We’re so proud to kick off our new Haute Couture program with Still Life by Marie Lambin-Gagnon—our first-ever full-length presentation in the festival. This co-presentation with SummerWorks and Citadel + Compagnie brings together shared values, resources, and care. It’s the kind of partnership that allows us to support artists more fully and take meaningful curatorial risks.
Marie’s work invites us to slow down and really pay attention—to images, textures, time, and the stories our bodies carry. There’s something quietly powerful in the way she builds this world. It doesn’t shout for attention, but it stays with you.
Still Life also challenges how women’s bodies have traditionally been shown in art, offering something more layered, personal, and honest. The questions it asks don’t come with easy answers, and that’s part of what makes the work so compelling.
We first met Marie in 2023 through our WYSIWYG program, and it’s been a joy to witness her growth. We’re excited to share this next chapter of her journey with you—and to see how this piece lands in the hearts of our audience.
We hope Still Life gives you space to pause, to reflect, and to feel.
Aug 14 2025
-
-
Aug 16 2025
-
-
+ post show chat
Aug 17 2025
-
-
Join us for a post-show chat
Sat Aug 16, 8:00 pm
With Marie Lambin-Gagnon
Moderated by Mimi Beck
Mimi Beck
Mimi Beck dedicated her career to advancing and promoting dance in all forms. As Dance Curator for the DanceWorks series in Toronto, she provided artistic direction to the organization, presenting artists with multiple approaches to dance making, and encouraging dance literacy among adults and youth. She convened the first meeting of the Canadian Network of Dance Presenters, CanDance. She was Executive Director of this national arts service organization, which is dedicated to strengthening the dance milieu through commissioning, advocacy and research. Beck was honoured with a Dance Ontario Award (2007) and a Harold Award (2006), and named “One of 19 who made a difference in the arts” by William Littler in The Toronto Star. From 1990 – 1994, she was Canadian director of a bi-lateral touring exchange with Dance Theatre Workshop (NY) and the U.S. National Performance Network. Beck was an active choreographer and performer in Toronto’s independent dance movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 1985, she submitted a brief to the Canada Council on the role of the dance curator, and received its first grant awarded to a dance curator for professional development. Beck enjoys her roles as mentor, consultant, facilitator and grandmother.
Still Life
Montréal, Québec
Marie Lambin-Gagnon
Still Life immerses the audience in a sensory journey where contemporary dance, textiles, and photography intersect. An installation of bold red fabric, printed with oversized still life images, reinterprets this traditional genre in a strikingly contemporary context. A delicate, intricate soundscape enhances the atmosphere, creating a multi-sensory environment inhabited by two performers. The piece brings to life the themes of time, materiality, and mortality, while exploring the resilience and vulnerability of the human body. Still Life also addresses the historical representation of women in art, challenging conventions and inviting the audience to reconsider the relationship between bodies, objects, and space.
“As much a visual as a movement artist, Lambin-Gagnon comes at dance from an interesting angle.”
– Now Magazine
Partial Nudity
Composer: Brandon Valdivia
Stage Manager: A.J. Morra
Lighting Designer: Simon Rossiter
Performers: Megumi Kokuba, Jessica Germano
Marie Lambin-Gagnon, Choreographer
Marie Lambin-Gagnon is a visual artist, choreographer, and dancer whose practice merges dance, photography, textiles, and installation. She is currently studying textiles at Concordia University. Among her many projects, she collaborated with Sara Cwynar on Red Film, presented at the São Paulo Biennial (2018), MoMA, and the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. In 2019, she was commissioned by Toronto Dance Theatre for Slow Dance, earning a Dora Mavor Moore Award nomination. In 2020, she created Slow Death for the Art Gallery of Ontario, blending found objects, electronic music, textiles, and Baroque paintings. The work was later presented at the Furies Festival (2022). Recent commissions include Confluence for The Bentway and Body/Landscape for Toes for Dance and the Toronto Biennial of Art.
A.J. Morra, Stage Manager
Based in Toronto, A.J. Morra is a graduate of the Technical Theatre Program at Toronto Metropolitan University, and has enjoyed an active career as a Technical Director, Production Manager, and Stage Manager for contemporary dance, opera, circus, and theatre. Selected credits include three seasons with Toronto Dance Theatre, six seasons with the Festival of Dance Annapolis Royal, and assorted projects with Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre, Fujiwara Dance Inventions, ProArte Danza, Dreamwalker Dance Company, Groundling Theatre Company, Holla Jazz, Zero Gravity Circus, Soundstreams, and Signal Theatre.
Brandon Miguel Valdivia, Composer
Brandon Miguel Valdivia is a drummer, percussionist, composer and producer living in London, Ontario. Known for performing and recording with Lido Pimienta, improvisatory work with Not the Wind Not the Flag, and recording with artists such as U.S.Girls, The Halluci Nation, Jeremy Dutcher, Bomba Estereo and composing for theatre and dance. He has amassed numerous Polaris Prize Shortlist nominations, a DORA Nomination, Two Polaris Prizes, one Juno Award and two Latin and American Grammys nominations during his diverse and eclectic musical career.
Megumi Kokuba, Performer
Megumi Kokuba, born in Okinawa, the southern island of Japan, began ballet at two and later discovered contemporary dance. She moved to Toronto to further her training and became a company dancer with the Toronto Dance Theatre. Her artistry is rooted in layering information in the body, balancing precision with meaning while embodying strength and vulnerability. Years of working with diverse choreographers have shaped her collaborative approach, emphasizing depth, process, and presence. Committed to environmental advocacy, she prioritizes listening, holding space, and active communication as key elements of her practice.
Jessica Germano, Performer
Jessica Germano is a contemporary dance artist, collaborator, performer, and movement facilitator based in Tkaronto (Treaty 13 Territory). She completed her BFA in Performance Dance at the Toronto Metropolitan University in 2016, and has since worked with choreographers including Belinda McGuire, Peggy Baker, Karen Kaeja, and Guillaume Côté. Most recently, Jessica performed in the international premiere of Burn Baby, Burn by Côté Danse at Colours Dance Festival this July in Stuttgart, Germany. Her approach to dance explores the confluence of visual, sonic, tactile and emotional experiences and how they can inform a visceral bodily response, expressed through movement. Jessica has been a collaborator with Marie Lambin-Gagnon since 2022, and is thrilled to be part of the premiere of ‘Still Life’ at dance: made in canada.
Simon Rossitier, Lighting Designer
Simon Rossiter is a Toronto-based lighting designer who occasionally designs scenery. He has created more than 300 original designs for a variety of dance and theatre companies, including works for Citadel+Compagnie, the National Ballet of Canada, CôtéDanse, Soulpepper Theatre Company, Théâtre français de Toronto, Toronto Dance Theatre, and is Director of Design for Fall for Dance North. Simon has received three Dora Mavor Moore awards and six further nominations for outstanding lighting design, and was twice nominated for the Ontario Arts Council’s Pauline McGibbon award. Simon also serves as Business Agent for the Associated Designers of Canada, IATSE Local ADC659.
Banner photo by Marie Lambin-Gagnon