Suite Canadienne

Suite Canadienne, by Ludmilla Chiriaeff, broadcast nationally on Quebec television in 1958, shows ballet dancers disguised as peasants, traversing a fantasised colonial rural scene. From this obscure document springs a project of historical introspection at the intersection of personal and global forces. Combining scenes of corporeal discipline, of orphanages in mining towns, of refugees and their contributions to Quebecois identity, this film shows a group of dancers reckoning with the history of their form and revisiting that history in the body.