Indigenous
Dance of the Warrior: Ghost Dance
Here is an excerpt of the 2001 film Dance of the Warrior directed by Marie Brodeur. According to the National Film Board of Canada’s website, th…
Posted May 19, 2011Blackfoot dance history returned to the community
On June 21st, coinciding with National Aboriginal Day, a large piece of traditional Blackfoot (Kainai) knowledge was handed back t...
Posted July 19, 2010Canada's cultural program at Expo 2010
On April 30th, the Canada Pavilion in Shanghai, China, officially opened for Expo 2010. The six-month long event, running from Ma…
Posted May 18, 2010
Kaha:wi Dance Theatre: A Constellation of Bones
This evening, at Canada’s National Ballet School in Toronto, Kaha:wi Dance Theatre presents a mixed program, Behind the Curtain, as part of a series of open rehearsals.
Posted April 8, 2010School programs with the Dancers of Damelahamid
On February 1st and 2nd, the Dancers of Damelahamid, an Aboriginal dance collective from the northwest coast of British Columbia, …
Posted February 23, 2010
Talking Stick Festival: Canadian Aboriginal Artists
We are now a few days into the 9th Annual Talking Stick Festival, which runs February 21st through February 28th throughout Vancouver.
Posted February 22, 2010
Red Sky Performance: Tono
“Tono, according to [Sandra] Laronde, emerged from first-hand experience of Mongolian culture during her travels in Asia.
Posted January 27, 2010Tantoo Cardinal receives the Order of Canada
Vancouver actress Tantoo Cardinal was recently made a Member of the Order of Canada, one of the country’s highest civilian honours...
Posted January 20, 2010
Aboriginal Summer Dance Events
This summer saw the launch of two new contemporary Aboriginal dance events and the return of an Aboriginal arts festival. In June,...
Posted August 3, 2009
Luminato Dance: The Canadians
By Michael Crabb “Tono”, “Skin Divers”, “The Second Person” Sandra Laronde, Red Sky Performance, Dominique Dumais, The National Ballet of Canada, Crystal Pite, Nederlands Dans TheaterFor ten days in early June Toronto goes crazy for culture; sort of. That’s when Luminato, the city’s much-vaunted, robustly sponsored “festival of arts and creativity” saturates the scene with a multi-disciplinary cornucopia of offerings aimed at boosting the cultural image of Toronto’s as a “world-class” city.
Posted June 30, 2009
Resonant and Restless Voices
By Holly Harris “Sauti” NAfro Dance ProductionsVoice – the elusive quality that speaks volumes about subjective artistic experience – took centre stage at The Gas Station Theatre as NAfro Dance Productions opened its fusion-based, African contemporary dance season with “Sauti”.
Posted November 9, 2008
Indigenous Dancelands
By Melanie Florence “The Threshing Floor” Kaha:wi Dance TheatreOn the night of the worst snowstorm of the year in Montréal, I trekked through the sleet and wind to a small dance space called Tangente to see the touring performance of Indigenous Dancelands, a program of three works by aboriginal Canadians: Gaétan Gingras performing “Mémoire de sang”; Michelle Olson and Kimberly Tuson (Raven Spirit Dance) in “Songs of Shär Cho”; and Santee Smith and Michael Greyeyes (Kaha:wi Dance Theatre) in “The Threshing Floor”.
Posted March 22, 2008
Reconnections
By Philip Szporer A mixed progam by Gaétan Gingras Gaétan GingrasIroquois-Mohawk by ancestry, but cut off from his roots for most of his life, at fourteen Gaétan Gingras learned that his maternal grandparents were aboriginal. The truth had been hidden for many years.
Posted March 24, 2007
Intertwining Difference
By Janelle Hardy “Uqquaq, The Shelter” Geneviève Pepin, Laurentio Q. ArnatsiaqAfter purchasing tickets, we stand in the hot sun in an alleyway outside an abandoned warehouse next to the Boys and Girls Club in downtown Whitehorse. As the first sounds of music snake out from under the closed doors, we are let into the building. Entering a dark cavernous room, our attention focusses on the floor-level stage, set in the round, with a row of chairs on each of four sides.
Posted July 15, 2006
A Ceremonial Event
By Kaija Pepper “Percy Gladstone Memorial Dance (The Skidegate Project)” Karen Jamieson Dance Company, Dancing on the Edge FestivalThe good news from the Edge is that it got off to a great start. Margie Gillis, the opening headliner for the 17th annual Dancing on the Edge Festival of Contemporary Dance, drew excellent houses for both nights of her “Voyages Into the Interior Landscape”. Gillis appeared at the mid-sized, close to 700-seat Vancouver Playhouse, an upscale, downtown theatre, and to see it well filled and bustling made for a festive launch to the ten-day event.
Posted August 5, 2005
Contemporary Connections: Dance and Nature
By Gregory C. Beatty Indigenous Dancelands Anthony Dieter, Gaetan Gingras, Byron Chief-Moon, Karen Jamieson, Santee SmithPresented by New Dance Horizons (Regina), Peterborough New Dance and Tangente (Montréal) under the auspices of CanDance Network, Indigenous Dancelands offered a fascinating amalgam of traditional First Nations and contemporary Western dance practices. Featured was the premiere of Saskatchewan-based filmmaker Anthony Dieter’s Show-Down; Manitowapan by Montréal-based choreographer Gaetan Gingras; Elmer and Coyote, which was co-choreographed by Byron Chief-Moon (Alberta) and Karen Jamieson (British Columbia); and an excerpt from Ontario dance artist Santee Smith’s Kaha-Wi.
Posted May 14, 2005A (re)View of "Quest"
Quest Byron Chief-Moon, Karen JamiesonThis review was submitted in response to the postings below by Lindsay Zier-Vogel, who is exploring the integration of poetry into her writing about dance. See this author’s response to Zier-Vogel’s writing under the “Of Wishes and Driftwood” link.
Posted February 19, 2003
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