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In partnership with
The VIII Games in Cote d’Ivoire
Considered by many as the "cultural crossroads of West Africa," this year's Games will take place from July 21 to 30, 2017 in the Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.
Aside from celebrating the most talented athletes and artists across the Francophonie, this year's Games, held under the theme: Solidarity, Diversity and Excellence, also aim to strengthen national unity and development in Cote d’Ivoire.
Team Canada: Culture Component Finalists
Represented in twelve cultural competitions, these are the Team Canada finalists competing in the cultural components of the Games:
Benoît Davidson
Stories and Storytellers
Saint-Rémi-d'Amherst, QC
Collectif Pi
Street Arts: Giant Puppets
Montréal, QC
Silver
Freestyle Soccer Inc.
Street Arts: Freestyle Ball
Toronto, ON
Freya Björg Olafson
Creative Dance
Winnipeg, MB
Gabriel Marcoux-Chabot
Literature
Saint-Nérée-de-Bellechasse, QC
Guillaume Boudrias-Plouffe
Sculpture
Longueuil, QC
Jeux Wasa
Sustainable Creation
Montréal, QC
Gold
Karine Fréchette
Painting
Montréal, QC
Les Poules à Colin
Song
Montréal, QC
Michelle Bui
Photograhy
Montréal, QC
Mix Mix Dance
Street Arts: Hip Hop
Toronto, ON
Sabrina Ratté
Digital Creation
Montréal, QC
Gold
Benoît Davidson
Stories and Storytellers
Saint-Rémi-d'Amherst, Québec
Originally from Saint-Rémi-d’Amherst, Benoît Davidson is a great storyteller. Also a trainer, musician, and founder of the Contes Maltés festival, he brings Québécois folklore to each of his endeavours: from music, dance and traditional techniques to storytelling and the joual French dialect. Since 2011, this word buff has been weaving his roots across Quebec, Canada, France, Switzerland and Belgium.
Collectif Pi
Street Arts - Giant Puppets
Montréal, Québec
The intersection of their common interests, various professional projects and ongoing training led them to working together. Four friends and colleagues passionate about everything encompassing street theatre: puppeteers, performance and visual theatre. Together, we form Collectif PI to present giant puppet shows inspired by the novel Life of Pi.
Freestyle Soccer Inc.
Street Arts - Freestyle Ball
Toronto, Ontario
Team SWRL is based in Toronto, Canada. Consisting of Four World Class Freestyle Soccer Artists, Jaime Bruno, James Murphy, Dennis Thompson, Jose Avalos and Steve Elias (choreographer). A uniquely blended group of talented Canadian athletes with over a decade of experience under their belt. This awe-inspiring group travels the globe entertaining all walks of life. Focused on motivating youth to participate in sport and create a healthy lifestyle.
Freya Björg Olafson
Creative Dance
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Freya Björg Olafson is an intermedia artist who works with video, audio, painting and performance. She has exhibited and performed extensively, in venues from Greece to Ecuador, and engages frequently through residencies, including EMPAC - Experimental Media & Performing Arts (New York) and CounterPulse (San Francisco). Freya holds a MFA in New Media from the Transart Institute / Donau Universitat (Austria), a BA Honors in dance from Winnipeg’s School of Contemporary Dancers / University of Winnipeg alongside her six years of training in the Professional Program of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and three summers with Springboard Danse Montréal. At Les Jeux De La Francophonie Freya will be presenting her project CPA [Consistent Partial Attention] with dancers Philippe Larouche and Kalliane Brémault, and technician James Jansen.
Gabriel Marcoux-Chabot
Literature
Saint-Nérée-de-Bellechasse, Québec
Polygraph writer Gabriel Marcoux-Chabot has produces a body of work that includes short stories, novels, poetry, theatre, essays and pastiche. His most recent novel, Tas-d’roches (Druide, 2015) was enthusiastically received by critics, who welcomed the author’s boldness and his exceptional ability to play with languages and levels of language.
Guillaume Boudrias-Plouffe
Sculpture
Longueuil, Québec
Since completing his master’s degree in visual arts at the University of Ottawa in 2012, he has presented ten exhibits and individual or paired projects and also undertook a fellowship at the Arts Longueuil Council, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts (CCA). He is also an award recipient of the 2013 Joseph S. Stauffer Award from the CCA. This year, he has started his own public art practice with his first project integrating art into architecture. He has just returned from a cross-border residency at Maisons Daura in France through a partnership between the Maison des arts Georges Pompidou and the "3e impérial, centre d’essai en art actuel".
Jeux Wasa
Sustainable Creation
Montréal, Québec
Wasa, creator of a sustainable world, is a non-profit organization that proposes gaming and mobile activities in relation to sustainable development. Specifically, Wasa is a laboratory of “jack-of-all-trades” educational games that offers alternatives to conventional lifestyle vie by integrating sustainable and responsible practices. This mobile laboratory of games is aimed at children and adults alike.
