JJ's voices

PRODUCTION TYPE: CULLBERG UP CLOSE

In November 2009, for the first time ever, Cullberg Ballet made an entrance on the Stockholm House of Dance’s small stage with Canadian choreographers Crystal Pite's work xspectacle and Benoît Lachambre's JJ's voices.

JJ's voices was created directly for Cullberg Ballet by Canadian choreographer, artist, improviser, teacher and artistic director of Par B.L.eux. in Montréal, Benoît Lachambre, in 2009. The piece is inspired by the voice of Janis Joplin, and the dancers carry her songs through their bodies.

Benoît Lachambre has been a part of the international dance community for the past thirty years, devoting himself to an exploratory approach of movement and its sources. Elements of the visual and performance arts are inseparable from dance in his works. Par B.L.eux is devoted to contemporary and interdisciplinary choreographic creation, and the close connection to an international network of artists. Benoît Lachambre is part of many different artistic projects, he has participated in films and been awarded several times for his works. The work with Cullberg Ballet was his first in Sweden.

Choreography, set design, costumes: Benoît Lachambre
Songs with Janis Joplin
Lighting Design: Fredrik Rydehäll
Duration: approx. 60 minutes
Première at House of Dance, Stockholm, small stage, November 25, 2009

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Press cuttings

"Meeting the audience on a smaller stage, in an intimate space, is also new for the talented Cullberg dancers. Along with the open and the playful, it provides a hint of a new, path of possibilities."
Expressen

"...a luminous beginning to a new era for Cullberg Ballet."
Dagens Nyheter

"In JJ’s voices, Lachambre has created an incisive portrayal of contemporary man, an individual who swings between repressed anonymity and desperate self-expression. It is a heavy yet simultaneously highly liberating experience to be confronted by someone who dares to see what we have become."
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Choreographer

Benoît LachambreBenoît Lachambre
Benoît Lachambre is a Montréal-based choreographer, dancer, improviser, teacher and artistic director of his own company Par B.L.eux founded in 1996. Benoît has been a part of the international dance community for the past thirty years. He began his career in jazz and modern dance with companies as Les ballets-Jazz de Montréal, Pointépiénu and Toronto Dance Theater before he moved to New York and danced and studied with Stéphanie Skura and Nina Martin, among others. Since then he has devoted himself to an exploratory approach of movement and its sources and to seeking authenticity of motion. In his works, Benoît explores the dynamics of communication and perception, and elements of the visual and performance arts are inseparable from dance. Par B.L.eux is devoted to contemporary and interdisciplinary choreographic creation, and the close connection to an international network of artists. The company has toured around the world, essentially in Europe, but also in the Americas and Asia.

Benoît is part of many projects, working with such choreographers as Lynda Gaudreau, Felix Ruckert, Catherine Contour, Boris Charmatz, Sasha Waltz, and Isabelle Schad, as well as visual artist Laurent Goldring. He has created appreciated solos for Louise Lecavalier and Marion Ballester. With Meg Stuart and her company, Damaged Goods based in Brussels and Hahn Rowe, he co-created the highly acclaimed piece Forgeries, love and other matters for which he won the prestigious Bessie Award in New York. In addition to this Benoît Lachambre has received the Jacqueline Lemieux Award from the Canada Council 1999 and two Dora Mavor Moores for best performance and best choreography in 2001. Benoît Lachambre has also participated in several films, one for which he has won a Moving Pictures Award in Toronto in 2003. Between 2005-2008 he was associate choreographer at Scène Nationale de Brest, France.

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