Charles-Alexis Desgagnés

A native of Quebec and based in Montreal since 2016, Charles-Alexis Desgagnés is a performer, improviser, teacher, choreographer and artist in contemporary dance. Self-taught in New York as well as a year at the School of Toronto Dance Theater, this artist has worked for Ottawa Dance Directive (Yvonne Coutts), Le Fils d'Adrien Danse (Harold Rhéaume), Tedd Robinson, Social Growl Dance (Riley Sims), Fleuve Espace Danse (Chantal Caron), Destins Croisés (Ismaël Mouaraki), Trip The Light Fantastic (Kyra Jean Green), Janelle Hacault, ENTITEY (Jason Martin), Le Cirque du Soleil and most recently in Cirque Éloize's latest production, Seul Ensemble, directed by Benoit Landry and choreographed by Peter Jasko.

Charles-Alexis presented two new solo choreographic creations, Mue érable (at Cinquième Salle of Place des Arts) and Person (outdoors), as part of the Festival Quartiers Danses in Montreal in September 2019. A first group version with 28 Mue érable performers were also presented at Espace Orange in the summer of 2018 in a completely self-managed manner. This follower of creativity also collaborates more and more with filmmakers. He can be seen as the main actor-dancer in the short film Autonome by musician Mada Mada, a production by Alexandre Richard from the production company Les Orphelins. In 2021 he will co-produce a short solo film, La Peau de l'Autre, with the collaboration of director Vincent-René Lortie of Telescope Films. This year he will also participate in The Smile Club, a video creation by choreographer Kyra Jean Green. In addition, this self-taught curious about new experiences is currently working on Occiduus, a project combining augmented reality, digital projections and contemporary dance approved by the Canada Council for the Arts. Masami Mikami, Navid Navab, Evan Montpellier and Jeremy Segal complete the team.

Charles-Alexis has also taught open contemporary dance classes on his own in Montreal since 2018. His classes, strongly focused on improvisation, groundwork and artistic discovery through choreographic creation, are also tinged at the educational level of his yoga teacher experience. He is certified at Yoga Sangha by Sylvie Tremblay. In addition, this designer will also add another string to his bow by training in Leadership and Creative Coaching for teachers and creators with Anne-Marie Duchêne of Art of Alignment. This is a one year course. Finally, this artist took part in the first season of the Revolution show in 2018 on TVA, where he made it to the final, sharing week after week five artistic performances with varied textures, thus allowing a popularization of the contemporary dance to the general public.