Louise Lecavalier

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A01=MJ Thompson
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Author_MJ Thompson
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ballet
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=ASD
Category=ASDL
Category=ATQ
Category=ATQL
Category=ATQV
choreography
contemporary dance
COP=United Kingdom
cultural appropriation
dance
dance aesthetics
David Bowie
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eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_isMigrated=2
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female dancers
feminism
forthcoming
intersectionality
La La La Human Steps
Language_English
music
PA=Not yet available
postmodern
postmodernism
Price_€50 to €100
PS=Active
punk
punk ballet
race
softlaunch
white dreadlocks
women dancers

Product details

  • ISBN 9781350195202
  • Dimensions: 138 x 216mm
  • Publication Date: 24 Jul 2025
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Hardback
  • Language: English
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As principal dancer with Montréal-based company La La La Human Steps, Louise Lecavalier was among the most iconic dancers of her generation: strong, muscled, androgynous, punk. Moving with spectacular speed, precision and an athletic physicality, her commitment to dancing would ultimately transform the potential of what bodies within Western concert dance could do.

Drawing on extensive oral history accounts and archival material, the book follows Lecavalier’s impact on the evolving aesthetic of La La La Human Steps, via the development of its early repertoire, and offers the first sustained account of her 1982 solo Non, Non, Non, je ne suis pas Mary Poppins. More, it tracks diverse influences and sources for the repertoire, complicating understandings of nationalism in Québec, while marking the significance of the collective in generating new aesthetics. What emerges is a portrait of the dancer as artist, icon, labourer and mover of cultural discourse.
Featuring an expansive set of photos and ephemera, including performance documentation by photographer/activist Linda Dawn Hammond, production images by choreographer Édouard Lock and street photography by key players in the 1980s Montréal scene, this study offers a critical and celebratory appraisal of Lecavalier’s unique contribution and the role of the dancer more broadly as a producer of culture.

MJ Thompson is Associate Professor at Concordia University, Canada. She has written for a wide variety of publications, including Ballettanz, Border Crossings, The Brooklyn Rail, Canadian Art, Dance Current, Dance Ink, Dance Magazine, The Drama Review, Women and Performance and more. Her academic work is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in Canada and her essays have appeared in several anthologies, including Performance Studies Canada (2017). More recently, she received the National Park Service Arts and Sciences Residency (Cape Cod National Seashore) where she worked on a long-form essay about the body in landscape.