GCDF 2012!

GCDF 2012 was everything we’d hoped it would be—and more: it moved us, it amazed us, it surprised us. It was inventive, audacious, and spiritual. We came together by the hundreds to witness artistry in many shapes and forms as it unfolded on stage, in the studio, and in the park.

On the Stage B. LINK Dance. Photo by Jamie MacDonald

Janet Johnson and Catrina von Radecki, GCDF founders and co-artistic directors, share their thoughts about this year’s festival:

Janet: This year, almost more than ever, I felt the deep sense of this brilliant Guelph community, and their urge for meaningful, joyful, profound moments of art and humanity to celebrate. I felt very honoured to be one to help propel this art event forward, and for this event to be not only accepted but craved by some. I felt the immense satisfaction of the visiting artists to be embraced so warmly, to have their work dug into so voraciously. Personally, I loved sitting in the studio, theatre, and park and receiving these gifts of art. I felt myself buzzing, rejoicing, wanting to move!

In the Park. Fall on Your Feet Collective. Photo by Jamie MacDonald

In the Park. Zata Omm. Photo by Jamie MacDonald.

Catrina: We are incredibly happy with how everything went this weekend! The artists were so diverse, so highly skilled, and it was amazing to see them all interacting, laughing and enjoying there time in Guelph. From seeing young choreographers crying at the response they received from the audience, to reading numerous surveys where people responded that they loved everything, that they were touched, moved, and inspired. That they were stirred by the wealth of talent, the beautiful bodies moving in space, the honesty, the pure raw unadulterated dance, and the humour. Thank you to all the artists for bringing your work to Guelph, to all the patrons who let themselves be powered up and swept away, and to our incredible staff and huge body of volunteers who ensure we continue to offer a well-organized and celebrated event. Thank you to all our supporters, funders, foundations, donors and sponsors who help to ensure that all of Guelph can have access to this incredible level of dance talent from across the country. We hope to see you next year!!!

On the Stage A. Kaeja d'Dance. Photo by Jamie MacDonald.

On the Stage B. Kinesis Dance somatheatro. Photo by Jamie MacDonald.

Youth Moves. Guelph Youth Dance Company. Photo by Jamie MacDonald.

And the following is a short video of highlights from GCDF 2012 by Michele Ayoub, director of the upcoming GCDF documentary.

 

Festival '12 from Guelph Dance on Vimeo.

A Video-Blog from Pollux Dance

In the weeks before the Festival, we’ve been featuring several GCDF dance artists here on the blog. These amazing pieces give us 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 ContemporaryDance 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!

Leslie-Ann Glen, choreographer and artistic director of Toronto’s Pollux Dance, decided to video-blog her piece for us in this fun and beautiful short film. Her work, Not Quite There, presents tomorrow—Friday, June 1—at our In the Streets series in Market Square, 12pm.

 Video by Leslie-Ann Glen. Music by Jamieson m. Eakin.

Leslie-Ann Glen founded Pollux Dance in 2010. Glen pulls inspiration from human hearts, depicting emotional concepts and experiences that would otherwise translate poorly through language, and communicating them through physical dance. Glen selects technically proficient dancers and challenges them with conveying their more human attributes, letting the lines between dancer and pedestrian blur so that the magic of the art and the reality of the world can meet somewhere in the middle.

http://polluxdance.com/

Remounting and Recasting: a vision reimagined

In the weeks before the Festival, we’ve been featuring several GCDF dance artists here on the blog. These amazing pieces give us 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 http://www.guelphcontemporarydancefestival.com/festival.php. 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!

Yvonne Ng, artistic director of Toronto’s tiger princess dance projects tells us what influenced her when developing and then remounting Cypress, which presents at our On the Stage, Stage B on Saturday, June 2, at 8pm.

Yvonne: The choreographic foundation of Cypress probably began in studio about fifteen years ago.  I was choreographing a solo work with Susan Lee and, once I had built the bare bones of it on Susan (and I promise there was no evil twinkle in my eye, no matter what she says), I asked her to re-run the solo but switch the axis from vertical (standing up) to horizontal.  That piece was eventually named Blue Jade and, with the addition of a 12-foot long dress designed and constructed by Catherine Thompson and sound by Ted Onyszczak, we had some success with it, performing it a couple of times in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.  

Cypress remounted. Photo by Brianna Lombardo.

