Only You

Plamondon first trained at the National Ballet School of Canada and the Banff Centre for the Arts before graduating from l’École Supérieure de danse du Québec in 1994. Plamondon immediately joined Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal performing numerous works of the classical repertory choreographed by George Balanchine and Fernand Nault. The following year, she left Québec to dance with the Nederlands Dans Theater II in Holland (1995–1998), then with the Gulbenkian Ballet in Portugal (1998-2000). During this period, Plamondon performed in works by over 30 choreographers including Jirí Kylián, Hans Van Manen, Johan Inger, Gideon Obarzanek, Angelin Preljocaj and Itzik Galili. She created lead roles for Rui Horta, Patrick Delcroix and Pieter de Ruiter, as well as in Sad Case, the acclaimed work by Paul Lightfoot and Sol Leon, resident choreographers at Nederlands Dans Theater.  

Returning to Montreal in 2000, Plamondon worked with contemporary choreographers such as Jean Grand-Maître. She has danced in the revival of James Kuldelka’s masterwork, Fifteen Heterosexual Duets, produced by Coleman, Lemieux & Compagnie and appears in Michael Slobodian’s book of photographs Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie: Reconstructing Fifteen Heterosexual Duets by James Kudelka. From 2007 to 2011, Plamondon collaborated with renowned choreographer Crystal Pite and her company Kidd Pivot creating Lost Action, Fault, The You Show, and a duet that won an Olivier Award in 2015, A Picture of You Falling. In the same year, she participated in the choreographic creation and performed in Triptyque by Les 7 doigts de la main, a melding of dance and circus arts with pieces by Marie Chouinard, Victor Quijada and Marcos Morau. In 2016, she collaborated in the creation of Corps Amour Anarchie, a PPS Danse work celebrating French poet Léo Ferré.  

Plamondon stars in the short films Small Explosions That Are Yours to Keep and Secret Service, as well as Gravity of Center, directed by Victor Quijada and Thibaut Duverneix. In collaboration with director Micah Meisner, Plamondon choreographed and performed solo in Red Shoes, winning a Golden Sheaf Award at the Yorkton Film Festival in 2010.  

Between 2002 and 2015, with choreographer Victor Quijada, she contributed to the development of RUBBERBANDance Group: first as a performer, then as Artistic Co-Director of the company from 2006 to 2015. The inventive daring of Quijada’s choreography – blending hip hop and b-boying with the fluidity and precision of classical ballet and a contemporary dance sensibility – has had a pivotal impact on the course of her career. Plamondon rapidly became the emblem of the company, participating in the creation of over ten works for the stage and four short films. She was also instrumental formulating the RUBBERBAND Method, which she now teaches throughout the world.  

After twenty years of practice as a dancer, Plamondon made her debut as a choreographer in 2012 with the solo The Same Eyes as Yours and Night Mechanics (2017), both undertaken in collaboration with theatre director Marie Brassard. In 2018–2019, the Fall for Dance North festival in Toronto offered her a two-year residency. She created Fiddle Embrace, a piece for 18 students of the Ryerson School of Performance and Counter Cantor, co-created with Emma Portner. In 2020, she premiered Yearn to Make a Difference, a piece for twelve dancers commissioned by the Alberta Ballet Company. Her latest duet Only You, which she performed with James Gregg, took the stage in March of the same year, programmed by Danse Danse.  

Since 2019, Plamondon has acted as Associate Curator for Dance at the Domaine Forget International Music and Dance Academy. With an emphasis on subjects that have deep meaning for her, her intent is to create works that leave a strong impression by their virtuosity and emotional authenticity.  

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Colorado born, Oklahoma raised, James Gregg is now an international choreographer who has created choreographic works on Whim W’Him, Danceworks Chicago, Dark Circles Contemporary Dance, Ballet X, Northwest Dance Project, Nashville Ballet’s Emergence, Springboard Danse Project Montreal, River North Dance Company, Elements Contemporary Ballet, Cirque du Soleil at Sea and L’École Supérieure de Danse de Quebec. 

Most recently, Gregg was the recipient of the prestigious 2015 Princess Grace Choreography Fellowship Award. He was also the winner for Ballet Austin’s 2014 New American talent choreographic competition, a finalist in Milwaukee Ballet’s 2013 Genesis Choreographic competition, and in 2011 the winner of the International Choreographic Competition at Festival des Arts de Saint-Sauveur. 

As a performer, Gregg has worked with Rubberband Dance Group, Bodytraffic, Les Ballet Jazz de Montreal, Aszure & Artists, and River North Dance Company. Throughout his career he had the opportunity to do the works of many renowned choreographers including Victor Quijada, Barak Marshall, Aszure Barton, Crystal Pite, Rodrigo Pedernieras, Frank Chauves, Danny Ezralow, Mauro Bigonzetti, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Cayetano Soto, and more. Gregg also has been featured in several music videos, feature films, and in TV documentaries and specials. Elton John, Lyon, Kresha Turner, Ils Dansent, On the road, and Soul Survivors are a couple of examples of this. These experiences to work with such a variety of artists and different artistic avenues has given Gregg the tools to create his own language and helped mold his choreographic voice and vision. 

His biggest interest is to create movement from the inside out and exploring different paths and routes through which the body can move. Discovering how these various avenues can evoke emotion and how those emotions translate throughout the body. 

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