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Back Issue

Volume 17, Issue 1
January/February 2014

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Features

Voguing and its Discontents

The Underground Comes Up For Air

By Sholem Krishtalka

Voguing – with a continuous history that began in earnest in the 1960s in New York – is having a(nother) moment. Communal, amateur in the best way, voguing has always been a vernacular form. Writer Sholem Krishtalka looks at the vogue renaissance.

“The recent ubiquity of cellphones with video-recording capabilities is largely responsible for the current resurgence of interest in voguing,” writes visual arts critic Sholem Krishtalka. “It’s not that vogue balls stopped happening between 1990 and now, it’s merely that, in 1990, society at large relied on documentarians like Jennie Livingston and rapacious cultural magpies like Madonna to bring voguing to the fore. Now, endless clips from vogue balls are available to watch on YouTube, and, in and amongst the enthusiastic throng screaming their support for Mizrahi, or Javier Ninja or whichever upcoming legendary child, there are scores of iPhones documenting each drop. … While voguing might have a recognizable form and structure, it’s not merely a repertoire of moves to be studied and perfected. Hand performance, duck walking, spinning, dipping and floor performance are the canonical mainstays of a Vogue Fem performance; but just because they are codified doesn’t make them analogous to the five ballet positions.”

« L’ubiquité récente de cellulaires munis de caméra vidéo est largement responsable de l’intérêt renouvelé pour le voguing », écrit le critique d’art visuel Sholem Krishtalka. « Ce n’est pas qu’il n’y a plus de « ball » depuis 1990, c’est qu’alors, la société dépendait surtout sur les documentaristes comme Jennie Livingston et les rapaces culturels comme Madonna pour mettre le voguing à l’avant-plan. Aujourd’hui, il y a une collection sans fin de clips de ball sur YouTube. Et parmi les foules en délire qui claironnent leur soutien pour Mizrahi ou Javier Ninja ou autre enfant légendaire en devenir, une pléthore de iPhone documente tous les instants… Si le voguing a une forme et une structure reconnaissable, il ne s’agit pas d’un simple répertoire à étudier et à parfaire. Les gestes de base du Vogue Fem sont le « hand performance », la marche en canard, le « spin », le « dip » et le « floor performance ». Néanmoins, leur codification ne les rend pas analogues aux cinq positions en ballet. »

Waacker Em Fatale versus Voguer Mother Trouble Nuance

Voguing and the ballroom scene were born along with house, hip hop and bboying in sixties and seventies New York. It has infiltrated the mainstream less than street dance but the forms maintain their hereditary connections. Emily Law (Em Fatale) and Matt Sweet (Mother Trouble Nuance) – two dancers who are putting voguing on the Toronto stage early in 2014 – talk influences, cross-pollination and keeping it real.

Paris is Still Burning

By Kathleen Smith

Transforming the Dominant Script of Dance

Ill Nana/Diversecity Dance Company

By Keith Cole

Street Smarts. Rhythm. Curiosity.

Yvon “Crazy Smooth” Soglo

By Mercedes Déziel-Hupé

Gatineau, Québec-based Yvon Soglo, also known as Crazy Smooth or, even better, just Smooth, was an athlete and a self-taught street dancer when he founded Bboyizm in 2004. It has grown to be a nationally recognized performance company with which Smooth has received acclaim for works such as The Evolution of B-boying and Izm, theatrical events that brought street dance to the wider audiences of the main stage. Never doubt that Smooth feels bboying is the most powerful street style. “For me, it’s the one that carries the others, it has history and a culture,” he says. “But all styles influence each other. They all have some basic steps in common; it’s the spirit that changes.” Always on the move, Smooth pauses while in transit to talk with Mercedes Déziel-Hupé about his new creation with the working title Music Creates Opportunity and his unusual path to the stage. Following up on the international success of his previous shows, Smooth will take his new work on the road throughout 2014.

Établi à Gatineau, Québec, Yvon Soglo, ou « Crazy Smooth », ou encore mieux, « Smooth », et un athlète et un danseur de rue autodidacte lorsqu’il fonde Bboyizm en 2004. La compagnie de spectacle est maintenant reconnue au Canada et célébrée pour les productions The Evolution of B-boying et Izm de Smooth, des événements qui ont introduit la danse de rue à des publics diversifiés en salle. Selon Smooth, le bboying est le style de danse de rue le plus puissant. « Pour moi, c’est celui qui porte les autres. Le style a une histoire et une culture », explique-t-il. « Mais tous les styles s’influencent. Ils partagent tous certaines gestuelles de base ; c’est l’esprit qui change. » D’habitude en mouvement, Smooth s’arrête un instant pour parler de sa nouvelle création avec Mercedes Déziel-Hupé de sa nouvelle création, provisoirement intitulée Music Creates Opportunity, et de son parcours inhabituel en arts de la scène. Sur la lancée du succès international de ses derniers spectacles, Smooth part en tournée avec Music Creates Opportunity en 2014.

Dance + ink +

A collaborative photo essay in which Japanese katakana ink characters and other elements express and enhance the power and beauty of the dancing body in motion.

