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
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Dance outside the box here!