Compagnie Virginie Brunelle Masterclass

Sophie Breton graduated from the École de danse contemporaine de Montréal in 2008. Since then, she has danced for choreographers such as Alan Lake, Frédéric Marier, Thierry Huard, Sasha Kleinplatz and Jacques Poulin-Denis while working alongside Ginelle Chagnon in the staging of excerpts from the work of Jean-Pierre Perreault. In 2012 she joined the company O Vertigo for a period of 3 years. Today Sophie works with Virginie Brunelle – Complexe des genres, À la douleur que j’ai, Les corps avalés – Isabelle Van Grimde – Les Gestes, Le corps en Question(s), Corps Secret Corps Public, Symphonie 5.1, Ève 2050 – and Sylvain Émard. 

Virginie Brunelle draws her creative inspiration from music to generate distinctive stage imagery. These images are then transposed onto the work like musical scores. Brunelle first composes the primary physical elements before focusing on dynamic gestural language. Her attention shifts to highly detailed work, combining rhythms, suspensions, ferocity, delicacy, gazes, breathing and brutality to bring out the evocative power of gestures. Behind this formal research process lies a poetry of vulnerability that gives rise to poignant and visually stunning stage experiences. 

After graduating, Brunelle created Les cuisses à l’écart du cœur, a choreography for seven dancers that earned the 2009 Bourse RIDEAU at the Vue sur la Relève festival. Emboldened by this initial success, she founded her eponymous company (Compagnie Virginie Brunelle) in 2009 and, in the same year, created a second work, Foutrement, which won the 2017 Prix du public presented by the CAM en tournée (CAM touring program). In 2011, Brunelle opened La Chapelle’s fall season with the presentation of her third work, Complexe des genres, which received second prize at Denmark’s prestigious Aarhus International Choreography Competition. Three years later, she presented PLOMB, and in 2016 she created À la douleur que j’ai. These four works have since toured across Europe and Canada, allowing the choreographer to gain recognition on the world stage, culminating in an invitation in 2018 to create a show for the Gauthier Dance Theaterhaus Stuttgart company. The result was Beating, a work that was first presented in Germany, with a Canadian tour scheduled in 2018-2019. In 2020 she created Les corps avalés, a piece for seven dancers, accompanied on stage by the Quatuor Molinari and presented by Danse Danse at Théâtre Maisonneuve. This work was a resounding success with critics and audiences alike. Her latest ambitious work, Fables, comprised of twelve dancers, was presented in May 2022 at the Lugano Danza Festival in Switzerland. She recently signed the production of a first dance short film entitled Réminiscences.