Marie France Forcier draws on her extensive experience as artistic director of Forcier Stage Works in her career as assistant professor in dance at the University of Calgary. Internationally active in the field of trauma studies, the bulk of her recent work explores new ways of thinking about the intersection of psychological trauma and dance practice. Her body of choreography has been seen across North America, Europe and Asia, and she has toured extensively as a performer in a wide range of disciplines.
In the March/April issue of The Dance Current, Marie France Forcier hosted the print conversation, “Creating Safe Spaces.” The article focused on sharing strategies for identifying and preventing abusive situations. In this follow-up, Forcier delves deeper into the problematic, widespread and systematic experiences that lay at the root of that discussion by challenging what she identifies as the code of silence within the discipline.
Posted May 25, 2017In light of cases and allegations of abuse made by former students at different dance training institutions in this country, Marie France Forcier discusses safety with professionals of varying expertise. They provide suggestions about what teachers, studio owners and parents need to know about protecting young dancers and how to create environments that will support them.
Strong Albertan ties was the common denominator for the ten choreographers selected by Dancers’ Studio West to present work as part of the Annual Alberta Dance Festival. Bold moments in time was the broad thematic glue binding their works into a couple of distinct programs.
Posted October 3, 2016With a style that pushes at boundaries, contemporary Indian dance artist Natasha Bakht draws on her expertise in diverse fields to explore the role of the everyday rituals of Muslim women in Canadian consciousness in her new work for Fall for Dance North.
Since the winter of 2014, Toronto-based dance artist Amelia Ehrhardt has been exponentially developing her curatorial profile through the umbrella of Flowchart, a self-founded, small-scale multidisciplinary performance series. Garnering recognition for the quality of her work, Ehrhardt is now SummerWorks’ first dance curator, right in time for the performance festival’s twenty-fifth anniversary.
Posted August 3, 2015Mentorship creates opportunities for emerging artists to benefit from the wealth of experience that established artists carry within themselves. But mature artists also get something out of the relationship. By encouraging them to stay connected to developments within the field, mentors gain insight about emerging trends and realities while transmitting valuable knowledge about the changing history of life as a dancer.
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