I am a dance artist. In my conscious memory, dance has consistently been a fundamental component of my life. Even as a toddler, the rapture of movement often took over my body: I stood up and hopped, resolutely holding on to the barred sides of my crib, each time I could discern a rhythm or a melody. Dance has since become a vocation, my creative outlet, and my livelihood. Up until recently, my artistic and professional paths have been primarily focused on performance. During the past five years, I have been through a transitional phase, gradually moving away from the stage and focusing more intently on my pedagogical practice. My driving question through most of this period has been “How do I want to teach now?”. Through this questioning, I developed The Porous Body, a “structure of feeling” that focuses on the practice of an approach to movement by following four fundamental guiding principles: flow, playfulness, metaphor, and paradox. I have since been fascinated by the structured investigation of transience and impermanence and how it can potentially lead to a more profound sense of embodiment, self-healing, global awareness, and new understandings of ourselves and our environment.

Louis Laberge-Côté is a dancer, choreographer, teacher, and rehearsal director based in Toronto, Canada. He has danced nationally and internationally with over thirty companies, has created over eighty choreographic works, and has recently been appointed Assistant Professor of Dance at Ryerson University.