That got me thinking about constriction and how it can be used as a tool to progress a choreographic phrase from one state into another.  For some reason I was also reading about the current therapeutic treatment for stroke victims suffering from partial paralysis, and that is to constrain their fully functioning arm so that the brain rewires itself to recover functional use of the paralyzed arm.

So in creating Cypress in 2002, I worked with a few dancers—Susan Lee, Justine Chambers, Alison Cummings and Karen Bennedsen. To further experiment, I used two techniques: flipping the axis and constricting their movements.  What I ended up with (also because of the contribution of these dancers) was a subtle work of choreography that is actually much harder to perform than the audience is ever aware of.  Usually only performers understand that moving fast is easy and moving slowly requires precise muscle control and stamina.  

For the presentation in 2002, I invited Juliet Palmer to compose a score and she developed a haunting duet for clarinet and double bass performed by Peter Pavlovsky and Robert Stevenson.  The worked premiered with Susan Lee, Justine Chamber and Susanne Chui performing the work exquisitely.  Following the premiere, Paula Citron, Dance Critic for the Globe and Mail planted a seed—what would the work be like if it was interpreted by three men instead of three women? 

Cypress remounted. Photo by Brianna Lombardo.

In hindsight, I worked with women because I started with Susan on the earlier piece Blue Jade and grew the cast from there. I never had a particular intention regarding gender or body type. However, with Paula's suggestion I started to think...

I had always wanted to take up Paula's idea of recasting the work, but raising money for a remount for anything other than a super-successful piece is really really difficult.  Then one presenter showed interested in it in Montreal, even though it’s an “old” work, and from there I received other invitations in Guelph and Toronto, and with those we were up and running.

The process of re-setting the choreography on these three remarkable men—Louis Laberge-Côté, Brendan Wyatt and Hiroshi Miyamoto—was a truly fantastic journey for which I am grateful. Not just through the memory lane experience, but also through being able to revisit ideas and vocabulary after so many years. It has been all at once fun, strange, embarrassing, enlightening and fulfilling.  

Cypress remounted. Photo by Brianna Lombardo.

The work has changed, of course, due to the differences in the physicality of the men versus the women. The fact that they are men influences their interpretation of the movement vocabulary and concepts.  Thank you, Paula. 

One of the decisions that I had to make was for the costumes.  In the end, for the men, I went with simple pants and shirts in neutral tones to reinforce the initial premise of the work: the longevity of friendship. 

Yvonne Ng founded tiger princess dance projects (tpdp) in 1995. tpdp creates and preserves dance works with a unique Canadian perspective reflecting Yvonne’s personal and artistic vision, which involves experimentation and collaboration with a spectrum of artistic disciplines. Since 1995, tpdp has commissioned, produced and presented thirty-three works. These works have been shown across Canada, in Ireland, Germany, Australia and Singapore, receiving critical and commercial acclaim. Four of the works have garnered eight Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations for performance and choreography.

Street Dance Culture meets Contemporary

In the weeks before the Festival, we’ve been featuring several GCDF dance artists here on the blog. Our last three posts go up today, tomorrow, and on opening day—Thursday! These amazing pieces give us 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 ContemporaryDance 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!

Ofilio Portillo, co-artistic director of Toronto’s Gadfly dance company and co-choreographer of Klorofyl, speaks to us today about what to expect when Gadfly presents at our On the Stage, Stage A & Gala on Friday, June 1, at 8pm.

Ofilio: How does street dance fit in a contemporary festival? Why only a 25-minute version of the full show? Why would Gadfly dance company travel to a festival in Guelph rather than perform in a bigger city like Toronto? You always come across questions and situations that take you out of your comfort zone. Although you're never 100% certain of the outcome, one thing is sure if you avoid them: there's no fun.

Klorofyl by Gadfly. Photo by Erica S. Shea

Coming June 1st you will see the GCDF Remix version of a thrilling, engaging and non-stop mural in motion: Klorofyl. But, if you expect someone spinning on his head, teenagers wearing baggy pants and music by Drake, Jay z or Beyonce, you will be happily disappointed. For a lack of better terms you may call what we do urban contemporary dance. This is where you'll experience Street Dance culture combined with Contemporary concepts. If you don't mind seeing rules and stereotypes broken we may get along. If you take pleasure in things that stimulate your imagination and your brain cells then we'll pass through all of our differences and not even care what label this show fits into, whether contemporary, street, urban, modern, hiphop etc...

