TORONTO, January 16, 1998 -- Two leading Quebec artists are headlining the tenth anniversary season of the York Dance Ensemble (YDE), York University's spirited young repertory company featuring outstanding student performers from the Department of Dance.

Renowned Montreal choreographer Luc Tremblay is serving as guest artistic director for the YDE this year. He was joined in York's Dance Department by Montreal choreographer and dancer Harold Rheaume, 1997 winner of the Canada Council's prestigious Jacqueline Lemieux Prize, who has just completed a three-week artist-in-residency as guest choreographer for the YDE.

Tremblay began his career in contemporary dance two decades ago, when he joined the Quebec City company Danse Partout. He came to national and international prominence for his work as a performer with the Toronto Dance Theatre in the early 1980s and as artistic director and principal choreographer of Danse Partout from 1986 to 1996. His choreography -- some three dozen original pieces -- has been performed to public and critical acclaim across Canada and in France.

Rheaume, who trained with L'Ecole de Danse de Quebec and Danse Partout, spent five years with Ottawa's Groupe de la Place Royale, where he was able to combine his work as a dancer with the development of his own choreographic language. Since 1994 he has been based in Montreal, where he has interpreted the work of notable choreographers such as Louise Bedard, Helene Blackburn and Daniele Desnoyers. His own works have been presented in major showcases such as the Canada Dance Festival in Ottawa, the Winnipeg Dance Festival, and New Moves in Glasgow, and in events such as Tangente's Serie des Majeurs and Danse-Cite's Volets Interpretes and Choregraphes in Montreal.

While at York, Tremblay and Rheaume have created new works for the York Dance Ensemble -- an experience both choreographers have found highly rewarding.

"I've given these dancers the same challenge, the same discipline, that I would give a professional company", Tremblay says. "They've come through with flying colours".

And it's a two-way street. "I was very inspired by what the dancers brought to the work," Rheaume says. "Their openness and generosity were a real gift for me as a choreographer."

Tremblay's Kabbale, a piece for eight dancers set to music by John Zorn, is a highly structured work of pristine clarity. By contrast, Rheaume's Fresk, which features all of the YDE's eleven members, is intensely theatrical and charged with emotion.

The York Dance Ensemble will premiere the new Tremblay and Rheaume works in its tenth anniversary showcase performance, which will take place at Toronto's Betty Oliphant Theatre on February 1. The program will also include works by Toronto choreographer and York University dance professor Darcey Callison and independent choreographer and YDE alumna Barb Stekly, as well as pieces by current company members Tara Lee and Stephanie Paige Thompson.

The YDE will reprise its anniversary concert on February 16 and 17 in collaboration with Danse-Cite at Studio de l'Agora de la Danse in Montreal.

Following the Montreal shows, artistic director Tremblay will lead the YDE on tour as part of its school outreach program, with stops scheduled in Ottawa, Cornwall, Windsor, Bowmanville, Kincardine and Buffalo, N.Y.

Since its establishment in 1988, the York Dance Ensemble has worked with many noted artists, including Toronto choreographers Bill Coleman and Philip Drube, York alumni Susan Cash and Carol Anderson, and York faculty members Holly Small and Anna Blewchamp; American choreographers Daniel Lewis and Phyllis Lamhut; and Montreal choreographers Daniel Belanger and Jean-Louis Morin.

For more information, please contact:

Brigitte Kleer
Manager, Public Relations
Faculty of Fine Arts
(416) 736-2100 ext. 77143
email bkleer@yorku.ca