Faculty Spotlight: Louis Laberge-Côté
I consider my choreographic processes, performance projects, collaborative ventures, and pedagogy-based initiatives as research case studies through which I explore how befriending the autonomic nervous system allows for reliable bodily intelligence. My pedagogical goals are not only to produce reliable dancers and inspiring artists but to cultivate flexible learners and well-rounded human beings who will be able to benefit from their self-knowledge and awareness in all aspects of their lives. I hope my contributions foster a transformative process that helps them become more articulate, curious, vibrant, empowered, poetic, compassionate, resilient, and creative human beings.
Performance at The Creative School is lucky to have so many industry professionals in our midsts and among our faculty. This summer, we're taking the time to focus on what creative projects and research our faculty work on throughout the summer months (and beyond!).
This week our spotlight shines on performer and choreographer Louis Laberge-Côté. Louis is a Dance faculty member who teaches classes on modern and contemporary dance styles, as well as regularly produces dance shows throughout our season, like SPRINGWORKS, or 2022's RISE: Fall Dances. 
This summer Louis Laberge-Côté is working on several artistic projects including chorographing, writing, and ongoing creative research, additionally, Louis will celebrate his 15th wedding anniversary by visiting Japan with his husband!
Louis shares with us a series of snapshots of his ongoing creative work and his role in different projects.
Louis Laberge-Côté recently performed in Windows, Black Holes, Helium, a work by University of Calgary Dance Faculty Marie France Forcier.
The choreographic work was part of Narrating Psychological Trauma through Somatic Sourcing in Contemporary Choreography, an SSHRC-funded collaborative research-creation project (in which he acts as Core Collaborator) that examines how to maintain the emotional safety of all involved while sourcing from autobiographical memory to create performance-based works.
The findings from this research will be disseminated through articles and scholarly presentations over the coming years.
Photo by Tim Nguyen
Photo by Tim Nguyen
Photo by Tim Nguyen
Louis is also in a creative process with ZESTcreative, a collective formed by various TMU Dance grads. He is choreographing a comical work with dancers Eva Connelly-Miller, Zoe Kenneally, and Maria Riano. The delicate art of art-making: (Re)framing phenomenology toward a subversive praxis (re)imag(in)ing an (on/off)tological portfolio of radical dichotomies is a satire on dance collectives, academia, and the creative process. They hope to complete the creation in 2023 for potential presentations in 2024.
Eva Connelly-Miller
Zoe Kenneally
Maria Riano
Nova Dance recently commissioned him to contribute a short article to We Will Remember This: Nova Bhattacharya's Svāhā! This book celebrates the constellation of artists and artistic practices that contributed to the production of Svāhā!, Nova's latest choreographic work for which he acted as Artistic Consultant. The book, which will be published by Dance Collection Danse and edited by CUPE instructor Amy Bowring, is currently in press and should be released in July 2023. Louis' article, The Dance in Between, is about Nova and Louis' long-standing artistic partnership.
The cast of Svāhā!, choreography by Nova Bhattacharya
Photo by Fran Chudnoff
It is always exciting to come back to the studio in the fall: to welcome an entire group of new dancers to our School while reacquainting ourselves with the returning students, who kept developing and gaining in maturity over the summer, is always inspiring. I also look forward to welcoming the choreographers and guest artists who will create new works with the students. There is nothing like artistic creation and expression; being around it every day and seeing it all happen within our walls is truly a blessing.
Louis' version of 'BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS' from Deb's Faculty Spotlight last week; Black coffee, miso soup, and green juice (lime juice, apple cider vinegar, green powder, ground flax seeds)