Next Stage Arts presents Montreal-based contemporary ice skating company Le Patin Libre, performing their work Threshold at the Nelson Withington Skating Facility on Friday, February 16 at 6:00 and 8:00 pm. Le Patin Libre performed to a sold-out audience at the rink last winter. A second show has been added this year to accommodate what is sure to be an enthusiastic response to the company’s return.
A contemporary reinvention of the show on ice, Le Patin Libre company is once again sharpening its blades for a new frozen opus. Dazzlement assured.
Le Patin Libre, whose members are all highly trained skaters, caused a sensation in 2014 with Vertical Influences, a revolutionary display of contemporary dance on ice. “We take full advantage of what makes skating a unique and legitimate art form: the glide”, explains Alexandre Hamel. “The glide allows the disconnection of the body’s displacement in space from its physical movement.” A Le Patin Libre performance is an adrenalin-laced experience. “We use that rush to fuel our choreographic poetry.” The same artistic team—skaters Pascale Jodoin, Jasmin Boivin, Taylor Dilley, Samory Ba and Alexandre Hamel, joined by dramaturge Ruth Little—brings us another gravity-defying show. “Dancers and acrobats have to walk, run, flip, leap, and so on. We, on the other hand, can zoom around without moving a muscle!”
About Le Patin Libre:
Le Patin Libre is a Montreal contemporary skating company. It combines the athletic virtuosity of skating with the creativity of contemporary dance and the energy of urban dances.
The company was founded in 2005 by former high-level fantasy skaters. They came together with the desire to transform their athletics into a means of free expression. Far from stereotypes and glitter, the creations of Patin Libre offer real works of authors who exploit the incredible scenic and choreographic possibilities of sliding.
Since 2005 and its first demonstrations on frozen ponds, Le Patin Libre has evolved enormously. What started as a small spontaneous explosion is now being refined into a thoughtful artistic project. The new genre of skating has slowly become a contemporary performing art in its own right. At the basis of their work now lies a big question: “what is skating?” Until now, their research keeps bringing them back to the same thing: sliding. Sliding is the possibility of putting immobile bodies in motion. This is the unique thing about their movement. This is what they enjoy doing, to the point of dizziness, for their own pleasure and that of their audience.
This performance is sponsored in part by the Quebec Government Office in Boston.
The Nelson Withington Skating Facility is located at 61 Memorial Park Drive in downtown Brattleboro, VT. $20 adults / $10 kids under 12 / $5 skate with the performers (after 8pm show). Advance tickets are available at nextstagearts.org. Advance ticketing closes at 4pm on the day of the show. For information, call 802-387-0102 or visit nextstagearts.org.