The show is based on an obvious enigmatic premise: Thrive or Survive. The challenge that touring this show has set for Gadfly is not easy; you'll see a shorter version, adapted to a smaller stage and with fewer dancers. That's what's fascinating. If we can get you, for a moment, to think about what it is that fuels each of you through your daily mischiefs and adventures then we did ok. Perhaps we might even get you to rethink where our universal denominator lies as humans. You and I only live once, only have one shot at this game called life. Yet, most let the game play them, few decide to play it, and too many wake up too late to realize it.

Klorofyl by Gadfly. Photo by Erica S. Shea

It is particularly exciting for us to come back to the Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival. The thrill and the good vibes you gave us last year left us no choice but to come back and share with you more of what we have to give and actually get more intimate. This year's theme for GCDF "masculine aesthetic" is a particular fit for Gadfly. The show disregards any gender compromise and makes 4 women pour their hearts out on stage as hard as their 2 masculine accomplices. All in the name of passion.

Ofilio “Sinbadinho” Portillo is the artistic director of Gadfly dance company. The name stands for that person that keeps on asking annoying questions in order to challenge the status quo. 

Gadfly is also hosting a Public Workshop on House Dance on Saturday, June 2 from 9:30-10:45am at Dancetheatre David Earle, 42 Quebec Street. All levels welcome!

http://gadfly.ca/

Twitter: @Sinbadinho

To the Power of Dance

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!

Vancouver-based Kinesis Dance somatheatro company manager, Jason Karman, speaks to us today about working with award-winning artistic director and choreographer Paras Terezakis. Paras is the choreographer of BOX⁴, which presents at our On the Stage, Stage B series on Saturday, June 2, at 8pm.

Jason: After watching Paras Terezakis’ Perverse Accumulation this spring with Simon Fraser University’s repertory company, I became very excited to work at Kinesis Dance. His creative process is very Dionysian. He choreographs from a place of instinct, chaos, and unbridled passion, and this can be a challenge when one has been trained to follow order, rationality, and formalism. Paras loves to provoke, challenge, and discover. It is what makes his works exciting to watch for many because the unfamiliar can be more rewarding than the familiar. 

Box to the Power of 4. Dancer: Hayden Fong. Vocals: Paras Terezakis. Photo by Chris Randle 

My background is in filmmaking and administration. Dance is an artistic expression that many filmmakers do not fully understand and there is value in learning to articulate it. Paras describes his choreography as “a spontaneous combustion. It looks like it happens on its own, but it actually comes from a very complex hidden process.”

BOX⁴ uses print media as a metaphor; the work is an intense exploration of male aggression, competition and negotiation. Paras writes, “Tensions are explored under the paternalistic eye of society’s mass media and the constant barrage of information we receive daily that has become as much of an impediment to knowing ourselves as it is as an enlightenment.” 

Paras Terezakis – 02-10-2011. Photo by Paras.

One of the things I’m learning from my working experience with Paras is to be bold and take the road less travelled. Challenge yourself and choose the unknown because the rewards often outweigh the perceived risks. As an artist, I find his works relevant because change is inevitable and often unpredictable.  

Paras has amassed a substantial body of work over the years with each piece showing an evolution into the next. The works that he deems as most important are those which provide the greatest challenge, open new avenues of discovery, or instill confidence in a given direction. I look forward to working with Paras and articulating his vision through Kinesis Dance somatheatro.

Jason and Paras. Photo by Jason Karman.

Kinesis Dance somatheatro is a Vancouver-based Dance Company celebrating 26 years of excellence through the guidance of Artistic Director and founder Paras Terezakis.  An internationally acclaimed choreographer, he has created over 40 works which have toured the Americas and Europe including Turkey.  His 2009 work BOX⁴ won the Isadora Award for excellence in choreography and the Vancouver Sun highlighted this work as one of the year’s most memorable performances of 2010.

Paras is also hosting a Public Workshop on Performing: Beyond Technique on Sunday, June 3 from 9:30-10:45am at Dancetheatre David Earle, 42 Quebec Street. All levels welcome!

www.kinesisdance.org

www.facebook.com/kinesisdance

http://www.youtube.com/user/KinesisDance677

Revisiting a Dance Work and the GCDF

In the weeks until the Festival gears up, we will be featuring several GCDF dance artists here on the blog. Please join us every Monday and Thursday 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!

