Up in the Air with Femmes du Feu

In the weeks until the Festival gears up, we will be featuring several GCDF dance artists here on the blog. Please join us each week as we get an intimate, behind-the-scenes glimpse into the artistry, process, and experiences these talented dancers and choreographers from across the country are bringing to this year’s GuelphContemporary Dance Festival. We encourage you to not just read their amazing stories, but to ask questions or engage in conversation about dance in our comments section below.  Get ready to Power Up!

Today, Toronto-based Femmes du Feu co-directors, Holly Treddenick and Sabrina Pringle, interview each other. Femmes du Feu performs BoB at the GCDF in Exhibition Park in Guelph on Thursday May 31, 7pm; Saturday June 2, 12pm; and Sunday June 3, 12pm.

Holly: What kind of safety precautions do you take with aerial work and rigging? Are you ever scared?

Sabrina: When we train, we often have mats under us and use each other to spot. That doesn't mean we don't get our fair share of bumps and bruises though! Learning how to rig safely takes time and experience. Rigging requires extensive knowledge of gear and its capabilities, figuring out where your weakest link is and building in redundancies, and a bit of math. I've been learning for a long long time. Actually, I learned to tie my first bowline at 10 years old, sailing at summer camp. 

I think a bit of fear is healthy, it keeps us safe. If I'm doing something that's, let's say, higher than normal, I just remind myself nothing has really changed, if I'm able to do it every time 10 feet off the ground then I can do it 50 or 100 feet off the ground. Also, always keep breathing. If it's a new move I've never done, then I just make Holly go first.

Sabrina and Holly perform BoB. Photo by Peter Benedetti

Sabrina: What's your favorite apparatus and why?

Holly: It’s really hard to say which apparatus is my favorite. I love the silks for so many reasons. This is where I started my aerial journey, so they always have a feel of home. Silks are also similar to ballet in that they are a great fundamental to all other aerial apparatuses, so I always train with them. I feel very comfortable in the silks and can easily play and improvise.

But my real passion lies in invented apparatuses. There is so much discovering and no pre-existing rules or expectations. Sabrina and I have had a lot of fun dreaming up new apparatuses, altering apparatuses we are already familiar with, and experimenting with different rigging systems.  

Bar none, the apparatus I laugh the most with is bungee!

Holly: Can you tell me about the story for BoB?

Sabrina: BoB is about two women on a sea adventure gone wrong. It's a bit dark but also funny, sometimes very funny. Oh, and you could say it's a bit of a "period piece" because our costumes reflect a time of more... polyester in swimwear and lifejackets that make a person look... small. 

Sabrina: The first time you discovered the costumes for BoB, what were you thinking??

Holly: The bathing suits we wear in BoB I’ve been carrying around in my tickle trunk for more than 10 years. They are treasures from Goodwill By The Pound when it used to be on Jarvis [St. in Toronto]. After class at TDT I used to love going costume hunting there.

The life jackets I found on the side of a lawn on a stroll up the Bruce Peninsula. Obviously I instantly thought “Costumes! I know Sabrina and I need these for sure!” They sat in my basement for a couple years, but I knew the perfect piece would eventually reveal itself!

Holly: How did you learn bungee dance?

Sabrina: In my living room with Holly. 

Sabrina: Can you tell us a story about a rehearsal moment (for Bob)?

Holly: Bungee is such a fun apparatus to work with. Sabrina and I spend our whole rehearsals laughing. This isn’t so much a story as it is a description of the general vibe of our first rehearsal.

We are all rigged up in our harness with the bungee clipped to the back point. We are clipped in just high enough so we’re on our toes, not able to ground our feet, constantly doing a little bouncy tiptoe dance. And we’re stuck to our respective circumferences, suspended from the ceiling. I feel hilarious and a little ridiculous. And then I look to my side at my best friend, and I crack up because she looks like how I feel.

Then we start to improvise. How we would dance together if we were sinking to the ocean floor. Not quite crazy enough? Lets put on some Iron Maiden. More explosive laughter and some really good moves are discovered. “This piece is going to choreograph itself”!

Founded in 2003, Femmes du Feu is co-run by dance artists Holly Treddenick and Sabrina Pringle.  Since its conception, Femmes du Feu has been actively creating and presenting aerial dance works and investigating new ways to combine their dance backgrounds with their aerial skills. This has included not only finding new ways to dance with traditional circus apparatuses like bungee in Impossibility (2007), or silks in Dive (2009), but has more recently branched into invented apparatuses such as the anchor, rope or pole, as in The Plank (2010) or Airship (2011). Femmes du Feu has presented their aerial dance works at various events including At The Wrecking Ball (2007), Hysteria Festival (2009), London/ Toronto/ Winnipeg Fringe Festivals (2009 & 2010), and Rhubarb Festival (2010).
www.femmesdufeu.com

Masculinity, Spirituality, and the Creation of Chorus II

In the weeks until the Festival gears up, we will be featuring several GCDF dance artists here on the blog. Please join us each week as we get an intimate, behind-the-scenes glimpse into the artistry, process, and experiences these talented dancers and choreographers from across the country are bringing to this year’s Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival. We encourage you to not just read their amazing stories, but to ask questions or engage in conversation about dance in our comments section below. Get ready to Power Up!

This is Sasha Kleinplatz, choreographer for Montreal-based company Wants&Needs Danse. Wants&Needs performs with the GCDF at Exhibition Park in Guelph on Thursday May 31, 7pm; Saturday June 2, 12pm; and Sunday June 3, 12pm.

