Louis Laberge-Côté
Louis Laberge-Côté
(he/him)
Associate Professor, Dance
Education
- MFA Creative Practice
Email: louislabergecote@torontomu.ca
Extension: 556788
Office: SLC G033
Louis Laberge-Côté is an Assistant Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, School of Performance since July 2018. He teaches modern and contemporary dance techniques and movement improvisation.
Laberge-Côté is an active Toronto-based dancer, choreographer, teacher, and rehearsal director. An acclaimed performer, he has danced nationally and internationally with over thirty companies and has been a full-time member of Toronto Dance Theatre (1999-2007) and the Kevin O’Day Ballett Nationaltheater Mannheim (2009-2011).
He has created over eighty choreographic works, which have been presented and commissioned in Canada and abroad. His work has garnered him a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Choreography and ten other individual and ensemble nominations for Performance or Choreography. He is a triple KM Hunter Award nominee and has received several grants from all three levels of government, the Chalmers Foundation, the Metcalf Foundation, the Laidlaw Foundation, and the Dancer Transition Resource Centre.
He acted as Chair of the Canadian Alliance of Dance Artists - Ontario Chapter (2005-2007), Vice-President of the Canadian Dance Assembly (2013-2017), and Chair of the Dance Committee at the Toronto Arts Council (2013-2018). He is currently Vice-President on the Board of Healthy Dancer Canada.
He holds an MFA in Creative Practice from the University of Plymouth (UK) and the Transart Institute (USA). His research is centred on contemporary dance and somatic training. His writings have been published by the Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices, The International Journal of Arts Education, Choreographic Practices, The Dance Current, the International Dance Council Online Library, and the Calgary Beacon.. He continues to be a sought-after interpreter and investigator of new dance creations.
Current and recent projects include:
- Lecture-presentation at the 58th World Congress of Dance Research in Athens, Greece, in July 2022;
- Performance in Fathers and Demons, a short dance film choreographed and directed by Maxine Heppner, performed with opera singer Alex Dobson / Rehearsal process and film shoot in July 2022;
- Artistic consultation for small:scale, a transdisciplinary work expected to premiere in 2023 / Rehearsal process at the Arts Court ODD Box, Ottawa in August 2022;
- Artistic consultation for Svāhā, a large-scale work choreographed by Nova Bhattacharya / World premiere: Bluma Appel Theatre, September 2022;
- Performance of World After Dark, a transdisciplinary work choreographed and directed by Shannon Litzenberger / Nuit Blanche, Meridian Arts Centre, October 2022;
- Choreography for Harmed in Hamilton, a live journalism work created in collaboration with Sonya Fatah (Journalism) and Lisa Cox (Performance) / World premiere: Theatre Aquarius, October 2022;
- Rehearsal and research process for Narrating Psychological Trauma through Somatic Sourcing in Contemporary Choreography, an SHRCC-funded project done in collaboration with Marie-France Forcier (Principal Investigator, Associate Professor, University of Calgary, Dance) and Allison Crawford (Associate Professor, University of Toronto, Psychiatry) / Rehearsal processes throughout summer 2022 and early summer 2023 leading to the world premiere of a choreographic work at The Grand, Calgary in June 2023.
- Dance education
- Dance training
- Performance practices
- Choreography
- Approaches to artistic creation
- Teaching and learning systems
- Movement improvisation
- Body-mind awareness
- Dance therapy
- Flow experience
- Mental imagery
- Somatic practices
The art of degeneration
Year: 2016-2018
Role: Principal Investigator / Choreographer / Performer
Funded by: Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council
The Porous Body: Cultivating Malleability in Traditional Dance Training
Year: 2018-2020
Role: Principal Investigator
Funded by: The Creative School SRC Seed Grant and Travel Grant
World After Dark
Year: 2018-2021
Role: Collaborator / Performer (for Shannon Litzenberger Contemporary Dance / Shannon Litzenberger, Artistic Director)
Funded by: Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, Harbourfront Centre
Uncanny Robots:
Examining human-robot interactions through dance and performance
Year: 2019-2020
Role: Co-Investigator (PI: Michael Bergmann, School of Performance)
Funded by: The Creative School SRC Special Seed Grant
Narrating Psychological Trauma through Somatic Sourcing in Contemporary Choreography
Year: 2019-2021
Role: Collaborator (PI: Marie-France Forcier, University of Calgary)
Funded by: Insight Development Grant, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Svaha
Year: 2019-2021
Role: Collaborator / Outside Eye (for Nova Dance / Nova Bhattacharya, Artistic Director)
Funded by: National Arts Centre, Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council
The delicate art of art-making
Year: 2019-2021
Role: Collaborator / Choreographer (commissioned by ZEST Creation)
The Plunge
Year: 2019
Role: Collaborator / Co-choreographer / Sound designer (commissioned by Kaeja d’Dance and Lakeshore Arts for Porch View Dances - New Toronto)
Good morning, good night
Year: 2020
Role: Collaborator / Co-choreographer / Performer / Director / Editor / Sound designer (commissioned by Kaeja d’Dance for Porch View Dances Online 2020)
Life is Paradox
Year: 2020-2021
Role: Collaborator / Outside Eye (for choreographer Takako Segawa / Kemi Contemporary Dance Projects, Jennifer Dallas, Artistic Director)
Untitled (solo project)
Year: 2020-2021
Role: Collaborator / Choreographer (for dancer Nova Bhattacharya / Nova Dance, Nova Bhattacharya, Artistic Director)
Laberge-Côté, Louis. “edged: Exploring the Porous Boundaries between Teaching Philosophy, Dance Performance and Choreographic Practice.” Choreographic Practices, vol. 11, no. 1, 2020, pp. 43–57., doi:10.1386/chor_00011_1.
Laberge-Côté, Louis. “The Porous Body: Cultivating Malleability in Traditional Dance Training.” Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices, vol. 10, no. 1, 2018, pp. 65–77., doi:10.1386/jdsp.10.1.65_1.
Laberge-Cote, Louis. “The Porous Body: Cultivating Malleability in Dance Training.” The Dance Current, Jan. 2020, pp. 20–21.
Laberge-Cote, Louis. “The Porous Body: Cultivating Malleability in Traditional Dance Training.” Conseil International De La Danse, May 2020, (PDF file) writings.raftis.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Louis-Laberge-Cote-article-_-The-Porous-Body.pdf (external link) .
Marchevska, E., Quillinan, S., Angelovski, G., Durrani, A., Buller, R. E., Hoffecker, I., Laberge-Côté, L., Olson, J., Owens, D., Piper, J., Sammarone, M., Sullivan, J. (2018). Co-a-lism: day of art exhibitions and conversations. Berlin: Flutgraben e.V. Art Centre.
Laberge-Côté, Louis. “The Porous Body: Cultivating Malleability in traditional dance training”, Fifteenth International Conference on The Arts in Society, 24 June 2020. Online Conference Presentation.
Laberge-Côté, Louis. “The Porous Body: Cultivating Malleability in traditional dance training”, Fourteenth International Conference on The Arts in Society, 19 June 2019, Lisbon, Portugal. Conference Presentation.