Meet the Artists

A multidisciplinary artist, Mélanie Demers founded her dance company, MAYDAY, in 2007 in Montreal, exploring the powerful link between the poetic and the political. Her body of work has all been created from this perspective. With each new creation, she deepened her engagement with cross-genre works and hybrid forms. Her fascination with the interplay between word and gesture crystallized with WOULD (2015), which won the CALQ Award for best choreography. In 2016, Mélanie Demers began a new creation cycle with Animal Triste and Icône Pop; both works toured internationally. In 2017, Mélanie Demers was invited alongside Laïla Diallo to work as a guest choreographer at the Skånes Dansteater in Malmö (Sweden) for the creation of Something About Wilderness.

After the ambitious international project Danse Mutante hit the stage, La Goddam Voie Lactée (2021), Confession Publique (2021) and Cabaret Noir (2022) entered the spotlight in various prestigious venues and festivals. In 2021, Mélanie Demers received the GRAND PRIX de la danse de Montréal, which recognizes the unique mark she left on her field. The next year, she was awarded the CALQ Award for best choreography for Confession Publique, while Angélique Willkie received the best performance Award for the same work at the ceremony of Les Prix de la danse de Montréal 2022. She recently turned to theatre and directed the piece Déclarations by acclaimed author Jordan Tannahill. In April 2023, Mélanie Demers was a finalist for the Jovette-Marchessault award.

She regularly teaches in the greatest theatre schools in Canada and is a regular contributor on radio and television shows. She won the 2024 NAC Award as part of the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards and, more recently, the 2025 Canada Council for the Arts Molson Prize. Her recent play l’amour ou rien premiered in May 2025 at Théâtre ESPACE GO.

To this day, she choreographed thirty works and was presented in some forty cities across Europe, America, Africa and Asia.

Angélique Willkie recently moved back to Montreal after more than 20 years living in Europe. She is a performance artist, with experience as an interpreter, singer, dramaturg and educator. After graduating from the School of Toronto Dance Theatre, she went to live in Belgium where she participated in several dance projects with choreographers such as Alain Platel, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Karin Vyncke and Jan Lauwers/Needcompany. Her singing collaborations include the likes of Zap Mama, dEUS, DAAU and Zita Swoon Group. She has also lent her voice to composers such as Walter Hus and Spectra Ensemble, Kaat De Windt, David Linx, Fabrizio Cassol and the Ensemble Musiques Nouvelles. In addition to being a performer, Angélique Willkie has taught at the École supérieure des arts du cirque (ESAC) in Brussels and at the École de danse contemporaine de Montréal (EDCM). Most recently, she is a professor at Concordia University’s Department of Contemporary Dance. As an artist-researcher, she has been exploring her interest in the dramaturgical aspects of the body in performance. While she continues to work as a dramaturg for various dance, music and circus-theatre projects, she has recently found her way back onstage, performing the works of various Montreal choreographers.