Exercising Joy – Julia B. Laperrière

As part of the residency programme Body Time Space, choreographer and dancer Julia B. Laperrière spent several weeks in the summer of 2025 working in our studios together with associated artists. At the conclusion of her residency, the artist presented the current state of her work on September 6, 2025, during an Open Studio event at Radialsystem.

Julia B. Laperrière's past productions focused on the topic of ‘dangerous women’ and put forth resistance through protesting, fighting, self-defence and pleasure activism. In the context of the current precariousness of the dance profession, exacerbated by geopolitical conflicts and increasing mental health crisis amongst peers, she asks: what if joy was actually the most dangerous thing, the utmost form of resistance? 

Inspired by Louise Dupré’s Exercices de joie, a poetry book that puts forth joy not as an individual feeling but as a collective responsibility, Julia B. Laperrière aimed to use the residency to investigate how joy can be created in the body, by the body, and with other bodies: as a chance to investigate joy as a technique of resistance and resilience while finding sustainable, collective ways to  keep supporting one another.