Theatre Junction Presents Frederick Gravel's USUALLY BEAUTY FAILS This Week

Artistic Director Mark Lawes is privileged to present Montreal's acclaimed Frédérick Gravel & Grouped'ArtGravelArtGroup's Usually Beauty Fails. Since its creation in November 2012, the show has toured Canada and Europe with its visceral, contemporary sexuality and rock and roll. Gravel is one of the brightest lights in the Canadian dance constellation. Four shows only, from today, April 15 to April 18. Note - contains nudity.

This season Theatre Junction cultivated a garden of encounters with diverse artists creating theatre, dance, music and hybrid forms. For Theatre Junction Artistic Director Mark Lawes, Usually Beauty Fails is the very DNA of that theme, "This piece is an intense celebration of life. Like our season- a meeting place, the beginning of a love affair, a voyage into unknown territories- it is a shared experience, leaving only traces behind; recollections and memories that become a part of our collective condition and revitalize us." Usually Beauty Fails is the perfect tribute to a long-awaited spring; heaving with love, beauty, animal instinct and desire.

Six dancers and a live rock band take the stage in a performance that shakes up the roles of pop culture and the avant-garde, performing a 'concept album' of human desires: beauty, love, sex and the challenges of relationships. Following in the grand Montreal dance tradition of La La La Human Steps and Compagnie Marie Chouinard, choreographer/musician Frédérick Gravel ignites the stage in Usually Beauty Fails, an audacious and carnal work that elevates reality's imperfections into performance. Mirroring the swift emotional changes and raw sexuality that saturate so much of our lives, the dancers move irreverently through the wildly energetic choreography, ready to explode to the raw electronic rock beats of the live music. Moving between his roles as choreographer, dancer and musician in the piece, the enigmatic and multi-faceted Gravel turns the performance upside down, disrupting the passivity of the audience and their expectations of contemporary dance with a paradoxical and self-referential irony.

The Grouped'ArtGravelArtGroup is a variable collective of multi-talented artists who work together to 'create extensively, try prolifically and persist enormously.' Led by Frédérick Gravel, a dancer, choreographer, guitarist, singer and lighting designer, their work is presented in all kinds of settings, from classic venues in Montreal to underground spaces in New York and major festivals in Europe. An established leader in the Montreal dance scene, Gravel's creations cultivate artistic ambiguity while playing with the cultural zeitgeist. He purposely subverts the expectations and landmarks of the avant-garde in a way that is self-aware and inclusive, incorporating diverse elements of pop culture and performance art that challenge existing paradigms of contemporary dance and bring raw, emotional work to the stage. Frédérick Gravel bio: www.danielleveilledanse.org/en/pages/frederick-gravel-0

This is the closing show of the season presented by Theatre Junction, though there is much still to come at the beautiful Theatre Junction GRAND. www.theatrejunction.com/events/

DETAILS:

Usually Beauty Fails (4 shows only)

Presented by Theatre Junction

Frédérick Gravel & Grouped'ArtGravelArtGroup (from Montreal)

at Theatre Junction GRAND

608 1st Street, SW

Wed., April 15 to Sat., April 18 at 8pm

Free events:
Thurs. April 16: post-performance Artist Talk; Culture Club- a celebration of the intersection of art, music and invention, 9pm
Fri. April 17: post-performance Artist Talk
Sat., April 18: RBC Emerging Artist Workshop- Theatre Junction/Frédérick Gravel & Grouped'ArtGravelArtGroup, 2-5pm (limited space)

Reservations: (403) 205-2922, ext. 1 or online

Tickets: $39; $20 students/artists/under 30

For more, go to www.theatrejunction.com.

Photo Credit: Stéphane Najman

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