Photography by Haley Friesen, calligraphy by Nobuhiro Sato.

Nova Bhattacharya

In Conversation with Aakash Odedra

Toronto-based Bhattacharya phone-chats with Odedra about dancing solo, brain rewiring and James Brown.

A rising star of British South Asian dance, twenty-nine-year-old Aakash Odedra is classically trained in kathak and bharatanatyam. Yet he is currently touring the world with a full-length evening collection of solos made for him by contemporary choreographers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Russell Maliphant and mentor Akram Khan. Reviews for Rising have been effusive and Odedra labelled a performance virtuoso. The similarly ambidextrous Nova Bhattacharya phone-chatted with Odedra about dancing solo, brain rewiring and James Brown. “Yes,” says Odedra of classical dance forms such as kathak, “evolution is very necessary. In order for it to remain relevant it has to evolve, it has to take on contemporary culture and politics. We don’t walk to the well to get water anymore, we don’t milk the cow or churn the butter. We have PlayStations. The art form has to evolve to get the attention of a generation that has endless choices”.

Étoile montante de la danse sud-asiatique britannique, Aakash Odedra, vingt-neuf ans, a une formation classique en kathak et en bharatanatyam. Pourtant, il est actuellement en tournée mondiale avec un programme complet de solos des chorégraphes contemporains Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui et Russell Maliphant et de son mentor Akram Khan. Les critiques de Rising sont élogieuses et Odedra acclamé un performeur virtuose. L’artiste semblablement ambidextre Nova Bhattacharya l’a rejoint au téléphone pour parler de la forme solo en danse, de la reconfiguration de la pensée et de James Brown. « Oui », affirme Odedra au sujet des formes classiques comme le kathak, « l’évolution est très nécessaire. Afin de garder sa pertinence, ça doit évoluer, ça doit s’inscrire dans la culture et la politique contemporaines. On ne va plus à pied chercher l’eau d’un puit, on ne trait plus la vache, on ne baratte plus le beurre. On a des PlayStation. L’art doit évoluer pour susciter l’intérêt d’une génération doté de choix infinis. »

Meet me in Vancouver

Canadian Dance Assembly’s Moving Strategies Conference & the Dance in Vancouver Biennial

By Kathleen Smith

The Dance Current Editor Kathleen Smith attended Moving Strategies, the Canadian Dance Assembly’s (CDA) conference and AGM, held on November 19th and 20th, 2013 in Vancouver. The two-day conference neatly segued into the four-day Dance in Vancouver festival, a biennial showcase for contemporary dance in British Columbia (this year guest curated by Canada Dance Festival Artistic Producer Jeanne Holmes). Although there seemed to be minimal crossover of participants attending the CDA conference and the group of presenters in town for DIV (many of whom were also attending Candance network meetings), combining the events into a full week created a deep exchange of ideas and at least the possibility of a complete immersion in watching, thinking about and discussing dance in Canada. If resources and platforms shared in thoughtful collaboration are the future for Canada’s dance sector, this week in Vancouver set a great example.

La directrice de publication du Dance Current, Kathleen Smith, a participé au colloque et à l’AGA de l’Assemblée canadienne de la danse (ACD), Stratégies en mouvement, tenus les 19 et 20 novembre 2013 à Vancouver. Le colloque de deux jours était suivi du festival de quatre jours Dance in Vancouver (DIV), une vitrine biennale de danse contemporaine en Colombie-Britannique. (La productrice artistique du Festival Danse Canada, Jeanne Holmes, était commissaire invitée du festival.) Bien qu’il semble y avoir eu peu de recoupement entre les participants du colloque de l’ACD et du festival DIV (plusieurs qui étaient aussi présents à des rencontres du réseau CanDanse), l’amalgame des événements sur une semaine a facilité une profondeur dans les discussions et l’occasion d’une immersion complète pour voir la danse, y réfléchir et en discuter. Si le partage de ressources et de plateformes et la collaboration sont l’avenir du milieu de la danse au Canada, cette semaine à Vancouver en était un excellent exemple.

Departments

Editorial

By Kathleen Smith

New Narratives for a New Year

Making Waves

By Kate Stashko

Tanya Crowder

Inspired!

By Jacqueline Hansen

Helena Waldmann

Emerging Views

Sam Penner

Studio Now

By Beatrice Fantoni

HNM Dance in Windsor

What’s in Your Dancebag?

Anh Nguyen, artistic director, HNM Dance Company

Healthy Dancer: Training & Conditioning

By Dr. Blessyl Buan

Dance and Breath

Healthy Dancer: Nutrition

By Dr. Millie Lytle

Conquering Jet Lag

Healthy Recipe

Melatonin Muesli

The Goods

Warm Buddy

Confluences - On the Screen

By Priscilla Guy

To Choreograph the Moving Image

Check it Out

Ovahness by Christopher Cushman

Artifact of the Month

Early Spanish Dance in Canada

By Amy Bowring

Courtesy of Dance Collection Danse

The World of Jahanara explores the inner life of Jahanara Aklaq, a 24-year-old Kathak dancer, who, in her brief life, had began to make her mark in the dance world