Kate Franklin and Kate Holden, co-founders of Toronto-based firstthingsfirst productions, share an intimate dialogue about the creative resurrection of a view is a view is a view, choreographed by Emily Molnar, for our On the Stage, Stage A series on Friday, June 1, at 8pm.

Photo by Kristy Kennedy.

Holden: How do you feel re-visiting a view is a view is a view three years after we last performed it?

Franklin: I was really nervous to start rehearsing the piece again.  When I last performed it in 2009 I was in probably the best shape of my life.  I have been training hard over the past three weeks in preparation for our rehearsals.  When we got into the studio last week, I was amazed at how quickly the movement came back to me.  I will always be in awe of the mystery of muscle memory.  I can't believe that so much of that movement stayed buried deep in my body for three years and then just resurfaced when I needed it!  As we rehearse the piece, my mind goes back to the wonderful and challenging time we had making this work with Emily.  She pushed us so hard, and got such great material and such great performances out of us.  This work is so dear to my heart, and it is a real gift to be able to work on it again.

Is there a moment or a story that stands out for you about the making of or performing of a view is a view is a view in 2009?

Holden:  There are a number of sections in this work that are improvised—some with more structure than others—and I am in disbelief looking at them now that Emily trusted us so much at the time to let us run with them. And we did run with them. There's a section where you [Franklin] are speaking into the microphone saying what you see around you in the room, always speaking in the present tense: "She is wearing red," "It is dark," "You are looking at us." I am improvising around a movement phrase and occasionally trying to wrestle control of the microphone to speak in the past tense: "It was sunny," "She was late," "He had looked away." I remember the last couple of shows that we did, getting to a point where we were comfortable enough to really play with the section, contradicting each other, tripping each other up. And struggling so hard for the microphone that I got pushed all the way across the stage. You're [Franklin] a force to be reckoned with! It was so fun to be able to poke fun at each other and at what was happening, in the moment. That kind of trust and direction given by a choreographer is so liberating.

Photo by Kristy Kennedy

What was one of the most challenging things about creating this work, or about re-mounting it?

Franklin:  The two most challenging things about remounting a view is a view is a view are the spacing and the music.  We're trying to fit big movement into a small space, which ultimately I think will be very interesting and exciting for the audience.  Our movement will just barely be contained by the intimate space of the Co-operators Hall! The music is very challenging in this piece.  The pianist, Arthur Rubinstein, uses a lot of rubato (if I remember my Grade 3 piano lessons, I think I'm using the correct musical term here...) so it's really tricky to find the downbeat of the music.  When we need to find tight unison together, it's often very hard to rely on the music.  I have to watch you and just sense you a lot.   It requires a lot of focus and attention.  

We've been remounting on our own for four rehearsals now.  What do you think will happen when we start working with Bonnie Kim as a rehearsal director next week? Are you excited to bring her in?

Holden: Definitely. I think Bonnie Kim is going to kick our butts into gear! Bonnie is one of the best rehearsal directors around—she has a very keen eye and is also a great performance coach. We can get to a pretty solid place working on our own, but having someone on the outside is key for this kind of work. There’s no other way to get the unison tight. There’s also an importance in having a witness for the improv sections. Improvising always feels different when people are watching than when you’re working on it on your own.

Do you have any distinct memories from the last time we performed at GCDF with Kate Alton’s Double Life?

Franklin: I remember shopping for vintage clothing in downtown Guelph... I want to go do that again! I remember having a sore lower-leg... I’m going to physio tomorrow to prevent that scenario from repeating itself! I remember getting to perform twice—once on the mainstage and the next day as part of the performances for young people.  I remember going to see some performances in the park and getting a great sandwich from a bakery, which I think was called “With the Grain.” I remember being very tired when your parents drove us home.  All in all, I had a great time.

Photo by Kristy Kennedy

What specific qualities will you bring to a view is a view is a view three years later? What has changed for you as a dancer or as a person in the last three years?

Holden: That was a good shopping trip! I still wear some of those clothes.  As for change... So much has changed and so much is the same. I think I’m more efficient as a dancer than I was. I don’t perform work like this very often any more.  The work that I have been in recently has been much more based on inner state development and improvisation, but I think I still have the technical chops to do this one. I love the challenge of the complex physicality. In life I think much more has changed—I’m more settled in some ways, and in other ways I’m making some major shifts. I’ve just left a great company job with Dancemakers to make space for other things and I’m studying CranioSacral Therapy. I’m developing my teaching more and have started choreographing my own work. It’s an exciting time.

