Amélie Rajotte

Amélie Rajotte © Alex-Tran

Biography

Amélie Rajotte works in the contemporary dance field as a choreographer, performer and teacher. Her works include In Fact, I’m Gross (2009), Tenir debout (2009), The Squirrel and the Mirror (2011), Carnaval (2014) and Bernard Remix (2015). In 2017, she received a CALQ choreographic residency at Fabrik Potsdam, Germany. In addition to creating her own works, Amélie Rajotte has worked as a performer on projects (performances, research, creations) by the likes of Karine Denault, Sylvain Émard (Super Méga Continental), Lynda Gaudreau, Sarah-Ève Grant-Lefebvre, Hélène Langevin, Karina Iraola, Lara Kramer, Normand Marcy, Andrée Martin, Brice Noeser, Pierre-Paul Savoie and Jessica Serli. After graduating from the Conservatoire National de Grenoble, Amélie Rajotte went on to complete a teaching diploma in contemporary dance (Diplôme d’État de professeur en danse contemporaine) at Cefedem de Normandie, and in 2017 she obtained a master’s degree from the Department of Dance at the Université du Québec à Montréal. As part of her training, she worked with Nadine Beaulieu, Dominique Boivin, Sylvain Groud, the Quatuor Albrecht Knust, and Bruno Meyssat.

Approach

Amélie Rajotte has an interdisciplinary approach that explores philosophical concerns and a fascination with human behaviour. She is interested in body and muscle memory, and the artistic potential of the body fully engaged with its immediate environment. A keen observer of everyday life, she develops her works around a repertoire of specific gestures or actions removed from their usual framework, deconstructing and metabolizing them by means of repetition, multiplication, accumulation and distortion. Driven by a desire to sublimate the most banal gestures so as to reveal their poetic power, she employs performative or more conventional forms to lead spectators into strange, bizarre worlds that they can imbue with their own particular narratives.

Current work : La disparition des choses

What if Nature no longer existed? Cut off from this essential force, the performers Amélie Rajotte and Marie-Philippe Santerre try to keep the memory of a vanished environment alive.

Supported in their quest by two musicians and the landscape projections of Nelly-Ève Rajotte, they touch, tear and stir, digging through materials, surfaces and invisible reliefs. Hands explore the void, bodies are constantly redirecting themselves. To the sounds of the modular synthesizers of Olivier Landry-Gagnon and the “doctored” instruments of Stephanie Castonguay, they establish a strong phantom presence that, with movement, compensate for a palpable absence as they attempt to reactivate faded sensations and provoke a strange connection with what is no more.

Choreography – Amélie Rajotte
Dancers – Amélie Rajotte, Marie-Philippe Santerre
Sound design and performers – Stephanie Castonguay, Olivier Landry-Gagnon
Video design and performer – Nelly-Ève Rajotte
Dramaturge – Sophie Michaud
Artistic consultant – Jessica Serli
Lighting design – Stéphane Ménigot
Sound and technical director – Samuel Thériault
Costumes – Léonie Blanchet
Production manager – Maurice-Gaston Du Berger
Co-production – Agora de la danse
Associate producer – Lorganisme
Support – Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec et Canada Council for the Arts
Creative residencies – Fabrik Potsdam, Centre des Arts Diane-Dufresne, Circuit-Est Centre chorégraphique, Maison de la culture du Plateau-Mont-Royal, Recto Verso (Québec), Agora de la danse