H É L È N E
S I M O N E A U
is a French-Canadian choreographer
whose work explores themes of
intimacy, agency, identity, sexuality, and power.
Whitney Browne
GUGGENHEIM FELLOW
NEW YORK CITY CENTER FELLOW
NYU CENTER FOR BALLET & THE ARTS FELLOW
BARYSHNIKOV ARTS CENTER RESIDENT ARTIST
NYU/TISCH RESIDENT ARTIST
BATES DANCE FESTIVAL RESIDENT ARTIST
[ RESIDENCY IN NASHVILLE ]
Hélène and Banning knew of each other professionally for quite some time before finally meeting in person at the Performing Arts Exchange in Orlando, Florida, in September 2019. They forged a quick bond over their weekend at that conference and have kept up on a regular basis since, acting throughout the first beguiling years of COVID as empathic professional peers to one another, as well as easy-going, heartfelt friends.
Hélène arrives in Nashville on September 12 to begin working one-on-one with Banning in the studio, and while there’s no pressure to walk away with a finished piece, the aim of her time in Nashville is to begin sculpting a solo for Banning.
At the outset of her residency, she’s curious to begin exploring points of initiation, momentum, stagnation, and inertia as they relate to the contrasting qualities inherent in density, boundness, contained fury, lightness, buoyancy, and joy.
Come what may, she intends to stay open to any and everything that emerges during rehearsals, and as she’d said, “I always work collaboratively with dancers, but this is special. Creating with Banning will be different in that this project is the result of an intimate friendship. The inquiries will be inherently more personal. I expect the desires and ideas that make their way into the solo will be informed by a rich history, a larger net of context, and space where trust is high and boundaries can therefore be porous.”
[ BIO ]
Hélène (also known as Helen) is a self-proclaimed “late-bloomer” in the dance field. One of nine children, she grew up in rural, French-speaking Eastern Québec, in the small village of Luceville. Her family appreciated the arts, but a young Helen had never envisioned dance as a potential career path. This changed at 17, when she began pursuing her BFA in a competitive conservatory program.
Helen had minimal prior dance training and was attending school in English for the first time. She found a sense of grounding in making dances — a way to communicate more wholly and explore more deeply what dance had to offer.
As such, Helen’s choreographic pursuits blossomed in parallel with her more formal technical training and performance experience. Hers is not a linear path from performer to choreographer, and she makes work without a pronounced partiality between contemporary and ballet.
Helen continues to hone her artistic voice nationally and internationally and divides her time between New York City, North Carolina, and Montréal.
She is a Guggenheim Fellow (2021) and as acted as a resident artist at Baryshnikov Arts Center, NYU/Tisch, Bates Dance Festival, and the University of Buffalo, and has been a fellow of The NYU Center for Ballet and the Arts, Ailey’s New Directions Choreography Lab, and the Bogliasco Foundation.
She has received choreographic commissions from the Ailey School, BalletX, The Juilliard School, Oregon Ballet Theatre, the American Dance Festival, among other institutions, and has received first place for Choreography at the 13th Internationales Solo-Tanz-Theatre Festival in Stuttgart, Germany.
She is currently the Choreography Fellow at New York City Center.