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Sylvain Emard and Louise Bedard aren’t worried about the “too many cooks spoiling the broth” line. Each has choreographed solos for the other, but until now they haven’t collaborated on a duet for themselves. “It’s a way to investigate new ways to work,” says Montreal’s Emard about Te Souvient-Il? (the title translates roughly as Do You Remember?). “We knew how the other worked,” explains Emard, whose duet for last year’s Four Chambers Dance Project made NOW’s top-10 list of dance shows. “We didn’t talk much — we exchanged ideas through movement.” The two are joined by painter Pierre Bruneau, who’s created a series of panels covered with a phosphorescent pigment that absorbs the dancers’ shadows for a few seconds after they leave, underscoring the work’s themes of time and memory. “It’s not a special-effects show,” points out Emard. Yeah, but it should be special and pretty effective.
