associate artists
AP&A is composed of interdisciplinary artists, designers, performers, and long-term collaborators working across Canada, Europe, and Latin America.
Our associate artists are the pillars and the foundations of AP&A. They are agents of creation, thinking, reflection that accompany, negotiate and challenge the vision of AP. From 7-3 years the artists below have dedicated their artistry and humanity to what AP&A is today.
ERIN O'LOUGHLIN
Originally from Calgary/Treaty 7 Territory, Erin O’Loughlin(She/Her) is a Montreal/ Tio’tià:ke- based dancer, choreographer, teacher, and founding member of LA TRESSE. O’Loughlin holds a BA in Dance and International Relations from the University of Calgary and her training includes the Ailey School, San Francisco Conservatory of Dance and attendance at workshops including ImPulsTanz, Gaga USA&IL, and residencies at the Banff Centre (Creative Gesture with Alan Lucien Øyen, Dance Artist in Residence with AP&A, and Final Tuning with LA TRESSE, Program Director Alejandro Ronceria).
She currently dances with Andrea Peña & Artists, Sylvain Émard Danse, and Sinha Danse. In 2016, she worked for Bollywood choreographer Shiamak Davar in Mumbai, India. Alongside her co-creators Laura Toma and Geneviève Boulet, she has created and performed in numerous works with LA TRESSE since 2014 winning prizes such as the “Prix Coup de Coeur du Public” from FQD, and the “Gibney Company/Springboard Emerge Award.
FRANÇOIS RICHARD
Born in New Brunswick, François Richard is now a freelance independent dancer based in Montreal; post an extensive professional career. Trained at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet his career has led him across Canada, to the United States, and Europe, where he danced for several companies including the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Les Grands Ballet Canadiene, Atlantic Ballet Theater of Canada, José Navas / Company Flak, EZ Danza, Sinha Dance, Virtuo Dance and as first dancer at Ballet Ouest Montréal. During his current independent career he works for several choreographers including: Jose Navas, Sylvain Emard, Shawn Hounsell, Andrea Peña, Edgar Zendejas, Victor Quijada, Roger Sinha, Igor Dobrovolsky. François’ practice includes teaching to professionals at Concordia University, DancEast Dance Center, Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal, and Dance à la Carte.
JONTAE MCCRORY
Jontae McCrory, originally from Detroit, Michigan, started his training at Western Michigan University at the age of 19. In 2017, McCrory attended the year-long Dancers Course with BalletBoyz in London, England. Throughout his training, he has had the privilege of learningworks by Kyle Abraham, James Gregg, Frank Chaves, and Azure Barton. As a filmmaker and choreographer, McCrory has had works featured in the 2017 American College Dance Association Gala Concert, Festival Chéries-Chéris-Paris Film Festival, Cinema Quebec, and BBC Network London. McCrory started working with contemporary company RUBBERBAND in 2018, while guest performing with Decidedly Jazz Dance Company later in 2020. Currently McCrory has been working with Andrea Pena and Artist, while freelancing in Montreal, QC.
FRÉDÉRIQUE RODIER
Frédérique Rodier is a movement artist whose work is shared between the professions of creator and performer. She carries out interdisciplinary collaborations by joining forces with several research groups bringing together artists from different backgrounds including visual artists, videographers, choreographers, directors, photographers, scenographers and composers. In 2017, she created the FRAM collective with visual artist Andréanne Martel.
Through her personal practice, Frédérique explores the different dimensions of the psyche and the unconscious through the use of improvisation, active imagination and different somatic approaches.
She perceives her personal practice as being her process of individuation, deeply colored by the Alchemical philosophies of transmutation of being and the psychoanalytic theories of Carl Jung.
Frédérique Rodier graduated in interpretation at the Montreal Contemporary Dance School in 2014 and has since accumulated various training and explorations (creative workshops, various training, somatic techniques and several others). She works as a collaborative performer with several creators including the company Andrea Peña & artists by Andrea Peña and with the company Empire Panique by Philippe Boutin.