Karine Fréchette
Painting
Montréal, Québec
She completed her Bachelor’s degree in Visual and Media Arts at the Université du Québec à Montréal. She had solo exhibitions, thesis show, MFA Gallery, Concordia University, Dissimulations, Galerie B-312, Montréal, and Sous la Voûte d’une Géode, Espace Odyssée, Maison de la Culture de Gatineau. Her practice is meant to engage viewers through an optical and physical experience of the pictorial object. The motifs repeat themselves generating various spatial illusions. A surface modulation simultaneously goes from expansion to retraction, from disengagement to engagement. She seeks not only to reproduce movement or simulate various rhythms, but also to activate the space around the painting.
Les poules à Collin
Song
Montréal, Québec
The group, Les Poules à Colin, is composed of five young emerging musicians specializing in traditional music: Béatrix Méthé, Sarah Marchand, Éléonore Pitre, Marie and Colin Savoie-Levac. All members of this group are children of Lanaudière musiciens very active in traditional music. Therefore, they have known each other since they were young. In 2015, they were awarded best traditional album of the year at the ADISQ Gala Awards Ceremony.
Michelle Bui
Photography
Montréal, Québec
The work of Michelle Bui began with the collection of materials sold in bulk, mass consumption goods and randomly collected things. They are then cut up, stretched, sewn, folded, tied up, compressed, glued or sculpted in shop prior to being photographed. The printed images are also so manipulated. In reference to still life and pack shots of the advertising industry, Bui uses potential inseparable from photography: reflect goods. The identity of the transformed objects is more than just displayed, it plays a role of advertisement and seduction. Her works focus on blurring the still image through varying tension between objects and materials. Originally from Montréal, Bui holds a degree in Fine Arts from Concordia Universiy and is currently pursuing a master’s in visual and media arts at the Université du Québec à Montréal.
Mix Mix Dance Collective
Street Arts - Hip Hop
Toronto, Ontario
Mix Mix Dance Collective is outrageous, fierce and thoughtful in their investigation of diversity in movement, music and art practice. The artists of Mix Mix Dance Collective have been extensively training, performing, teaching and competing in various street dance forms for over 10 years. Being women of multiethnic backgrounds, their work explores issues that affect women in modern day culture. Their work is loud, colorful, groovy, accessible yet poignant.
Sabrina Ratté
Digital Creation
Montréal, Québec
Sabrina Ratté and Andrea Jane Cornell have been working on the Montreal and international art scene for several years. Their respective approaches share several similarities and common influences, which led them to work together on various projects. They collaborated for the first time in 2011, in the group Le Fruit Vert, a trio including musician Marie Douce St-Jacques. Together, they have performed at festivals such as Mutek, Phénoména and Suoni Per il Popolo. In 2017, they are joining forces again. This time in the form of an audio-visual duo exploring the electronic, analog and digital nature of sound and image in the context of immersive environments.
Created in 1987, and held every four years since, the Games of La Francophonie bring together 3,000 young (18-35) athletes and artists from member and observer states and governments of La Francophonie. They are the only major games that feature both sports and cultural competitions.
The Comité internationale des Jeux de la Francophonie, reporting to the International Organisation of La Francophonie is responsible for organizing the Games in co-operation with the host country’s national organizing committee.
In Canada, the Department of Canadian Heritage (on behalf of the Government of Canada) organizes and coordinates all activities related to the participation and coaching of athletes and artists who represent Team Canada. The Canada Council, for our part, organizes a national cultural competition.
Artists are pre-selected through a national cultural competition organized by the Canada Council for the Arts, after which point a jury appointed by the Comité international des Jeux de la Francophonie selects the final candidates.
National Pre-selection Peer Assessors
- Marie-Célie Agnant, Montréal (QC)
- Khosro Berahmandi, Montréal (QC)
- Henda Ben Salah, Montréal (QC)
- Patrick Bourbonnais, Orléans (ON)
- Gracia Couturier, Moncton (NB)
- Stéphane Guertin, Ottawa (ON)
- Mathieu Léger, Moncton (NB)
- Deborah Margo, Ottawa (ON)
- Bernard Sauvé, Victoria (BC)
Canada has participated in every edition of the Games of La Francophonie since the very first, held in 1989, in Morocco.
Discover how many medals we've taken home over the years: Past Games of La Francophonie
For more information
Vanessa Novak
Senior Administrative Assistant
E-mail: Vanessa.Novack@canadacouncil.ca
613-566-4414, ext. 4102
Toll free: 1-800-263-5588, ext. 4102
Follow Team Canada
Encourage Team Canada finalists on their road to gold using the hashtags #JeuxFranco #Abidjan2017 #TeamCanada and follow the Games on:
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
Participate in the 2021 Games
Interested in representing Canada when the Games come to New Brunswick, Canada in 2021? Watch for the call for nominations.
Testimonials from previous Games participants
Connections, experience, love of the culture and our country
Supernaturalz arrived in the Nice airport surrounded by people in red-and-white maple-leafed athletic gear.
Participation, a medal and a confession: I’m coming back!
I took part in the last edition of the Jeux de la Francophonie, in 2013, and it turned out to be an absolutely unique experience in my life as an artist.
The opening ceremony: a well-kept secret… a chance to discover each other
This year, the Council, in association with Canadian Heritage, is shining more light on young artists who are breaking onto the international scene via the Francophone Games.