"Often Moyes is deliciously realistic, rendering Florence's dialogue like a charade, but she also has the gift of giving physical emphasis to certain words or phrases that makes one gasp with delight." 

- THE GLOBE AND MAIL

DOCU-DANCES
Louise Moyes performs docu-dances: staged, bilingual, one-woman shows she researches, choreographs, and performs, working with the rhythm of voices, language and accents like a musical ‘score’. Louise develops quirky vignettes, from interviews with people across Newfoundland and Quebec, as well as New York and East London.
Florence
Research, choreography and performance: Louise Moyes
Collaborator: Florence Leprieur, Kippens, Newfoundland
Composers: Lori Clarke and Romano Di Nillo (Florence's grandson)

Funding thanks to the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Show Description:
Florence recreates the life of lively and heartbreakingly funny storyteller, musician and dancer Florence Leprieur, aged 93, from Black Duck Brook (l'Anse à Canard), Newfoundland. Through video, dance, and Florence's stories in both French and English we also see the Port-au-Port peninsula, on the west coast of the province. It is a place that is not well known by Newfoundlanders, let alone Canadians and beyond.

Florence is an incredible teller of stories of her own life. Her tales of raising eleven children, practically on her own, in the isolated L’Anse à Canard are chilling and beautiful.

She is also a musician. Florence sings 'Chin' music - she sings the tunes of the jigs and reels. This was a fully respected musical form, like playing a fiddle. Florence was world-renowned fiddler Emile Benoit's girlfriend when they were teenagers, and sang chin music with him for many years. She was so good some people preferred her to the instrumental musicians! She'd sing for dances and weddings until she lost her voice for 2 weeks at a time. People would stop her on the road and they'd say 'Come on now, sing us a jig!" And she would. And they would dance right there on the road.
Reviews
Taking in Strangers
A bilingual one-woman show bringing together people Moyes interviewed throughout rural Newfoundland and Quebec. Oral histories told through dance, physical theatre, video and projected images. Taking in Strangers reveals surprising links between Quebec and Newfoundland and juxtaposes their unique senses of humour and place. Moyes plays 20 different people in their own words and accents, with their own gestures.

Performed to date in St. John’s, Trois Rivières, Vancouver and Brazil and invited to New York’s Joyce Soho. Funding by the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts
Reviews
Thinking About the 10-Year Anniversary of the Cod Moratorium
Collaboration with world-reknowned radio documentarian Chris Brookes; a sound piece on the cod moratorium’s 10th anniversary. Moyes choreographs to the piece as score. Thinking was supported by the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council (NLAC) and a Canada Council for the Arts travel grant. Performed St. John’s Festival of New Dance, Cape St. Mary’s, and Studio 303, Montreal.
 In A New York Second
Stories collected on subways and in streets of New York, seen through the eyes of a Canadian. Dance to live guitar improvisation by Wallace Hammond, other music by UAKTI (Brazil). Presented at the Newfoundland Festival of New Dance. Canada Council supported.
"I always look forward to Louise Moyes...packs a punch."
- The Evening Telegram
 Long Distant Voices
A danced story based on a true and bittersweet Newfoundland love tale. Music by Figgy Duff. Performed at fFIDA, Toronto, Studio 303, Montreal, Sound Symposium, St. John's.
"I marvel at how (Moyes) has created a form which is entertaining, artfully put together, and visually pleasing."
- The Telegram
Interrupted Cycles
Modern-day characters and Jacques Cartier meet in a story-telling dancing blend to paint a full, funny and poignant picture of that place which 'ought not to have existed.' Mixes bilingual text taken from public and private reactions to changing life in Newfoundland with traditional Newfoundland dance. Rhonda Pelley, Jody Richardson, Figgy Duff, Potato Bug, Emile Benoit, Lori Clarke and Catherine McCausland collaborators. Performed Montreal Fringe, Studio 303, Sound Symposium, Eastern Edge Gallery, Newfoundland Festival of New Dance, Dances for a Small Stage (T.O). Canada Council funded. Toured Newfoundland, 6 German University Canadian Studies Departments, Damanhur Artist's colony, Turin, Italy, and Iceland.
Reviews
My Secret Pig
A Newfoundlander, a Quebecoise and a Cockney meet on Duckworth Street in St. John's in this extraordinary story of the ordinary event of walking the dog. Text and choreography by Louise Moyes. Music by Twangin' Dwayne Eddy and UAKTI. Performed Vancouver's Dancing on the Edge, Studio 303, Centaur Theatre Cabaret, and Tangente Montreal, Nfld Festival of New Dance and fFIDA, Toronto.
Reviews