Contributor
Brittany Duggan made the connection between dance and journalism during her first year at York University in 2005. She volunteered as The Dance Current’s first intern and soaked up years of mentorship from the many brilliant women who have graced this magazine’s masthead. Her involvement in Canada’s professional dance community drove her desire to expand her storytelling skills and she completed the University of British Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism last year. Duggan is currently a Vancouver-based freelance journalist and podcast producer.
She was The Dance Current’s Online Editor from June 2015 through December 2016, Managing Editor from 2014 through 2015, Production and Office Manager 2011 through 2013 and has been involved with the organization through various internships and as a writer since 2005.
Duggan graduated from York University’s BFA Program in Dance in 2009 and has since collaborated with a number of independent dance artists including Kate Hilliard, Susan Cash, Tracey Norman, Susan Kendal, Krista Posyniak, Jenny-Anne McCowan and Aviva Fleising. Choreographic credits include she.d (2014), a solo with cellist Kailyn Winick, works for the McMaster University Dance Company, Scienceography (2011) for Toronto’s Fringe Festival, Mayfly (2011) for The Creative Republic and mountain girl (2010).
Brittany Duggan's Work
Creative Critique
By Brittany Duggan Volume 21, Issue 3Does it matter if there is no dance criticism in Canada? Dance criticism is inherently niche and, as such, a difficult form of arts reporting to maintain. How does critique function in today’s media environment?
Choreographing Community
Vancouver’s community-engaged dance momentum By Brittany Duggan“You have to almost fall out of love before you’re going to open up to other possibilities,” recalls Karen Jamieson, of her journey into community-engaged dance. A Canadian pioneer of the practice, Jamieson shares with Brittany Duggan how this practice spread through Vancouver and how it was “utterly different from professional dance” as she had previously known and practised it.
Posted October 11, 2017
The Embodied Remnants of Relationships Past and Present
Saudade by Joshua Beamish and MOVETHECOMPANY By Brittany DugganJoshua Beamish’s Saudade, which was commissioned by Theater Freiburg in Germany, takes its name from a Portuguese word for having a deep incompleteness and recognizing that feeling as familiar. For the men performing, this idea comes across as a variety of relationship-based scenarios – romantic or not. The work depicts a range of relationships that we can relate to, those that are fleeting for us and others that have been lasting.
Posted September 29, 2017
All About Giselle
Giselle by Coastal City Ballet By Brittany DugganFirst staged in 1841, Giselle is often thought of as a straightforward story ballet. Vancouver-based Coastal City Ballet, a repertory company founded in 2011, stuck closely to the very specific and illustrative music by French composer Adolphe Adam, and choreographer Irene Schneider does an impressive job of working with the score to create scenes that challenge the various levels of dance ability within the company.
Posted May 30, 2017
New Criticism Award Launched in BC
On April 18, a new award that acknowledges excellence in critical writing and commentary on the visual, performing and literary arts will be celebrated in Vancouver. The Max Wyman Award for Cultural Commentary, or “The Max,” is the brainchild of community leader and philanthropist Dr. Yosef Wosk.
Posted April 14, 2017
One As Two As Two Is One
Albatross by Company 605 with German Jauregui By Brittany Duggan AlbatrossAlbatross brings the tenderness of the human condition to otherworldly dimensions.
Posted December 23, 2016
Lost Boy
Calgary performing arts company The Show expands their production portfolio with music videos.
Posted December 12, 2016
Vivarium
Vivarium is an installation of dance, music and gardening by Montréal’s Lucy M. May, Paige Culley, Noémie Avidar and Patrick Conan.
Posted December 2, 2016
Faux Solo
It’s all in the details for dancer, choreographer, and now producer, Ralph Escamillan. That’s what the Vancouver-based artist most enjoyed about making his first dancefilm with the FORM (Festival of Recorded Movement) Film Festival Commission Fund.
Posted November 30, 2016
Mind the Gap
Two dance artists discuss bridging the divide between training and a professional career By Brittany DugganFor many dancers in Canada, there’s a disconnect between training and the professional world. Melanie Kloetzel and Amber Funk Barton discuss fostering the next generation of creative independent dance artists.
Posted November 25, 2016
