'I just love it here! ' -- Graham McKelvie, Dancer

The Village Voice reviews the company's appearance at Jacob's Pillow this summer: Try a Little Tenderness: A Canadian company and choreographer keep it small and personal.

Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie moves towards a choreo-harmonic convergence August 5, 2007 at the Manitoba Legislature Building in Winnipeg and the Long Plain Powwow at Long Plain First Nation