Its title serving as a promise, Confession Publique explores ambiguity and paradox, probes the noble and the vulgar, oscillates between grace and brutality. Choreographer Mélanie Demers turns her trusted collaborator Angélique Willkie into her muse. Together, these two kindred spirits explore the act of telling others about yourself without reserve. The result is a hard-hitting solo show, where anecdotes become painful secrets and the body reveals as much as words, if not more…
Friday, October 24 @ 8:30pm and Saturday, October 25 @ 8:30pm (65 minutes)
Meridian Arts Centre (MAC), 5040 Yonge Street, North York
La Goddam Voie Lactée
Confession Publique
La Goddam Voie Lactée’s reaction to the harshness and asperity of the world is to offer up a pagan mass. A celebration in the form of a challenge. Drawing inspiration from the constant mourning that marks our current age, Mélanie Demers dives into a reflection on the theme of incompleteness. Each one is camped out at their own lookout post; sometimes they jump into the arena and grab hold of gestures, words, music, to drape around themselves like a costume. They sketch out their universe, drawing and erasing it. An aesthetic little Big Bang, La Goddam Voie Lactée is an exercise in self-imagination, a means of finding our bearings in this imperfect and infinite world which is our common belonging and inheritance..
Friday, October 24 @ 7:00pm and Saturday, October 25 @ 7:00pm (75 minutes)
Meridian Arts Centre (MAC), 5040 Yonge Street, North York
Mélanie Demers
Multidisciplinary artist Mélanie Demers founded the company MAYDAY in Montreal in 2007, exploring the connections between poetry and politics. Her piece WOULD (2015) won the CALQ prize for best choreography. Following the success of Danse Mutante (2019), she created La Goddam Voie Lactée (2021), Confession Publique (2021), and Cabaret Noir (2022), all to acclaim. In 2021, she received the GRAND PRIX de la danse de Montréal and in 2022, the CALQ prize for Confession Publique. She turned to theatre, directing Jordan Tannahill's Déclarations and then co-creating and performing Affaires intérieures at Espace GO. Winner of the NAC Governor General's Performing Arts Award in 2024 and the Canada Council for the Arts Molson Prize in 2025, she presented L'amour ou rien that same year, also at Espace GO. She has choreographed thirty pieces presented in forty cities around the world.
Since its foundation in 2007, an array of charismatic and eclectic artists working with Mélanie Demers has been drawn to MAYDAY as a hub for creative exchange and reflection. Each MAYDAY work is thus the fruit of a collective effort. And not only between the artists: the public enters into the creative process as well, since the physicality, imagery, and sense of rhythm characteristic of MAYDAY's unique approach only come together as a coherent whole before an audience.
Drawing on creative energies from around the world, MAYDAY's unique works testify to both a spirit of artistic freedom and a deep-seated concern for contemporary issues. Demers’ fascination and the relationship between words and gestures crystallizes in WOULD, a work which won the Prix du CALQ for Best Choreography at the Prix de la danse de Montréal in 2015. WOULD will be followed by the choreographic relay Danse Mutante in 2019, then in 2021 by La Goddam Voie Lactée, MAMA and Confession Publique, and finally in 2022 by Cabaret Noir. Mélanie Demers won the GRAND PRIX de la danse de Montréal, which recognizes her unique mark on her era.
MAYDAY tours frequently and has collaborated with many international partners. It is proud to be one of the few Canadian companies to have performed in both North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa.