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Back Issue

Volume 15, Issue 2
March/April 2012

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Features

Outward Expressions of the Inner Soul

Esmeralda Enrique's Life in Flamenco

By Paula Citron

She’s one of Canada’s most distinguished artists, and both her Esmeralda Enrique Spanish Dance Company and school, The Academy of Spanish Dance, are celebrating their thirtieth anniversaries this season.

Here are three facts that you may not know about Esmeralda Enrique. She is a fourth generation Texan. She is named after the gypsy in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a novel her mother was reading when she was pregnant with Enrique. She performed with the José Greco Dance Company when it was the opening act for Frank Sinatra in Las Vegas.

Facts more universally known about Enrique are that she is one of Canada’s most distinguished flamenco artists, and both her Esmeralda Enrique Spanish Dance Company and her school, The Academy of Spanish Dance, are celebrating their 30th anniversaries this season.

Enrique discovered flamenco while performing Mexican dances at community fiestas with her sister Carla in San Antonio, Texas at the tender age of fourteen. When asked what initially attracted her to the form, Enrique’s answer is immediate and direct. “In Mexican folk dance,” she says, “you are a character. Flamenco, on the other hand, draws out the individual. You grow as an artist because you are constantly learning about yourself. It makes dance a more enjoyable experience. Flamenco is the outward expression of the inner soul. It is the connection of human to human.” Thirty years on, Enrique is one of Canada’s best loved and most respected flamenco artists.

Voici trois faits peu connus sur Esmeralda Enrique. Elle est texane de quatrième génération. Elle est nommée en l’honneur de la gitane dans le Bossu de Notre-Dame, le roman que lisait sa mère enceinte. L’artiste a dansé avec la José Greco Dance Company lorsque celle-ci se présentait en première partie du spectacle de Frank Sinatra à Las Vegas. Faits notoires, cependant : Enrique est une des artistes flamencos les plus distinguées au Canada, et elle célèbre les trente ans de sa compagnie et de son école, la Esmeralda Enrique Spanish Dance Company et la Academy of Spanish Dance. Enrique découvre le flamenco à quatorze ans, lorsqu’elle danse des danses mexicaines à des fiestas communautaires avec sa sœur Carla à San Antonio, Texas. Quand je lui demande ce qui l’a attirée à la forme, la danseuse répond vivement. « En danse folklorique mexicaine », explique-t-elle, « on est un personnage. À l’inverse, le flamenco va chercher la personne même. On grandit comme artiste parce qu’on apprend continuellement sur soi. La danse devient ainsi une expérience plus agréable. Le flamenco est l’expression manifeste de l’âme. Il est le lien entre un humain et un autre. » Après trente ans, Enrique demeure une des artistes de flamenco bien aimée au Canada.

Canada is a Dance Nation!

Messages of Hope for International Dance Day and National Dance Week

The Canadian Dance Assembly presents Canada’s International Dance Day message from Yvon Soglo, Crazy Smooth of the dance company Bboyizm, along with statements from individuals across Canada whose lives have been touched by dance.

Dancer's Camera

The Photographs of Bruce Monk

A visual essay featuring the ethereal and evocative work of former Royal Winnipeg Ballet dancer Bruce Monk.

Dancing as Fast as they Can

Competition as a Growth Industry

By Lys Stevens

It’s competition season in the North American dance sector. Events come in all shapes and sizes from multi-city tours that culminate in national championships to annual city-based festivals, in many cases sponsored by the local Kiwanis Club. Large and flashy or small and homespun, dance “comp” is a hotbed for the killer instinct for some dancers … and their parents.

Montreal writer Lys Stevens examines the field and reveals some of the tensions at play in contemporary dance culture around this growth industry. In today’s high stakes dance competitions, striving for excellence through discipline and effort meets a love of spectacle and mass popularity. At its best, competition in dance can promote all that is positive about dance culture and community. Swing dance teacher Alain Wong puts it this way: “Competition spurs the dance forward. It’s the way we show what we’re all about and become inspired by what others bring to the floor. Competitors are supported and encouraged no matter their level, and afterward, everyone social dances together. It’s a healthy, communal environment.” But not all competition dance environments are quite as ideal…

En Amérique du Nord, le milieu de la danse entame la saison des compétitions. Les événements se déploient sous toutes sortes de formes, de tournées interurbaines qui culminent en un championnat national, à des festivals municipaux annuels, souvent parrainés par le club Kiwanis de la région. Grande et scintillante ou modeste et artisanale, la compétition de danse est un terreau fertile pour l’instinct féroce de certains danseurs… et parfois de leurs parents. La rédactrice montréalaise Lys Stevens se penche sur le phénomène et souligne les tensions dans la culture contemporaine en danse par rapport à une industrie en pleine croissance. Une compétition aux enjeux importants donne à voir une quête d’excellence nourrie de discipline et d’effort : elle répond ainsi à notre amour du spectacle et à la culture populaire. Au mieux, le concours de danse promeut le meilleur de la communauté et la culture de danse. « La compétition fait progresser la danse », propose Alain Wong, professeur de danse swing, « C’est comme ça qu’on se fait connaître et qu’on s’inspire des autres. On soutient les concurrents, peu importe leur niveau et après le concours, tout le monde danse ensemble. C’est un environnement sain et convivial. » Stevens offre un aperçu d’une manifestation plurielle, pour le meilleur et pour le pire.

Christopher House

In Conversation with Brendan Healy

Dance Theatre artistic director and chronically innovative choreographer Christopher House sits down with noted theatre director and artistic director of Toronto’s Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Brendan Healy, for a wide-ranging discussion about dance as process, spectacle, conceptual statement and cultural critique.

Christopher House is one of Canada’s most respected dance artists. Born and raised in St. John’s, Newfoundland, he joined Toronto Dance Theatre (TDT) as a dancer in 1979, was named resident choreographer in 1981 and became artistic director in 1994. He has contributed over sixty works to the TDT repertoire including Glass Houses, Four Towers, Early Departures, Vena Cava and Chiasmata. He has also created works for Lisbon’s Ballet Gulbenkian, The National Ballet of Canada, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens and Ballet British Columbia, among others, and directed two collaborations with Joel Gibb and The Hidden Cameras. His most recent choreographies include Dis/(sol/ve)r (2009), Pteros Tactics (2010) and the “annotated remount” Nest Redux (2010), all for Toronto Dance Theatre. He is currently working on a major new choreography set to a cycle of intricate minimalist piano works called Rivers by Ann Southam. House sat down with Brendan Healy, noted theatre director and artistic director of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in Toronto, for a discussion about dance as process, spectacle, conceptual statement and cultural critique.

Brendan Healy, metteur en scène reconnu et directeur artistique du Buddies in Bad Times Theatre à Toronto, engage Christopher House, chorégraphe parmi les plus respectés au Canada, dans une discussion sur la danse en tant que processus, spectacle, déclaration conceptuelle et critique culturelle. Dis/(sol/ve)r (2009), Pteros Tactics (2010) et la « reprise annotée » Nest Redux (2010) comptent parmi les dernières chorégraphies de House, toutes créées pour le Toronto Dance Theatre. Actuellement, il travaille sur une pièce intégrale montée sur la suite de piano Rivers (1979) d’Ann Southam. « Voici ma grande question quant à cette pièce : qu’est-ce qu’une danse créée en 2012 constituée d’une gestuelle composée pour une musique sans contenu ironique ? » cogite-t-il. « J’espère que cela soit beau et surprenant. Je l’ai exprimé ainsi : “un effort de produire un contrepoint vital et imprévisible à la musique”. C’est ça qu’on essaie de faire », explique-t-il. « Les deux éléments auront une autonomie, mais ils donneront lieu à autre chose, ce qui – si on le fait comme il le faut – est très satisfaisant et potentiellement bien excitant. »

Departments

Making Waves

By Munju Monique Ravindra

Eroca Nicols / Lady Janitor

Inspired!

Mourad Merzouki, artistic director of Compagnie Käfig

Know Your Moves

"The Chase" also known as "Scribblefoot"

Emerging Views

By Kate Stashko

Becky Sawdon, graduate of the Senior Professional Program at the School of Contemporary Dancers in Winnipeg

Tips for Teachers

By Katharine Harris, Canada's National Ballet School

Performance/Audition Anxiety

Healthy Dancer

By Ana Alexandre

Just Add Water: Hydration for Performance and Wellbeing

Check It Out

New Canadian web series Prison Dancer: The Interactive Web Musical

Marking Time

The Great Canadian Dance Explosion of the 1970s

By Amy Bowring

Courtesy of Dance Collection Danse

Four Old Legs features dancers Evelyn Hart and Zhenya Cerneacov in a performance piece celebrating time, memory, experience and with the premise that growing old i