Frédérique Cournoyer Lessard is an interdisciplinary artist working through circus and film. I first saw their work at the Montréal Complètement Cirque Festival (2022) at La Chapelle, an intimate theater just north of Mount Royal Park. Their solo show, Scuse– while presented as a work in progress –  was the most thoughtful and impactful piece I saw at the festival. Lessard has been top on my list for this series:“When I started the process of Scuse, I was really trying – maybe naively – to answer ‘What is it to be a woman [today]? Am I a woman? What is a woman?’ How wide, and abstract, and complex is this question!” While Lessard was crafting Scuse, they had also enrolled in a university gender studies program. “Very quickly I realized this question was impossible to answer. Everyone is different. There is no answer.” Lessard shifted their inquiry to, “What is the perception of femininity that society instills in us? And how does this perception, and the behaviors that come with that perception, encourage me to fall into a pattern or a trap of being sexually abused? What are the very simple things – actions, behaviors, words – that create the binary without us even noticing?” Based on personal experiences, Lessard’s work puts the gender binary and sexual violance side by side, and asks, “If we don’t have such a big gap between genders would we have as much sexual violence?” Lessard admitted, “I don’t have a specific answer,” but an answer is not what they are seeking through their art.