Today is the launch of the Vancouver International Tap Dance Festival, which runs September 3rd through 5th. Among the performing and teaching guest artists is the undisputed tap master Savion Glover. Featured in the program, his much anticipated performance of Bare Soundz promises to "unleash a concentrated cavalcade of varied percussive footwork." According to the festival's website: "The setting - three heavily miked, island-like wooden platforms - is admirably unadorned and free of any trace of showbiz glitz. Bearded, dreadlocked and casually dressed, Savion has developed a contemporary, funked-up and post-bebop street style that pays discreet homage to past masters while pushing his chosen form of expression into the future."
Yesterday kicked off the five-day run (September 1st through 5th) of Cirque du Soleil's Alegria in Kamloops, British Columbia. The show then rolls into Victoria on the 8th. Kooza in still on in Vancouver and will open its appearance in Calgary on September 16th. Other Cirque shows on tour in Canada in the coming months include Banana Shpeel, which will hit Toronto on September 14th, Dralion, hitting Windsor and Oshawa in November, and Quidam dropping into Kingston and Montreal in December.
Vancouver-based dance artist Ziyian Kwan recently completed her series of four consecutive "what i am dancing sundays", a grassroots arts protest that has attracted the high-profile talent of several collaborators including James Gnam, Daelik, Anne Cooper, Jay Hirabayashi, Barbara Bourget, Lee Su-Feh, Monica Strehlke, Jennifer Clarke, Peter Bingham, Susan Elliott, Alvin Tolentino, Laura Hicks, Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg, Mariko Kage, Kim Tuson, Caroline Farquhar, Susan Elliott, Nicole Dupuis, Alvin Tolentino, Donald Taruc, Caroline Liffmann, Brian Harding, as well as various photographers, filmmakers, composers, musicians, visual artists and more. This weekend Kwan plans to hold a dance buck protest outside Vancouver International Airport before leaving for Regina where she will perform with Robin Poitras.
For Kwan, this project fused the personal and the political, as she takes aim at raising public awareness around the arts cuts in British Columbia while also raising morale for her fellow artists. During her dancing this past Sunday, she talked with the public and distributed flyers featuring David Diamond's letter to Kevin Krueger, BC's Minister of Tourism, Culture and the Arts. Click read more to see the letter.
According to Kwan's blog: "I began doing this because I was questioning my validity as a professional dancer of 22 years, one who was facing the cyclical demoralization of being underemployed. It’s a terrible equation that does not auger well for culture in BC. [...] I want to draw attention to the fact that artists are not anonymous. Even though we are marginalized in the economic infrastructure of BC, we insist on thriving. Art is an integral part of all that is meaningful in this province, this country, this lifetime."
Tonight is the launch of a new dance television program in Montréal. Voulez-vous danser? on ARTV, hosted by Geneviève Guérard, features various Québec celebrities and introduces them to a new dance style.
Last Sunday, a promotional event in the Montréal Métro brought dance teachers down into four subway stations where the public could learn salsa at St. Laurent, hip-hop at Bonaventure, country at Place des Arts and African dance at Berri-UQÀM. Special thanks to the teachers from NewDance Studio and École de danse latine Caroline Paré, as well as Nathalie Pelletier of École Fais-moi danser and Michèle Turunnu of Studio 303.
With less than a month to the September 22nd world premiere of Sharon Moore's The Great Farini Project, new tantalizing videos have hit the web and social networks to whet the appetite. Along with rehearsal footage sneak peeks, there is also a series of episodes featuring two rival Victorian circus showman played by Toronto dance artists Brendan Wyatt and Brian Solomon: The Great Farini (aka William Hunt from Port Hope, Ontario) and The Great Blondin (aka Jean-François Gravelet from France).
While these two famous tightrope walkers never actually met, they spurred each other on with increasingly astonishing feats, physical risks and theatrical bravado. After Blondin first crossed Niagara Falls on a tightrope in 1859, Farini stepped up to prove himself (the 150th anniversary of his first crossing was August 15th this year). According to Wikipedia, they each repeated their acts with new daring theatrical variations, including being blindfolded, on stilts, carrying someone on his back, pushing a wheelbarrow, turning somersaults, hanging from the rope by his feet, and even "sitting down midway while he cooked and ate an omelet."
