'Outsized memories' of La La La Human Steps

After 35 years Édouard Lock, a former student and instructor at Concordia, closed his internationally renowned contemporary dance company La La La Human Steps on Wednesday, citing financial strain.

"It's been an amazing journey full of outsized memories folded over decades," he wrote in a farewell letter.

Lock, who studied in Concordia's cinema and literature programs, founded his company under the name Lock Danseurs; it initially took to the stage on June 10, 1980, at a theatre in St. Henri.

Over the next three decades, La La La Human Steps performed to critical acclaim at hundreds of venues around the world, including the Kremlin Palace in Moscow, the Palais Garnier in Paris and, of course, Montreal's Place des Arts.

La La La Human Steps: 'Lightning-quick reflexes and daredevil leaps'

Silvy Panet-Raymond, chair of Concordia's Department of Contemporary Dance, says the company's influence on the artform was considerable: it willed the public to pay attention by pushing the physical and aesthetic boundaries of dance.

"The physical demands of the work meant new ways of training the body to perform at high speed, with lightning-quick reflexes and daredevil leaps — and catching a partner’s weight, for both women and men."

According to Panet-Raymond, the company proposed a unique relationship between dancer and choreographer. "The dancer becomes emblematic, and the image is shaped very much like a recognizable 'trademark'. It captures the imagination and the attention with every reproduction."

Also worth noting, she says, was how the company pushed the idea of gender representation. "In the early days, the female image captured a kind of cool classical beauty (Miryam Moutillet), then came the übergirl (Louise Lecavalier) and in recent years, the highly performative feminine icon (Mistaya Hemingway). The androgynous image evolved over the years."

Hemingway, who graduated from Concordia in 2014 with a bachelor's in urban planning, performed with La La La Human Steps from 2000 to 2010. Panet-Raymond remembers her also enrolling in a third-year class in contemporary technique.

"Here was this dancer who was so riveting in Amelia — the award-winning film released by La La La Human Steps in 2002 — being totally humble and happy to do a daily morning class with other Concordia students."

This hands-on approach also extended to Lock himself. 

In the early 1980s, Elizabeth Langley, founder of Concordia’s contemporary dance program, asked him to teach classes at the university. The appointment only lasted a few months but, as Panet-Raymond recalls, he made a huge impression on his students, many of whom went on to produce big, bold works.

"His connection was as choreographer teaching emerging choreographers, rather than dancers."

The demise of La La La Human Steps points to a need for more public support for dance companies, Panet-Raymond says. "We have to realize that they create much-needed employment and they also require solid, reliable operating funds."

But the impact of this particular company will endure. "A lot of dancers have absorbed the influence of La La La directly or indirectly. That won’t disappear."

Find out more about Concordia's Major in Contemporary Dance.