Schimmel Center At Pace University Presents LE CHANT DES SIRENES

Schimmel Center at Pace University concludes its 2018-19 Dance Series with Le chant des sirènes, the newest solo work from accomplished Canadian dancer and choreographer Sylvain Émard, on Friday, March 22, 2019 at 7:30pm. Tickets start at $29 and can be purchased at SchimmelCenter.org, by phone at 212-346-1715, or by visiting the Schimmel Center Box Office at 3 Spruce Street, Manhattan. Box office hours are Tuesday-Saturday, noon-5pm, and then beginning three hours prior to each performance, through intermission.

With Le chant des sirènes ("Siren Song"), dancer/choreographer Sylvain Émard returns to the stage after a 15-year absence from performing, rediscovering himself as a dancer changed by the passage of time. Now in his early 60s, Émard probes the states of being of a man who wants to believe that all is not lost. Without sacrificing the precision and formality that are the hallmarks of his thirty-year dance career, he approaches this work in a spirit of pleasure and freedom, driven by the idea that the special qualities of mature performers give them their very own rich form of expression.

Sylvain Émard is back in New York after the resounding success of Le Grand Continental in 2012, a massive contemporary line dance featuring hundreds of local amateur dancers. From the gigantic to the miniature, Sylvain Émard invites the spectator to plunge into a more intimate, yet no less vivid, world with Le chant des sirènes.

Le chant des sirènes premiered in 2017 as a co-production between Sylvain Émard Danse and Agora de la danse (Canada). It is performed to an original score by Martin Tétreault. The production design team includes André Rioux (lighting), Richard Lacroix (set), Denis Lavoie (costume), Thomas Payette/HUB Studio (video) and Daniel Villeneuve (rehearsal coach).

A prolific and internationally respected artist, Sylvain Émard created his own dance company Sylvain Émard Danse in Montreal in 1990, quickly establishing a reputation for a very original style. Highly theatrical at first, his work soon evolved into a more formal approach to dance. From his first solo piece Ozone, Ozone (1987) to the group work Ce n'est pas la fin du monde (2013) and the recent small scale dance Le chant des sirènes (2017), he has been exploring the territory of human nature through the force and strength of the body. His repertoire now includes some thirty original pieces that have won the admiration of audiences at home and abroad.

Renowned for his refined style and precise movement, his presentation in 2009 of Le Grand Continental at Montreal's Festival TransAmériques must have come to some as a surprise. Inspired by line dancing, this unique and award-winning piece has featured 3,000 non-dancers in several performances across Canada, the United States, Mexico, South Korea, New Zealand, Chile and Germany, attracting some 120,000 spectators. In 2012, Le Grand Continental was presented in Manhattan, where some 150 New Yorkers took The South Street Seaport by storm, as part of the River To River Festival, co-presented by The Joyce Theater. The same year, The New Yorker named the show as one of the Best Moments in Dance.

Sylvain Émard's unique style has led to invitations to work as guest choreographer in theatre, opera, and cinema. These collaborations include his joining forces with Robert Lepage to work on Lorin Maazel's opera 1984, presented in 2005 at Covent Garden in London and reprised at La Scala in 2008 and at the Valencia Opera House in 2011.

Sylvain Émard has received numerous prestigious awards, such as the Jean A. Chalmers Choreographic Award (1996). He is also co-founder of Circuit-Est centre chorégraphique. www.sylvainemard.com.

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