Artistic statement
Aurélie has cultivated a singular ability to bring together artistic collaborators from radically different social worlds and lived realities. This diversity enriches the depth and complexity of her work, creating bridges where there are divides.
Her multidisciplinary, often immersive creations share a common essence: to open a space beyond ordinary time. The viewer’s body serves as the grounding point of each work. By placing the body in direct relation to the work, Aurélie challenges our perception of what we believe to be “reality.” As these mental constructs begin to dissolve, audiences gain access to expanded states of perception: meditative states, encounters with the unknown, and profound reconnections with the deepest self.
By creating systemic works that engage with interdependence, she explores both the individual body and the collective body.
Aurélie cultivates interests that quietly inform her artistic practice without ever becoming its explicit subject. Encounters with people whose lives have followed unconventional or traumatic paths, together with her long-term commitment to studying with a Taoist master atop a mountain in China, have profoundly expanded her understanding of existence. These lived experiences shape the foundations of her artistic research and creative process.
Aurélie Pedron
Aurélie Pedron founded her company Lilith & Cie in 2013, creating sites for her installation performances, where performers’ bodies transmit meaning and reveal invisible images. Presented by Tangente in 2014, ENTRE is a nanoperformance for one audience member at a time, and became the company’s masterwork, earning a Prix de la danse de Montréal, in the revelation category. In 2016, with Danse-Cité, Pedron created LA LOBA, a choreographic journey with 12 live installations in the former Deaf-Blind Institute building in Montréal. ANTICHAMBRE, an immersive work where movement is at the heart of the spectator’s experience, was presented at l’Agora de la danse in 2019. INVISIBLE, a 72-hour uninterrupted dance performance, was programmed in the 2021 OFFTA, coproduced with Montréal Danse and Danse-Cité.
In parallel, fed by a social and inclusive ethic, Aurélie Pedron collaborates with marginalized youth. She created the microperformances RÛE and MARGE (2014–2015) with them, supported by the Montréal-based multidisciplinary artist centre DARE-DARE. In 2016, INDEEP, was a 10-hour performance with 10 blindfolded youth offering a transformative and fascinating performance that confronted our gaze on a social body operating without landmarks and normative codes. DANS LE CŒUR DU HÉRON, initially programmed in the 2020 OFFTA, was created in collaboration with Simiuni Nauya, Inuit sculptor, and presented at the Musée d’art de Rouyn-Nouranda in 2021.
Lilith & Cie is supported by the Conseil des arts de Montréal, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Arts Council.
Lilith in History
Her name’s diverse etymologies (Hebrew and Sumerian) relate to night and wind.
“Lilith, the night. Objectified figure of the unfulfilled, in other words, the unconscious that humanity would project into existence in the form of a feminine character throughout the ages, while, in fact, it resides within the night of its interiority.” Annick De Souzenelle
Under the auspices of this archetype, Lilith & Cie invites us to reclaim embodiment, perceive the untellable, and move beyond sensory understanding.