Embrace Adventure with Human Playground: The Road Trip of Our Lives

In the weeks leading up to Guelph Dance Festival 2014, some of the Festival artists will share their vision with us here on the blog. These intimate, behind-the-scenes looks will bring us closer to the artistry, process, and experience of dance. We encourage you to not just read these amazing stories, but to ask questions and engage in conversation about dance in our comments section below. Embrace adventure with us in 2014!

The Auto-Fiction team at Human Playground tells us their story here. Human Playground performs Auto-Fiction at In the Park on Thursday May 29 at 7pm, Saturday May 31 at noon, and Sunday June 1 at noon, in Exhibition Park. Suggested donation $15, or pay-what-you-can. Human Playground is also featured in this year's Festival poster and banner.

Human Playground: This project has been such an exciting journey - talk about an Auto-Fiction novel and a roller coaster of emotions! Using the automobile as a dance partner, a stage, and a travelling machine brings on new challenges every season. With over 50 shows and 10 used cars under our belts, and countless new friendships made along the way, we're ready to make 2014 our biggest road trip ever! First stops: Flux London Dance Festival and Guelph Dance Festival, here we come!

Human Playground digs their way out of winter to join us in Guelph this spring!

Human Playground: Squatting in parking lots, warehouses, or alleys...this is how we do it. Having to deal with the extreme weather of Montreal and the limited city access of a car, the production of this show always seems to be a tour de force, as most adventures are! We learn to get creative, in many ways, and surround ourselves with an extraordinary team, blessed by the support of a few visionary partners.

Human Playground uses whatever space they can find to rehearse.

Human Playground: Most people only see the show, but the show is only a very small part of the journey. We are happy to share with you some behind-the-scenes photos that we've never shown before. When we come to visit you in Guelph, we will bring you to the fabulous destinations that the show has travelled to, but first we will show you how it's done closer to home, and what getting ready to embrace adventure means to us!

Human Playground gets ready to embrace adventure in Guelph!

The car as a dance partner, stage, travelling machine, and place of rest and humour!

Cheers from the Auto-Fiction team! Here's to amazing and crazy projects!

Montreal-based dancer and choreographer Milan Gervais conceives and performs choreographic proposals for public spaces: on sidewalks (Side walk dancing, 2008), in parking lots (Auto-Fiction, 2009), in transit paths (Trait d’union, 2011), and around crosswalks (Intersection, 2012). Her work has been presented at many festivals in Canada and Europe.

She has co-directed Human Playground with Louliko Shibao since 2011. A creative platform and dance company, Human Playground develops new ways of looking at live art forms as powerful creative communication tools. Human Playground creates human-scale communication devices offering performative, interactive, and participatory experiences. human-playground.com