Who is Carly Dubreuil? An Interview with the Emerging Dance Artist, By Paige McConnell

  

Carly Dubreuil is a dance artist born and raised here in Vancouver, British Columbia. Carly is in her fourth and final year of the SFU Contemporary Dance program, in which her individual artistry has greatly flourished. With many years of training under her belt, Carly will soon emerge onto the Vancouver dance scene. 

Q: Who are you and what do you do?

A: My name is Carly Dubreuil, I am a dance artist in Vancouver. Outside of my dance practice I am devoted to sustainability, wellness and personal growth. As of lately, my work has been based around chance procedures, individuality vs conformity and how our surroundings affect movement!

Q: What is your background?

A: I started dancing at a young age but for the first 10 years I really bounced around styles, I tried ballet, tap, jazz, and eventually settled on musical theatre. For years the only reason I took other techniques was because I was told by my teachers that I had to supplement musical theatre. When I was 13 I started wanting to take classes like ballet, jazz, modern, contemporary because I enjoyed them not just because I had to. After graduating high school I spent a year training with a contemporary dance performance company. The following year I started in the contemporary dance program at SFU and now I’m in my fourth year.

Q: So how has your artistic process changed over time?

A: My practice definitely changed over time! Most of what I experienced as a young dancer was to use emotion in my dancing and when creating work. The pieces I was in always had a big story behind them. Over the past few years my practice has switched from being derived from feelings and emotions to movement for movement's sake. As humans we will naturally attach some level of feeling to our movement but I now prefer that movement comes before emotion.

Q: Throughout these years as a dancer, what has been a formative experience? 

A: I think all the rejections I’ve gotten throughout my dance life has formed me the most. Every time I got rejected for a role, project, program, the more I developed my ability to be resilient. Also, I think if you stick with something after it’s knocked you down that shows how much you really love it!

Q: Speaking of how an art can sometimes knock you down, what do you dislike about the art world?

A: I would have to say that what I dislike about the art world is the competitive aspect of it. In my opinion, art is subjective so I don't understand why artists are put in constant competition with one another.

Q: What work do you most enjoy doing?

A: My favourite aspect of dance is just taking a technique class. I enjoy creating work and the performance component but taking a technique class where you come out exhausted and drenched in sweat gives me so much fulfillment. 

Q: What has been the best piece of advice you’ve ever received? 

A: This is not advice I was given but a quote by Merce Cunningham that I often think about is “The only way to do it is to do it.” My nature in many aspects of my life is to think and plan on doing things but I may not actually do the thing. Cunningham is right though, constantly thinking about doing something will not get you anywhere, you just have to take the leap of faith and do it.

Q: I would agree, Cunningham is right! What is next for you, Carly?

A: I’m not really sure what's next for me. I’ll be graduating this year meaning for the first time in my life I will be completely responsible for my own training without any program to follow or mandatory classes. It will also be up to me to create work and put myself out there in ways I haven’t before. I would love to start a collective with a few of my peers in order to keep engaged in the work.