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NICHOLAS BELLEFLEUR
(fluid pronouns)
Dance artist designing and embodying situations that engages with the chaos of the world and the chaos within. From a ballet training to now multiplying into distinctive sensuous states and aesthetics, Nicholas Bellefleur is infinitely transformed by context. Thanks to recent incarnations of LFDT’s prompt-based neopunk choreographies, the brutally poetic physicality of Virginie Brunelle, Dave St-Pierre’s challenging ideas and practices, and the athletic and conceptual works of Andrea Peña & Artists. Founder of performance lab A SAFE(R) SPACE, co-director of LFDT, associate artist with Cas Public are all postures and relations facilitating the pursuit of Bellefleur’s research. Enchanted by pattern emergence and plural spontaneity, Nicholas finds solace in the study of creative entanglements involving notions of spatial justice, resonance, conflict, responsibility, liberation and care. Nicholas also guides bodies of all types, genders and capacities with choreographic tools and technologies of improvisation inspired by the somatic logics of Wynn Holmes, Gioconda Barbuto, Tilman O’Donnell.
JEAN-BENOÎT LABRECQUE
His initial passion for urban dance, combined with his training in contemporary dance, gives Jean-Benoit Labrecque a versatility of interpretation sought after by many creators. Since graduating from the École de danse contemporaine de Montréal in 2014, he has collaborated on the creation of works and short films with choreographers Danièle Desnoyers, Riley Sims and Andrea Peña. Jean-Benoit has also had the privilege of performing on international stages the choreographic universes of Catherine Gaudet, Daniel Léveillé, Frédérick Gravel, Justine A. Chambers, Alan Lake, Jacques Poulin-Denis, Sébastien Provencher and George Stamos. At the same time, he is developing a solo project that he is maturing in sedimentary layers, starting with the emblematic work DUOS POUR CORPS ET INSTRUMENTS by Danièle Desnoyers. Starting in fall 2023, Jean-Benoit will be a lecturer in the dance department at UQAM, as well as guest choreographer for graduates of the École de danse contemporaine de Montréal. He will be featured in Andrea Peña's REPLICA, to be presented in Montreal in spring 2025.
VÉRONIQUE GIASSON
Véronique Giasson is a graduate of École supérieure de ballet de Montréal. She has worked for nearly fifteen years with renowned cultural organizations, including Cirque du Soleil, Ballet Preljocaj (France), Ezdanza, Sinha Danse, Donlon Dance Company (Germany), Compagnie Marie Chouinard, Les 7 doigts, Compañia Tania Pérez Salas (Mexico), Les Ballets Jazz and Cas Public. Recently, Véronique has been involved in several projects as a performer, but also as a teacher and choreographer. She teaches ballet and contemporary technique to students at the École de danse contemporaine de Montréal and to professional dancers with the organization Danse à la Carte. In 2020, she choreographed a short film entitled Engrenage³ and in 2021, she created two pieces for the Festival Quartiers Danses: the quintet Sculpter le dehors and RESET_Duo which won the jury prize for best choreographic work. In 2022, she danced and co-choreographed the Cirque du Soleil show Vive nos Divas and choreographed four numbers for the show Révolution en tournée. Véronique has been dancing AP&A since 2017.
GABRIELLE KACHAN
Originally from Kjipuktuk (Halifax), Nova Scotia, Gabby has been training and performing in contemporary dance in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal) since 2018. Gabby graduated from École de danse contemporaine de Montréal in 2021, where she had the opportunity to collaborate with choreographers James Viveiros, Darryl Tracy, Charles Brecard and Andrea Peña among others. A versatile and expressive dancer, after graduating Gabrielle was invited to work professionally with both Andrea Peña and Artists and Le Carré des Lombes. Since 2021, she has been performing live in Canada and Europe and appeared in the film adaptation of 6.58: Manifesto with AP&A.
CHARLIE PRINCE
Charlie Prince is a Lebanese dance & performance artist. His interests are rooted in the intersection of the political and the poetic body, and the many profound resonances this may create. His trandisciplinary choreographic work and installations have been presented in several major festivals and theatres– including SPRING Festival(NL), Dansmakers Amsterdam (NL), Rencontres chorégraphiques internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis (FR), Vancouver International Dance Festival (CA), Oktoberdans (NO), and BIPOD (LB). He has collaborated among others with artists such as Benoit Lachambre, Olivia Tapiero and Omar Rajeh. Charlie also holds a Bachelor of Music from McGill University, and continues to nourish his practice through the study of sound and composition. In 2018, he received the Boghossian Foundation Prize for Dance and Performance awarded by Villa Empain in Brussels.