Sasha: Chorus II is a work that is inspired by my childhood of memory of watching my grandfather pray before dinner. I didn't speak or read Hebrew, but I remember feeling a deep sense of meaningfulness in the tone of my grandfather's words, the rise and fall of his voice, and the slight swaying of his body as he spoke. This swaying movement performed during Jewish prayer is called davening, and can be traced back to the Talmud. I have been inspired by this idea of movement as an integral part of prayer; movement that becomes religious in context, and in so being, seeks a connection to some greater power.  

Chorus 11 by Celia Spenard-Ko

I decided to choreograph on male dancers because I wanted to work with people who could embody both my grandfather's gravitas and physical strength—he is built and carries himself like a circus strongman. In this work I was interested in the juxtaposition of an incredibly strong and adept body, which is expressing something deeply personal.    As a choreographer I have always been drawn toward contradictions, particularly in the realm of gender. In my last choreography, I created an all-girl fight club.  In Chorus II I have tried to tap into the vulnerable side of the athletic masculine body. 

As we created Chorus II, the dancers, musician Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, and I discussed the idea of prayer as a way of sending one's energy into the universe as an actual attempt to express fears, desires, and hopes in a way that can become almost transformative for those praying. This idea of trying to physically not just express but manifest one's heart's desires became a main inspiration for the movement vocabulary and quality of the work itself.

I have felt so lucky to work with a group of dancers who have wholeheartedly embraced both the physical and emotional challenges of this choreography. All of the performers have played an integral part in the creation of Chorus II, I am so grateful for their work and dedication, and can't wait to share it with the Guelph dance community!

Sasha In the Trees by Marie-Michele Atkinson

Sasha Kleinplatz is a contemporary dance choreographer living and working in Montreal. As a graduate of the Concordia University Dance Program, she began creating work in 2002.  Since then she has developed and choreographed a total of 15 works involving some 40 interpreters and other artistic collaborators. Along with partner Andrew Tay, Sasha created the Montreal choreographic events Piss in the Pool, Short&Sweet and Involved. She will debut her new full-length choreography, Chorus II, at the Montreal, Arts Interculturels in March 2013.

www.wantsandneeds.ca

Susan Lee from Fall On Your Feet Collective: Magic in the Moment—Evocation in the Park

In the weeks until the Festival gears up, we will be featuring several GCDF dance artists here on the blog. Please join us each week as we get an intimate, behind-the-scenes glimpse into the artistry, process, and experiences these talented dancers and choreographers from across the country are bringing to this year’s Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival. We encourage you to not just read their amazing tales, but to ask questions or engage in conversation about dance in our comments section below. 

This is Susan Lee, choreographer for Fall on Your Feet Collective, which performs with the GCDF at Exhibition Park in Guelph on Thursday May 31, 7pm; Saturday June 2, 12pm; and Sunday June 3, 12pm.

Susan: I’m SO delighted to be presenting my work Evocation- gentle rain falling with Guelph’s Fall on Your Feet Collective at this year’s In the Park Series. Not only will I be creating and dancing with the highly talented artists of FOYF, the opportunity to re-imagine a work originally created for the stage in the natural environment of Exhibition Park is very exciting.

As a dance maker, I love improvised dance. There is something incredibly magical in seeing dance artists create in the moment—there’s a sense of live-ness and spontaneity that is like no other performing or creative experience. As a dance maker I also love structure in a dance—shaping ideas to design a moving experience for an audience. Evocation- gentle rain falling is a structured improvisation. Its form lies in between an open improvisation and a set choreography.  The dancers are directed in terms of quality of movement, direction through space, timing of events, but the actual movements performed by the dancers are created in the moment. This allows the performers to contribute to that delicate moment of creation in a very individual way.  It’s sort of like writing a sonnet—there’s a form to be followed, but within that form there are endless possibilities of expression.

There have been a number of iterations of Evocation- from a workshop setting in Halifax, a performance by students at York University, to a performance by professionals at the Enwave Theatre with live music. Setting this dance in Exhibition Park will be a fresh and invigorating experience. Of course, there are challenges along the way. How does a piece live in a different setting than the one it was originally created for? What site will work? How will it be seen? Nature will be my lighting and set designer—how will this all fit together? I think the theme of the work—a meditation on the eternal oneness of the source of all things—is entirely in keeping with this new outdoor setting.  And the brightly coloured, flowing costumes will look fantastic amongst the verdant green of the park. The music, by Mark Duggan, composed on Indonesian instruments, has both a resonance and a delicacy that will help create a unique and magical performance.

Lastly, I am really happy to be re-connecting with the Guelph dance community and the chance to collaborate with the like-minded artists of the Fall on Your Feet Collective. The sense of support in the Guelph Dance community is tremendous—it’s like being wrapped up in a huge love blanket.

We’ll be starting rehearsals soon…The adventure is about to begin…

Susan Lee is a Toronto-based dance artist with a longstanding interest in interdisciplinary collaboration and improvisation in performance. Susan’s professional career spans over twenty years, performing in numerous works by established Canadian choreographers across Canada, the US, Europe and Asia. She is very pleased to set her structured improvisation Evocation– gentle rain falling on Guelph’s Fall on Your Feet Dance Collective. This collective explores collaborative, improvisational movement ideas and practices and provides improvisational performance opportunities in and around Guelph. Collective members are Janet Johnson, Catrina Von Radecki, Georgia Simms, Kelly Steadman, Lynette Segal and Tanya Williams.

Video credits:

Performers: Yvonne Ng, Sara Coffin, Louis Laberge-Cote, Holly Small, Jessica Runge, Susanne Chui, Jacinte Armstrong, Maxine Heppner, Bee Pallomina

Musicians: Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan, Artistic Director Blair Mckay

Choreographer: Susan Lee

Composer: Mark Duggan

Performed at the Enwave Theatre, Toronto November 2006