Different generations come together at Festival Quartiers Danses, as it invites young and seasoned creators alike to showcase their work. Jane Mappin, an FQD regular since 2004, has been active in the dance world for the last thirty years. She appears in 4 shows this September.

I first met Jane at the École supérieure de ballet du Québec. I was there to attend a significant rehearsal: the first encounter between dancers and musicians who would interpret the score of If only for a short time, a piece in four parts, presented along Ils m’ont dit on the double bill evening of September 17.

The piece echoed the dialogue between movement and music of dancer Daniel Firth in Spiegel im spiegel. Accustomed to working with a composer, it is a challenge for Jane to work from existing music, which she takes a long time to select.

“I am used to having music created for what I am doing. When I enter the studio, I am completely free and I create the dance.”

Unlike Ils m’ont dit, which addresses the challenge of living with mental illness, If only for a short time was born from intuition, without a specific theme.

It is above all a creation tailored to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ Salle Bourgie and its unique acoustics. The choreographer wanted musicians to be put to the fore as much as dancers. “For me, it means going back to working with music and movement like I did in my twenties.”

During the rehearsal, Stéphanie Hamelin (violin) and Jonathan Brizuela (piano) discover the dancing bodies of Mappin and Firth in Petricor, one of the pieces that they will interpret with Guillaume Côté (cello). Although they are not the original composers, they are there to present choices to the choreographers, to participate in the creation. This dynamic is revealed through the discussions that occurred during this first meeting. The question of appropriation was also raised. As Stéphanie pointed out, the final outcome will never be the same as with recorded music.