The Trad Duets — Step dance and Music project offers the same format of performance, presented in several versions depending on the collaboration. Step dancer Mélissandre T-B teams up with different musicians in traditional arts to present a program where playfulness, energy, sensitivity, and artistic listening are at the forefront. While all the duets are intended for the same contexts — ideal for small stages and traditional arts festivals — each collaboration has a unique flavour, reflecting the meeting between Mélissandre and the musician she is collaborating with.
The duets currently available are:
FAI 2025
Thursday Feb 20 @ 2:10 am - room 818
Saturday Feb 22 @ 11:30 pm - room 1022
Mélissandre T-B & Gabriel Girouard - Step dance & Fiddle
Allies for decades, Gabriel Girouard and Mélissandre T-B join forces to share their interpretation of Québécois traditional fiddle and step dance. Drawing both from traditional Québécois tunes and his own compositions, Gabriel highlights his great creativity and bold, eclectic playing, crossing styles, eras, and genres. Through improvisation, Mélissandre offers a unique style with lightness, blending traditional step dance, ballet, and contemporary dance. Together, they present a performance full of nuances, where tradition, virtuosity, and creativity come together.
Available in Quebec and for touring everywhere.
Mélissandre T-B & Úna Ní Fhlannagáin - Quebec step dance & Traditional Irish harp
From Quebec to Ireland, the two internationally renowned artists Mélissandre T-B and Úna Ní Fhlannagáin form a female trad duet that is as powerful as it is creative. The music draws from Úna’s rich repertoire of compositions, obliquely inspired by baroque, classical, pop and jazz, but always rooted in the Irish tradition. Inspired by the diversity of these tunes, Mélissandre improvises steps that are both sensitive and virtuosic, integrating traditional Québécois, balletic and contemporary movements. Through these finely crafted pieces, Úna and Mélissandre explore the feminine experience.
Mélissandre T-B & Úna Ní Fhlannagáin: two strong artistic personalities, with a brilliant stage presence. A unique repertoire, a highly creative approach to tradition. An unparalleled encounter between Quebec and Ireland, a sisterhood expressed through music and dance.
Available in Ireland, the UK, France, Germany and New Zealand.
Mélissandre T-B
Winner of 2024 Prix CALQ - Artist of the year in Lanaudière, an École supérieure de ballet du Québec graduate and pupil of great percussive dances teachers such as Sandy Silva, Martine Bilette and Pierre Chartrand, Mélissandre T-B has worked professionally as a dancer, a dance master, a choreographer, a dance caller and an entertainer since 2003. As a specialist in Québec step dancing, she was part of the creation process and show cast for 1000 performances of Cirque du Soleil’s ZAIA production in Macau, China. She has also danced for several companies such as Disney (Epcot Centre), La Bottine Souriante, Les Sortilèges, Benjamin Hatcher, Zeugma and Rapetipetam.
For her choreographic creations, Mélissandre merges step, contemporary and ballet dance styles. She is a choreographer and interpreter for Les Bordéliques danse et musique, a group she co-founded with musician Gabriel Girouard. This duet shows theatrical, clownish performances told through original music and percussive dance. Since 2011 they have toured all over Québec and abroad (Canada, the USA, the UK) and reached an audience of more than 6000 people. They won the Jeune public prize (2013), Coup de Coeur prize (2016) and Ambassadeur (2018) prize at Grands Prix Desjardins de la culture, as well as the prestigious CALQ-Oeuvre de l’année en région (Lanaudière) prize in 2016, for their show Blind Date.
Mélissandre also works as a freelance artist. She has danced and created acts for the Just for Laughs Festival, the Orientalys Festival, Les Sortilèges, La Grande Rencontre and the Biennale de gigue contemporaine. In 2020, she created her first dance video project, Rouge pamplemousse, where she dances, choreographs, directs and writes poetry. The film premiered in Montreal’s FIFA 2021. As an individual artist, she has won the Arts de la scène prize (2018) at Grands Prix Desjardins de la culture.
In 2021, she co-founded Cent méandres—Arts & découvertes with her colleague Vincent-Nicolas Provencher. The organization, which brings together under the same banner their individual, joint and collaborative projects, touches as much on creation and production as on community outreach, with a focus on percussive dance and traditional Québec arts. Deeply rooted in Lanaudière, the organization contributes to nourishing the cultural life of the region and promotes its works on local, national, and international territories.
Mélissandre has taught dance in several contexts, from the École des arts de la Veillée to the Earful of Fiddle Music and Dance Camp (Michigan, USA). Whether it’s ballet and choreographic creation for the dance concentration at Collège Esther-Blondin, initiation to traditional dance during school workshops, step dancing for professional artists at Cirque du Soleil, she takes pleasure in sharing her passion with dancers of all ages and levels.
Gabriel Girouard
A musicology graduate and winner of the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) Chamber Music Competition, Gabriel Girouard has been touring the world for over 25 years with several groups (Garçons à Marier, Légendes Locales, Les Bordéliques, Baqqhus, Mélisande, etc.), mastering a wide variety of styles (classical, trad, country, rock, jazz).
Very active on the Quebec music scene, he has performed over 2000 shows and workshops, in addition to recording numerous albums. While he masters a wide range of instruments (violin, viola, mandolin, banjo, guitar, bass, trumpet, hurdy-gurdy, piano, jaw harp, flutes, feet percussion and other rhythmic instruments), he is primarily renowned for his work as a violinist in Quebec traditional music.
He is currently working, with financial support from the CALQ, on a solo project combining traditional music and new technologies.
Úna Ní Fhlannagáin
Úna is an award-winning performer of Celtic voice and harp. Age 3, she would throw a tape-player into her cot, then clamber in after it - and ever since, she's been scaling the walls of genre and tradition! She's rooted in Irish jigs and reels, the sean-nós of Connemara and traditional singing of Maigh Seola, but also traverses baroque, classical, pop and jazz. Her performances have been likened to 'viewing ancient Irish bog oak through a contemporary prism'. Prizewinner of the Riada Gold Medal for Harp, she's been commissioned by the World Harp Congress, had pieces published by Cairde na Cruite, and performed her own compositions throughout Ireland, Europe, North America and the Middle East. Collaborations include legendary free jazz musician and composer Anthony Braxton, Celtic icon Alan Stivell, Grammy-winner Bobby McFerrin, and Emmy-winner Fionnuala Flanagan. An intentional performer, she strives to bring emotional healing and a sense of our shared humanity to her audiences.
She is currently researching improvisation techniques on the neo-Irish harp, in the hope of getting even closer to that magical communion between listener and musician, musician and time, the “shaft of universal joy.”
Contact
- melissandretb@yahoo.ca
- +1-438-393-5112