Over his Dead Body: an interview with Dave St-Pierre

Dave St-Pierre arrives just as I’m wrapping things up with Virginie Brunelle. He’s just come down from the café at Agora de la danse where he was doing yet another interview in what is doubtlessly a long series. The occasion is special: this week, St-Pierre takes the stage for the first time in three years to perform Over my Dead Body at Tangente, the prelude to the last installment of the trilogy he began with the wildly successful La Pornographie des âmes and Un peu de tendresse, bordel de merde.

Over my Dead Body, choreography and photo by Dave St-Pierre

It’s St-Pierre who brought the idea to Tangente, but they told him their schedule was already full. St-Pierre replied, “OK, well, one week before [your first show then].” Tangente probably didn’t require much to be convinced; it’s obvious that St-Pierre’s name would be enough to fill Tangente. Indeed, Over my Dead Body sold out before it even began its run, including the two extra dates that were added.

If the title of his piece isn’t clear enough to those unfamiliar with him, the second title, Being Dave St-Pierre, might clarify things. It’s “A bit like Being John Malkovich,” he tells me. “We find out who Dave St-Pierre is, where I am in my life at 34 years old, confronted with death. Of course, because of my disease, it’s there…” St-Pierre was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at seventeen.

Though three performers join him onstage, he remains the protagonist. “I tried to create these three characters a bit for them to come and confront me. Because I’m someone who’s a complete ham. I constantly fight my showing-off nature. And I’m a great romantic. So those three things put together, that’s Dave St-Pierre.”

In the blurb for the show, St-Pierre speaks of his attempts to dedramatize his life, something that might seem odd to those who’ve experienced his work; if anything, his creations appear as (over)dramatizations of human relationships. “Yes, we dramatize… For example, in Tendresse, we dramatize, but we also dedramatize. To give an example, the girl who [he mimics her hitting the guy’s chest] and begins to scream [he screams] and falls to the ground… After, you’ve got the character that says ‘I used to be just like her.’ So at first we dramatize it and right after we turn the entire thing on its head. But at the end of the show we come back and redramatize it, you know? That’s what I like about life… Sometimes you live something really, really dark, and later – PAF! – you laugh about it and you find it so ridiculous. And after it comes right back in your face.”

It’s important for St-Pierre to use his name to bring other choreographers into the spotlight. He gave the first part of his show this week to two emerging choreographers, Christian Garmatter and Virginie Brunelle. Garmatter is a b-boy who hails from Germany and whom St-Pierre met when working on Cirque du Soleil’s LOVE in Las Vegas. The young dancer has since then relocated to Montreal. “Since he’s here, I told him ‘Look, you’ve got the opportunity now, so I think you’ve got to take advantage of it.’”

Though Brunelle only graduated from UQAM less than two years ago, she’s already starting to make a name for herself in the dance world. She made an unusual splash with her graduating work, Les cuisses à l’écart DU COEUR. Surprisingly, St-Pierre admits, “I’d actually only seen it on DVD. I hadn’t even seen it live. I was, like, ‘Uh… OK… I like it!’ I called her and asked her if she’d come do the first part of [Tendresse] at Usine C. The audience was into it, so were the critics… Then she did her duo at Tangente, which I unfortunately didn’t get to see, but that did well. So she does a first good piece, then she does another one… And the parts that I’ve seen from [her new piece] Gastro affective, I went, ‘Oh, putain…’ Really, she’s the choreographer right now.” It’s hard to imagine higher praise from St-Pierre.

My interview with Virginie Brunelle will follow in the upcoming days.