Born in Montréal, Pierre Des Marais co-founded—alongside Paul Tanguay of O Vertigo, Marie-Andrée Roussel of La La La Human Steps and Francine Bernier of l’Agora de la danse— LOMA Productions, the organization that created Danse Danse in 1998.
Danse Danse’s mission is to provide Montréal a platform for contemporary dance. For nearly 30 years, Pierre Des Marais has worked to bring dance companies and choreographers like Pina Bausch, Akram Khan, Hofesh Shechter, the National Ballet of Canada, and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, to Montréal’s stages and to regularly present local artists. Thanks to his vision and work, Danse Danse is now the largest presenter of contemporary dance in Canada, presenting 16 companies annually and co-producing an annual festival, JOAT Festival international de street dance.
Actively involved in community life, Des Marais serves on the board of directors of the Regroupement québécois de la danse (RQD), where he is also treasurer, the Prix de la danse de Montréal, La Danse sur les routes du Québec (DSR), and Danse à la carte (DAC).
Pierre Des Marais has represented Montréal on numerous missions and participated in several performing arts festivals and fairs in Canada and abroad. These trips not only bring high-caliber performances to Montréal and Quebec stages but also serve to promote Montréal artists to their international peers.
Are you an artist? How did you become interested in a career in the arts?
I was a professional dancer for eleven years. Between 1970 and 1981 I performed more than 1,000 times for the contemporary dance company Anna Wyman Dance Theatre in Vancouver. After having danced I wanted to continue in other areas linked to dance: tour management, tour booking, and management. I served as the executive director of various companies and am now artistic and executive director of Danse Danse.
Tell me about Danse Danse. Where did the idea come from?
Actually the idea came from the executive directors of four different organizations who each felt that Montréal needed a full scale dance season in large theatres for larger contemporary dance companies. Danse Danse was incorporated under the name of Productions LOMA which is an acronym for the four companies that each executive director represented. Prior to the creation of Danse Danse there had been other attempts to put together large scale dance seasons but no one organization was able to sustain or develop the season the way that we were able to as a group.
What challenges, if any, did you encounter in getting Danse Danse started?
The principal challenge was funding. To become a large scale series, we needed funding to grow and be able to invite foreign guest companies. We were very lucky at that time that there was a provincial agency in Quebec—Ministère de la Metropole—that was specifically in charge of the development of Montréal and we were able to get seed funding for the first three years of our development. We additionally received seed funding from the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Quebec (CALQ). The funding for the Ministère de la Métropole was fixed in time—three years, specifically—the rest of the public funding comes from: the CALQ which is ongoing and is our largest funder within the public funding agencies. Also, we receive funds from the CAM (Conseil des arts de Montreal), the CAC (Canada Arts Council) and the Department of Heritage (Federal agency). All the public funding represents roughly 25 percent of our total budget. The other 75 percent is mainly revenues from ticket sales and fundraising.
How does Danse Danse contribute to the dance ecosystem in Montréal and beyond?
We always dreamt of becoming the largest contemporary dance season in Canada and one of the largest in North America, in terms of quality of performances as well as quantity of performances and public attendance, and we have achieved that dream.
We believe that the work that Danse Danse and its programming does provides an opportunity for our ecosystem to develop. Each presenter in Montréal has its particularities and ours is that we are able to invite companies that, because of the financial obligations necessary to do so, nobody else locally would be able to. We are able to present companies from Canada and abroad that would, often, only be seen in New York, Paris or London. We have been able to develop a dance audience that can see and appreciate what is being presented around the world.
Pierre Des Marais leads a discussion on the occasion of a performance as part of the Danse Danse season. Credit: Danse Danse archives
You’ve been the executive director and artistic director for Danse Danse since 2000. What makes you excited about the role? What do you find most rewarding?
My greatest joy is to see an enthusiastic public respond positively to companies that they do not necessarily know and to choreography that can, sometimes, be challenging. It remains our role to sustain our public in this development and to continue to surprise them with the diversity that exists in contemporary dance. And when I say contemporary dance, I mean all styles of dance, from hip hop to flamenco, from street dance to tap dance to contemporary ballet.
Can you share what your typical day is like? Do you have a typical day?
There are typical seasons, like when we are preparing the season and all that it entails, or when we travel to festivals or meet with peers to keep track of developments in the dance world. Through these days, there are always the staff meetings and other meetings with colleagues and funders, the planning necessary for visiting companies to be able to comfortably stay in Montréal and perform, all of this work is constantly being done.
Do you have any advice for MMIAM students with entrepreneurial goals?
Certainly! Never be afraid to dream big. There will be disappointment along the route and there will be mistakes also, but there will also be absolute rewarding successes.
Are there skills that arts administration students should be looking to acquire to be ready to join the workforce once they graduate?
Trust your gut! There is great importance in knowing numbers (and the ability to tell a story with the said numbers) and being able to apply lessons that we have learned at school, but life can put us in situations where we have to follow our instincts and not the lessons. Be human and humble. We (I) all make mistakes and it is not the end of the world, to get back up is more important.
Pierre Des Marais at Place-des-Arts, Montréal. Credit: Danse Danse archives.
Can you share one thing, personal or professional, that you’re proud of accomplishing this year?
This year is the year that I have started to put together the future for Danse Danse; a future without me—eventually—and that will propel Danse Danse to continue to innovate and be at the forefront of contemporary dance. Danse Danse is not successful because of one person, but because of the team.
Is there something I should have asked you about that you’d like to talk about specifically?
In my view dance is a truly universal form of art because it doesn’t need language to touch people. It can be joyous, dark, visceral, beautiful, and so much more!
*Pierre Des Marais’s headshot credit: Julie Artacho.