JO LAÏNY TROZZO-MOUNET
After completing her diploma in choreographic studies at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Rennes in 2018, Jo Trozzo-Mounet wished to open herself to new artistic landscapes and so emigrated to Quebec that same year. She began a DEC in Dance-Interpretation at École de Danse de Québec, which she completed in 2022. Today, Jo is an emerging artist who contributes to the development of the contemporary dance scene in Quebec City and Montreal by working with companies such as AP&A, Alan Lake Factori(e) and Tentacle Tribe. Influenced by encounters, exchanges and knowledge sharing, her artistic practice is built on a foundation of crossbreeding and creating a dialogue between genres. Her artistic signature is impregnated with contemporary, urban and classical movements, while leaving the door wide open to all possible fluctuations.
CHI LONG
Chi Long was born in Australia and grew up in Canberra, an overly quiet city where she discovered her passion for dance. At the age of 19, she set off to explore the world, determined to pursue a career in dance, however short. Settling in Montreal, she joined her heartthrob company, O’Vertigo Danse, where she spent the next 11 years performing each of the company’s creations, from La Chambre Blanche in 1991 up until Luna in 2001. In 2002, she joined Compagnie Marie Chouinard (dream come true) where she dove into an antipodal universe, performing the vast company repertoire and participating in the creation of bODY_rEMIX/gOLDBERG_vARIATIONS in 2005. In 2006, she glimpsed the meaning of life when her daughter was born. She stepped away from dance to make space for other life revelations, but soon realised she was missing something essential. As fate would have it, she came back to O’Vertigo, for the re-creation of La Chambre Blanche in 2008, 17 years later. She now knows that dance is her lifeline, the medium where she feels closest to her potential. She presently works as a freelance dancer, grateful for the opportunities to explore creative complicity with a range of choreographers such as Ariane Boulet, Caroline Laurin-Beaucage, Martin Messier, George Stamos and Isabelle Van Grimde, to name the most recent. She continues to perform and collaborate closely with Compagnie Virginie Brunelle as well as with Melanie Demers for MAYDAY.
He trained since the age of six studying ballet, modern, contemporary and tap dance, and acting too. During many workshops he has been awarded with prestigious scholarships for AMDA-Performing Arts Center (NYC), Peridance Capezio Center (NYC) and Studio Harmonic (Paris). From 2015 to 2018, he hosted a radio program with his twin brother, also broadcasted live on TV. In the meantime, he graduated with honours in Linguistic and Intercultural Mediation. In 2016 he was selected by Hannes Langolf and Ermira Goro for the Intensive Development Workshop of DV8 Physical Theatre in Berlin. In the same year, he joined Eleina D. Company, thus perfecting his sensitivity to movement with the artistic director Vito Cassano and starting his training in aerial dance with the co-founder Claudia Cavalli. In September 2020 he was selected by Antonio Latella and Alessio Maria Romano for the Biennale College Teatro during the Venice Biennale. From 2020 to 2022 he worked as faculty member for Giulia Staccioli’s Kataklò Academy for the Physical Theatre course. In 2021 he joined the cast of “Choròs”, directed and choreographed by Alessio Maria Romano for “Oriente Occidente”. In the same year, he was the only performer selected with a scholarship by Amit Lahav, artistic director of Gecko Theatre, for the Gecko Professional Development Residency (Ipswich, London). He currently works as a dancer and aerialist for all the Eleina D. Company productions: “Humans”; “Cappuccetto Rosso” (2018, Eolo Award 2019 for best show, staged in 2024 for Ricca Ricca Festival in Okinawa, Japan); “Anima Mundi”; “Hooked” (choreographed by Elias Lazaridis for ARCforDance - Athens); “Phobos” (co-produced by Ballet National de Marseille and KLAP - Maison pour la danse). In 2023 he enrolled in the Faculty of Psychology and since 2024 he has been dancing in the remake of “Amour, acide et noix” by Daniel Léveillé, debuted at Agora de la danse (Montréal).