FOUNDER
Noémie Lafrance, Artistic Director, of Quebec, Canada, pursued a professional training at Les Ateliers de Danse Moderne de Montreal and at The Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. As the artistic director of Sens Production and site-specific choreographer, she has created and produced large-scale movement based work for the public space staging the urban architecture with live performances. Her work Descent received 2 Bessie Awards for the choreography and the score in 2002 and was listed as one of the 10 best performances of 2002 in The New York Times and Time Out New York. Ms. Lafrance was one of the inaugural recipients of Lambent Fellowship Award from the Tides Foundation for "displaying artistic excellence" and adding a "fresh voice to the art world of Metropolitan New York." Lafrance was called "a site-specific wizard" in the 25 choreographers to watch in the January 2004 issue of Dance Magazine and in the best performances in 2006. She was featured in Readers Digest's Selection in 2005 and in the New York Times Magazine and in TIME Magazine's "innovators" section in 2006. Ms. Lafrance also appeared on Radio Canada Television and Radio, NPR, Arts & Entertainment Channel, CBC news, BCATV etc…
Her acclaimed piece Descent was performed in a twelve story stairwell designed by legendary architect Stanford White in lower Manhattan to a total audience of more than 5000 people in 2002 and 2003. Noir, performed in parking garage was presented in May 2004 as a part of the prestigious Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial and was co-produce by Danspace Project. Ms. Lafrance was commissioned by the Neuberger Museum of Art to create Unseen: Landscapes, inspired by April Gornik's paintings and performed by the MFA students at Purchase College SUNY in fall 2004. She was also invited to create The Invisible Sins of Fort Adams for Island Moving Co. as part of the Open for Dancing Festival in Newport, RI in September 2004 and 2005. Her work Migrations, a commissioned by the Whitney Museum at Altria, was performed in May 2005 as part of a series of performance on 42nd Street. Agora, was produced by Sens Production in September 2005 and its second version, Agora II, was performed in September of 2006, inside the abandoned McCarren Park Pool in Brooklyn. The event reopened the abandoned site to the public, was seen by more than 15,000 people and performed more than 30 times. She was commissioned by the Fisher Center for the Arts at Bard College to create a new work that will use the architecture of the Frank Gehry designed building.
Noémie Lafrance has worked on films, videos and TV commercials including the award winning music video "1234" for the artist Feist. She has collaborated with artist Doug Aitken on "Sleepwalking", a film installation commissioned by MOMA in winter 2007. She was recently approached by Cirque du Soleil to be considered as a conceptual creator.
Noémie Lafrance's work was recognized and funded by the major public and private organizations including the National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council for the Arts, the NYC Department of Cultural affairs, The Canada Council for the Arts, The Quebec Government House in New York, The Canadian Consulate General and Ministry of Cultural Affairs, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Rodney White Foundation, The Greenwall Foundation, The Leon Levy Foundation, The Arnhold Foundation, The Altria Group, and many private supporters.