© Édouard Lock
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La La La Human Steps Founder, Artistic Director and Choreographer Édouard Lock began his choreographic career at the age of 20, creating works from 1974 to 1979 for a variety of Canadian dance companies and institutions, including Groupe Nouvelle Aire, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts and the Musée d'Art Contemporain de Montréal. In 1980 he founded La La La Human Steps, a company that has garnered strong national and international recognition and that celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2006. Over the years Mr. Lock has been invited to create works for some of the world's leading dance companies, including the Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris, the Nederlands Dans Theater and Het Nationale Ballet of Holland. His works have garnered many awards, including Canada's most important choreographic award, the Chalmers choreographic prize (1982, 2001); the New York choreographic award, the Bessie (1983, 1986); the 2001 Prix Denise-Pelletier, Québec's highest award for the performing arts; the Governor General of Canada's National Arts Centre Award (2001); and the 2003 Benois de la Danse choreographic award in Moscow for AndréAuria, a critically acclaimed ballet which was created for the Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris in October 2002 and revived at the same venue in November 2006. Mr. Lock co-conceived and was Artistic Director for David Bowie's world tour, Sound and Vision, in 1990. He also collaborated with Frank Zappa on the Yellow Shark concert-an occasion that marked Mr. Zappa's final performances-alongside Germany's Ensemble Modern, Frankfurt's Alte Oper, the Berlin Philharmonic and Vienna's KonzertHaus. At the invitation of the Opéra de Paris, Mr. Lock choreographed the 2003 production of Les Boréades, interpreted by La La La Human Steps at Palais Garnier. Two art films based on Mr. Lock's work have also been made: La La La Human Sex duo no 1 in 1987, directed by Bernar Hébert and winner of six international awards; and Velásquez' Little Museum in 1994, again by Mr. Hébert. In September 1997, the Toronto International Film Festival presented the documentary Inspirations by British director Michael Apted, featuring Mr. Lock alongside other major figures of contemporary art and architecture such as painter Roy Lichtenstein and architect Tadao Ando. Mr. Lock choreographed David Bowie and Louise Lecavalier for the 10th anniversary celebrations of London's Institute of Contemporary Arts. The piece was filmed by video artist Nam June Paik. The film adaptation of Amelia, directed by Mr. Lock, had its American premiere at the 2004 Tribeca Film Festival and at Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, and its European premiere at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. The film has won awards from numerous international festivals, including the Chicago Film Festival, the Rose d'Or Festival in Switzerland and the Prague International Film Festival. It also received a Special Jury Award for all categories at the Banff World Television Festival, and was the winner of two Gemini Awards for Best Direction and Best Editing in a Performing Arts Program. It also won two ICE awards from the National Association of Broadcasters in the Best Photography/Videography and Best Editing categories. The film was also nominated at the International Emmy Awards.
Mr. Lock was named a Chevalier de l'Ordre du Québec in 2001 and Officer of the Order of Canada in 2002.
La La La La Human Steps
La La La Human Steps was founded in 1980 around a three-week series of performances in the small theatre l'Eskabel in Montréal's St-Henri district, which led the troupe to The Kitchen in New York City, the epicentre of contemporary dance at the time. Since then, the troupe has become one of the world's most recognized dance companies, thanks to the unique choreographic language it developed and has constantly reinvented since its inception. Choreographic complexity, the alteration of balletic structures and the intertwining of choreographic, musical and cinematic strands are among the elements that create a sense of perceptual distortion and renewal, that encourage audiences to both reinvent and rediscover the body and its dance. The company requires that its dancers constantly redefine, question and renew themselves, to bring out performances that move from extreme physical challenge to the greatest of lyricism. The Montréal troupe has collaborated with institutions both prestigious and eclectic, from the Opéra de Paris to Frank Zappa. Since Human Sex in 1985, which catapulted La La La Human Steps to the forefront of the international dance scene, the troupe has performed shows -New Demons (1987), Infante, c'est destroy (1991), 2 (1995), Exaucé/Salt (1998), Amelia (2002) and Amjad (2007) -on international tours, two years for each creation, in the major capitals of Europe, Asia and America. Over the last 15 years, the company has received the co-production support of many international dance festivals to produce Édouard Lock's creations, such as Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, deSingel in Antwerp, the Het Muziektheater in Amsterdam, the ImPulsTanz in Vienna, the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, the Montréal High Lights Festival, the LG Arts Centre in Seoul and the Saitama Arts Theater in Japan.
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