Marie Claire Forté (she/her)
Part-time Instructor, Contemporary Dance
Biography, May 2024
The relational, experiential, and experimental potential of dance inspires me. I dance, choreograph, write, translate, teach, and support artists. I am Imogen Keith’s mother, and her presence is an incredible force coursing through me. My career has been nourished by long-term creative relationships with artists from different generations and esthetics, all sharing a love of process, rigour and exploration. Important artistic and pedagogical influences include Peter Boneham, artistic director and master teacher of the now-defunct Le Groupe Dance Lab in Ottawa; Toronto-based choreographer Ame Henderson; Montréal-based choreographer Louise Bédard; multidisciplinary performance group PME-ART; and visual artist Sophie Bélair Clément.
Recent projects include research and professional development with Katie Ward and collaborators around Vagabond Dancing, a score to dance infinite realities, and the video installation Mères et mouvements d’enfants presented in 2022 at the Foreman Gallery in partnership with Sursaut and the Centennial Theatre in Sherbooke, with the curator and artist Camila Vásquez. I am also working alongside curator Véronique Hudon and Espace Perreault transmissions chorégraphiques, documenting traces of senior performing artists for an eventual performative exhibition.
I work with artists whom I love, recently Katie Ward, Louise Bédard, Catherine Lalonde, Priscilla Guy et Émilie Morin, Aurélie Pédron and Sovann Rochon-Prom Tep. I was Dancer in residence at l’Agora de la danse from 2017 to 2019. In 2016, my friend Sophie Bélair Clément and I created the exhibition project and bilingual publication – I’d rather something ambiguous. Mais précis à la fois. at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Gallery. I have been teaching professionals and pre-professionals since 2007, regularly at Concordia University.
Through my love of language and thoughtfulness, I am regularly invited to various other artistic activities: outside eye, post-performance talk host, and writer, editor and translator for arts publications and websites. I am currently working on a book with Peter Boneham about his teaching.
