Marie France Forcier

Biography

Forcier, (she/her, b. Montréal, 1982) is a choreographer, performer, writer, and pedagogue of western contemporary dance forms. Through studio work, public performance and community initiative, she researches at the intersection of somatic practices, trauma studies and choreography. An Associate Professor of Dance and the Dance Division Lead at the University of Calgary’s School of Creative and Performing Arts, she received her conservatory training from the School of Toronto Dance Theatre (2005), her Master of Fine Arts in Choreography from York University (Toronto, 2014), and is currently pursuing a PhD in Creative Practice at Liverpool John Moores University as a SSHRC doctoral fellow through the Transart Institute (New York/Berlin).

Her body of creative work has been presented on platforms spanning little-known urban sites to dance-dedicated proscenium spaces across North America, Europe and Asia. In collaborative artistic capacities, she has performed live and on film in disciplines ranging from family theatricals to contemporary dance, to performance art to aerial circus, touring extensively on four continents. Her trade articles can be found at The Dance Current, and her academic writing, in the books Literature and Psychology: Writing, Trauma and the Self (2019), Topography of Trauma: Fissures, Disruptions and Transfigurations (2019) and What Happened? Re-presenting Traumas, Uncovering Recoveries (2019), and the journal Dance Chronicles (Taylor and Francis/ Routledge).

She was an Artistic Director at Hub 14 (Toronto, 2013-2015), a Board Director at Dancers Studio West for three seasons (Calgary, 2018-21/ Chair: 20-21), and continues to serve on several local, national and international juries and committees.

Strongly tied to Eastern Canada, she currently lives with her two young sons and works within the traditional territories of the people of the Treaty 7 and the Métis Nation of Alberta, Region III.