company

Compagnie Virginie Brunelle is a choreographic creation company that has worked under the artistic direction and general management of choreographer Virginie Brunelle since it was founded in 2009. Its repertoire includes some 10 contemporary dance works, which have been presented in more than 50 Quebec cities and on international stages.

Ms. Brunelle draws her creative inspiration from music to generate distinctive stage imagery. These images are then transposed onto the work like musical scores. Virginie Brunelle first composes the primary physical elements before turning her attention to the dynamic gestural language. It’s here that her focus shifts to highly detailed work, combining rhythms, suspensions, ferocity, delicacy, gazes, breathing, and brutality to bring out the evocative power of gesture. Behind this formal research process lies a poetry of vulnerability that gives rise to poignant and visually stunning stage experiences.

After graduating, Virginie Brunelle created Les cuisses à l’écart du cœur, a choreography for seven dancers that earned the 2009 Bourse RIDEAU at the Vue sur la Relève festival. Emboldened by this initial success, she founded her eponymous company (Compagnie Virginie Brunelle) in 2009, and in the same year created a second work, Foutrement, which won the 2017 Prix du public presented by the CAM en tournée (CAM touring program). In 2011, Virginie Brunelle opened La Chapelle’s fall season with the presentation of her third work, Complexe des genres, which received second prize at Denmark’s prestigious Aarhus International Choreography Competition. Three years later, she presented PLOMB, and in 2016 she created À la douleur que j’ai. These four works have since been toured across Europe and Canada, thus allowing the choreographer to gain recognition on the world stage, culminating in an invitation, in 2018, to create a show for the Gauthier Dance Theaterhaus Stuttgart company. The result was Beating, a work that was first presented in Germany, with a Canadian tour scheduled in 2018-2019. Then, in 2020, she created Les corps avalés, a piece for seven dancers, accompanied on stage by the Quatuor Molinari; Presented by Danse Danse at Théâtre Maisonneuve, this work was a resounding success with critics and audiences alike. Since the spring of 2021, Virginie has been working on the creation of Fables, a major work for twelve performers whose presentation took place in May 2022 at the Lugano Dance Project Festival in Switzerland and was presented at Théâtre Maisonneuve of Place des Arts in Montreal in December 2022. Finally, very recently, Virginie signs the production of a first dance short film entitled Reminiscences.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Claudie Brunelle, President
Director, Pension and Benefits | Intact Corporation financière

Yiou Huang, Vice president
Product Marketing Manager | Lightspeed Commerce 

Maria Normandin, Secretary
Retired from education

Philippe Dubuc, Treasurer
Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer| Theratechnologies inc.

Karim Aktouf, Administrator
Artist and Engineer
Professor, Creativity Consultant

Virginie Brunelle, Administrator
General and artistic director | Compagnie Virginie Brunelle

Sylvie Lavoie, Administrator
General and administrative director | Lorganisme

Partners