Guelph Dance staff tell us about their top picks for the 2019 Guelph Dance Festival

General Manager, Adriana Rosselli Londoño, and Outreach & Development Manager, Leslie Fisher, tell us what they are most excited about at the 2019 Guelph Dance Festival.

I am looking forward to seeing everything at the festival. However, I would like to tell our readers about two things: the On the Stage presentation of EUNOIA by Fujiwara Dance Inventions and the Late Night series at the Studio. Bringing a full-length work to the Stage on Saturday night is super exciting. At the festival we are often presenting short pieces or excerpts from longer works, so having a full-length performance is a rare privilege and something we are looking to continue doing more often. Works like EUNOIA truly need to be seen in their entirety, creating a completely different experience for the audience. EUNOIA will be a treat with its captivating choreography, and beautiful imagery, a true multi-disciplinary work!

This year we have a new series called Late Night, in which we invite audiences for an intimate performance and then a reception where they will have the opportunity to connect with the Festival artists at the Studio on Friday night. I am looking forward to seeing how this new series will be received by our festival audiences and how it will evolve into the future. For its first iteration, Late Night will present Toronto’s Wild Rabbit Dance Projects with the piece There She Was. Please be advised this piece contains nudity, so you may want to leave the little ones at home!

And Griffin (pictured with me) loves the Park so we will definitely be there every day!

Adriana Rosselli Londoño

I am really looking forward to the revamped Youth Moves series!

Lacey Smith from Dasein Dance has been a long time contributor to the Youth Moves series. This year she will be presenting The Four Seasons Project which brings together 80 youth ages 11-20 in a re-imagining of Vivaldi’s masterpiece. Young dancers and one youth string ensemble from four cities will come together in a multi-disciplinary production that brings a youthful twist to the celebrated Four Seasons. Collectively with the youth, they have developed a movement score inspired solely by the rich imagery Vivaldi brings to life through these timeless concertos. Woven together are the results of this collaboration that unite music, movement and text in a beautiful celebration of nature, youth and the transcendent music of Antonio Vivaldi.

We are so excited to present a full-length work for youth this year and Lacey has also been able to work with dance schools who have been presenters in this series in other years. This is an exciting transformation of the Youth Moves series and I cannot wait to see the full work.

Lacey was even offered an opportunity to participate in the Fall for Dance North Open studio series at Union Station in Toronto.  https://www.ffdnorth.com/union You can see a little clip of the work in progress here  https://bit.ly/2KZfIfv

Additionally, because there will be so many youth from out of town participating in this series this year we have even developed a Youth Pass. This will encourage young    dancers to participate in many facets of the festival.

The $35 Youth Pass Includes:

(For youth under 18, only available by phone or in person at the River Run Centre)
1 Ticket to In the Studio on Saturday June 1st at 5:00pm
1 Ticket to On the Stage on Saturday, June 1st at 8:00 pm
1 Workshop Registration of your choosing
Admission to Roundtable Discussion, Artist Reception and In the Park
***Additional workshops can be purchased at $10 each***

Leslie Fisher