One other thing that has changed is that we finally have a website. Yay! We’d love to have some traffic on it. Have a look: ftfp.ca

firstthingsfirst productions was formed in 2005 by powerhouse dancers Kate Franklin and Kate Holden to commission new contemporary dance work. Through its commissions, ftfp has built up a body of work that is thoughtful, transparent and honest. Powerful in its ability to communicate and clear in its kinetic language, ftfp’s repertoire is engaging and inspiring.

The Rigours and Joys of Touring Contemporary Dance

In the weeks until the Festival gears up, we will be featuring several GCDF dance artists here on the blog. Please join us every Monday and Thursday 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!

Suzanne Miller of Montreal-based SuzanneMiller & Allan Paivio Productions wrote to us from Ramallah, Palestine, about what it’s like to tour the Middle East. Her piece, UPdown, performs at our In the Studio series on Saturday, June 2, at 4pm and 10pm.

Suzanne: On April 23rd, 2012, our company, Suzanne Miller & Allan Paivio Productions, departed from Montreal with our most recent production, UPdown, to perform in three cities (Amman, Jordan; East Jerusalem; and Ramallah, Palestine) in a network of contemporary dance festivals affiliated with the RamallahContemporary Dance Festival.  

Suzanne Miller and Karsten Kroll perform UPdown in Ramallah at the Al Kasaba Theatre. Photo by Eric Boudet.

Performing a physically intense hour-long duet, Karsten Kroll and I navigated ourselves through the spacing of three different theatres—managing to dance on sub-standard floor surfaces that added to our already challenging tour—and performed back-to-back in 3 theatres without rest. Allan Paivio (composer, sound designer) operated as our Technical Director for the first time. He was well served by the Technical Directors and their crews from the respective theatres.

I am writing this from our hotel suite—Rocky Hotel— in Ramallah.  This is our third consecutive year contributing to a rapidly growing festival. Originally, our tour included Damascus, Syria and Beirut, Lebanon—however due to the dire political situation in Syria, our engagements were cancelled and, as a result, we were re-scheduled to perform in Amman for our first time.

Performing at the Jerash-Roman site in Jordan. Photo by Allan Paivio.

In Amman, we held a workshop and met with many young dancers at the primary dance school in Jordan where students are offered classes in ballet (Royal Academy of Dancing), character dance, and traditional folkloric dance forms. Contemporary dance is relatively new to Jordan.  The festival we participated in is its fourth edition. Amman, Jordan is on the one hand more conservative—Muslim (very few woman are seen without head scarves)—yet on the other, part of global consumerism. Surely our audience was unaccustomed to witnessing the kind of gender equality expressed through UPdown where male/female roles are often blurred. Students in Amman were eager to learn new forms of dance, however the teachers commented that there are no professional dance companies operating in Jordan.  If dancers want to pursue their training, they must leave their homeland and train elsewhere. 

Suzanne Miller giving a workshop in Amman. Photo by Allan Paivio.

This is not the case in Ramallah. The Sareyyet Troupe for Music and Dance (under the direction of Khaled Eleyyan) benefits from international influences from the festival. Ballet C. de la B. (Belgium) has collaborated with the company in the past and during this festival held auditions for their upcoming multi-national production. As well, many of the companies that perform in Ramallah also give workshops, like the Ballet Boyz from the UK and Groupe Emile Dubois Jean-ClaudeGallotta from France.  Our company is currently under negotiations with Sareyyet Troupe for a collaborative project scheduled in 2012-2014. 

Certainly the political situation here is fundamentally frustrating, but many people here believe that international cultural events like this help the cause of Palestinean cultural identity and statehood. RCDF (Ramallah Contemporary Dance Festival) Checkout their website: www.sareyyet.ps.

We always feel good here. The spirit is generous despite all the problems. Our work has been embraced over the past three years and continues to create new potential for future productions. 

We look forward to performing an excerpt of UPdown in Guelph where our family and many friends and colleagues reside.

This year marks 25 years of production for Suzanne Miller and Allan Paivio Productions, with energetic collaborations in contemporary dance and music—influenced by total theatre, where all elements form an integral whole. 

www.millerpaivio.com

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