Moore's vision of their meeting is filled with this excitement, friction and static energy. According to the show's website, "what follows is a harrowing duet of one-upmanship as Farini and Blondin push each other to the brink in a no-holds barred bid for dominance in the ring of Victorian circus." Equally exciting are the artists on Moore's creative team, including aerial choreographer Sven Johansson, dramaturge Derek Aasland, lighting designer Martin Saintonge and costume designer Jennifer Bunt.
Be sure to check out the November 2007 issue of The Dance Current print magazine for an article about Sharon Moore's work in dance, theatre, film and circus.
This week, August 26 though 29, Toronto is celebrating its last large summer festival, the Toronto International BuskerFest. Now in its 11th season, this talent-packed showcase has attracted hundreds of spectacular street performers from all around the world to dazzle and entertain all in support of Epilepsy Toronto.
Be sure to catch the action in Toronto's St. Lawrence Market Neighbourhood where the festivities will feature (among other things) dance artists, tumblers, acrobats, fire dancers and various circus arts, including the likes of Montreal's Cirque Éloize and Toronto's Hercini Arts.
Toronto's inaugural season of the Dance 2 Danse (D2D) Festival is on. Also on the previously mentioned Diverge / Diverse series, featuring a selection of emerging and established Toronto choreographers and performers, is Lucy Rupert of Blue Ceiling dance. Her program Fitter/Happier presents an excertp from her 2007 work 11 x forgetting, also known as "The Radiohead Ballet."
Originally a trio created with dancers Jennifer Bolt and Barbara Pallomina (when Rupert's arm was broken), it has since been performed in solo and duet excerpts as well. One such solo is in this video performed by Pallomina. According to the company's website, the work explores "trauma and loss in amnesiacs and the incoherency of our mundanely damaged brains to the music of Radiohead." Be sure to catch the whole series running at the Winchester Street Theatre, August 19th, 21st and 22nd.
Recently highlighted on Global TV, the Good Women Dance Collective offers this sneak peek at their show This is not a play, which features three contemporary dance works. Dancers Ainsley Hillyard, Alison Towne and Alida Nyquist-Schultz were trailblazers last year, presenting the first dance program at The Edmonton Fringe Theatre Festival. Back again this year, they are happy to see that Edmonton's festival is attracting more dance participants. Their show continues to run this week, August 14th through 22nd.
Ah, the grocery store, so full of potential. Aside from tasty things, there are of course bright lights, meandering pathways, colourful backdrops, curious props, rows of catwalks and plenty of unsuspecting people. Phil Villeneuve (a writer, DJ, musician and chronic dancer from Toronto) and Tynomi Banks recently descended upon No Frills at the Dufferin Mall.
Villeneuve's YouTube channel currently features a few of his other public antics including a trip to the Eaton Centre, some clips on his Much Music VJ audition submission, and his dance tributes to "Single Ladies" and "Bad Romance". When asked about what he was up to, he told The Dance Current: "One day I decided to [dance] in public and record it for family and friends for xmas one year. It was such a big hit, I decided to do it again and again! When I hear a song that I LOVE and can't stop moving to, I grab my little film crew and we dance. It's really that simple. The only reason we do it is to make people smile and have a good time."
This recently released video features clips from Dancetheatre David Earle's modern dance program Odyssey, which also included Serious Games and the company's signature piece Miserere. The dancers include Suzette Sherman, Danielle Baskerville, Michael English, Evadne Kelly, Graham McKelvie, Michael Sean Marye, Janet Johnson, Kelly Stedman, Georgia Simms, Duncan Parviainen, Anh Nguyen and Nicole Rose Bond.
The choreography of Odyssey, the most recent creation, was first workshopped at the Open Ears Festival in Kitchener before its world premiere in Banff in November 2009. This video footage is from the dress rehearsal for the April 2010 performance in Guelph. This is the story according to the company's website: "Homer's The Odyssey is a tale of separation and reunion. Odysseus, on his voyage homeward after the Trojan war, encounters many dangers but is protected by Athena, the goddess of wisdom. He has been away for 20 years, and no one knows if he is among the dead, or living still. His wife Penelope is beset by suitors and agrees to marry when her weaving is done - but every night she undoes what has been done that day. Athena sends Telemachus, their son, in search of his father. Odysseus returns, is reunited with Penelope and, with Telemachus, takes his revenge."
For more information about David Earle, check out the September 2006 issue of The Dance Current print magazine, which features a book about this celebrated artist.
