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Back Issue

Volume 17, Issue 2
March/April 2014

SOLD OUT in print.

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Features

The Art of Presenting

Shaping the Landscape of Dance in Canada

By Lys Stevens

Big country, not enough resources, audience apathy – how presenters and curators are grappling with the challenges of the Canadian dance ecology. See a sidebar on what the dance community thinks about presenting practice on page 44.

The newly created Arts Curators Association of Québec is inviting the dance community to “Envisioning the Practice,” an international symposium on performing arts curation taking place April 10th to 13th in Montréal. The conference will provide the space for a landmark gathering of practitioners, scholars, artists, students and educators from around the world to critically discuss this emerging field of knowledge, with dance as a high priority among the topics being addressed. The theme has been brewing for Davida for some time – she’s a co-founder of ACAQ along with Dominique Fontaine and Jane Gabriels. “We need to create a field of knowledge,” Davida explains to writer Lys Stevens. “None of us have had an education to do this, no discourse, no literature, very little to support a profession.” When Davida compares the performing arts to the visual arts she is envious of their established tradition in studied curation. Stevens interviews a number of Canadian curators, presenters and artists in this exploration of just who is shaping the landscape of dance in Canada and how.

L’Association des commissaires des arts du Québec, nouvellement formée, convie le milieu de la danse à « Illumination : symposium international sur le commissariat des arts de la scène, une pratique à consolider » du 10 au 13 avril à Montréal. L’ACAQ propose une rencontre phare entre praticiens, chercheurs, artistes, étudiants et enseignement de partout dans le monde pour une discussion critique sur le savoir émergent autour du commissariat des arts de la scène. La danse figure en priorité sur la liste de sujets qui seront abordés. L’idée de l’événement est en gestation depuis quelque temps déjà pour Dena Davida. Elle cofonde l’ACAQ avec Dominique Fontaine et Jane Gabriels. « Nous avons besoin de créer un champ de connaissances », explique Davida à la rédactrice Lys Stevens. « Aucun d’entre nous n’a une formation pour faire ce travail ; il n’y a pas de discours et d’écrits. C’est-à-dire qu’il y a très peu pour soutenir une profession ». Lorsque Davida compare les arts de la scène aux arts visuels, elle envie leur tradition en commissariat. Stevens a interviewé de nombreux commissaires, diffuseurs et artistes au Canada dans une exploration des acteurs qui forment le paysage de danse au pays.

^{Kornél Mundruczó in his own work It’s Hard To Be A God at the Malta Festival Poznań (2011) / Photo by kpictures.pl}

Living a Practice

The Path of Margaret Grenier

By Naomi Brand

The challenge of bringing the hereditary dances of the Gitxsan Nation to contemporary dance audiences fires the remarkable work of Margaret Grenier, artistic director of Vancouver’s Dancers of Damelahamid and the Coastal First Nations Dance Festival.

Margaret Grenier – the executive and artistic director of Dancers of Damelahamid, a family-based dance company originally from the Gitxsan Nation on British Columbia’s northwest coast but now based in West Vancouver – is carrying a great history with her. It’s a history full of change in an artistic practice that has been constantly evolving. Grenier comes from a long line of indigenous artists who have used their art to influence social change and worked to make ancient traditions relevant in a contemporary context. “I do feel a responsibility to my parents and to my grandmother, specifically, and to my aunties that has been very influential for me,” she says. “I’m trying to honour or live up to the privileges or the gifts that they bestowed on me by doing everything that they did in their lifetimes.” That sense of responsibility has fuelled (among many other achievements) the creation of the annual Coastal First Nations Dance Festival.

Margaret Grenier est directrice administrative et artistique de Dancers of Damelahamid, une compagnie de danse familiale. Sise, au départ, dans la nation Gitxsan sur la côte nord-ouest en Colombie-Britannique, la compagnie est maintenant établie à West Vancouver. Elle est porteuse d’une grande histoire remplie de changements dans une pratique artistique qui ne cesse d’évoluer. Grenier vient d’une longue lignée d’artistes autochtones qui se servent de leur art pour le changement social et travaillent à rendre les traditions pertinentes aujourd’hui. « Je suis redevable à mes parents et à ma grand-mère, en particulier, et à mes tantes; ils m’ont tous beaucoup influencée », dit-elle. « J’essaie de les honorer et d’être à la hauteur des privilèges ou des cadeaux qu’ils m’ont conférés par leur oeuvre. » Ce sentiment de responsabilité a donné lieu, parmi tant d’autres réalisations, à la création du Coastal First Nations Dance Festival, événement annuel.

^{Renee Harris and Margaret Grenier in Limk ‘Neexhl by Grenier / Photo by Jhaimy Alvarez-Acosta}

Rumours of a Pooka

Photo Essay

A loving tribute to Calgary’s Dancers’ Studio West’s studio theatre on the occasion of its closing by some of the dancers who have created and performed there.

Viv Moore and Molly Johnson

In Conversation

In the space where clog dancing meets bullwhip, Viv Moore is at home. A master of the dramatically diverse, Moore holds an impressive list of credits, with actor, dancer, teacher, dramaturge and stage combat coach among them (she was the National Fight Coordinator for Fight Directors Canada). This ballet-trained actor with a penchant for 19th century English music hall likes to play rough. “I like things that are punchy,” she says. “I like energy. There’s just something about punching and smacking and working with great big swords that just fits my body. And I love smacking things. I have swords galore”. This March, Moore is artistic director and curator for the inaugural three-day Body Percussion Festival at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto, a job she describes as “relaxing”. The festival kicks off on March 28th and features step, kathak, flamenco, beatbox, gumboot, tap and body percussion artists from Canada, the United States, and England.

À la jonction de la danse « clog » et du « bullwhip », Viv Moore est bien chez elle. Maître d’une diversité considérable, Moore détient une quantité impressionnante de désignations : actrice, danseuse, enseignante, dramaturge et coach de combat (elle est coordonnatrice nationale pour Fight Directors Canada), parmi d’autres. Cette comédienne formée en ballet avec un faible pour le music-hall britannique du 19e siècle aime jouer dur. « J’aime les choses dynamiques », dit-elle. « J’aime l’énergie. Simplement, donner des coups de points, des tapes et manipuler de grandes épées me convient. Et j’adore frapper les choses. J’ai toute une collection d’épées. » Moore est maintenant aussi directrice artistique et commissaire de la première édition de trois jours du Body Percussion Festival au Harbourfront Centre à Toronto, un emploi qu’elle décrit comme « relaxant ». Le festival sera lancé le 28 mars et met en vedette le step, le kathak, le flamenco, le beatbox, le gumboot, la claquette et des artistes qui font la percussion avec le corps en provenance du Canada, des États-Unis et d’Angleterre. L’artiste de danse indépendante Molly Johnson tente de découvrir exactement ce qui fait vibrer cette grande créative multidisciplinaire.

^{Viv Moore / Photo by Kelly Clipperton}

A Report on the Morning Conferences lecture series at the Montréal Danse Choreographic Research Workshop

By Thea Patterson

The Montréal Danse Choreographic Research Workshop is a unique platform in Canada. The Morning Conferences in particular connect it firmly to the community at large, keeping it as a place of exchange within wider contexts. After fours days and roughly seven hours of listening to these four deeply engaged practitioners speak, I was reminded afresh of the importance of stimulating thought and dialogue. Gathered in a circle of chairs on the familiar stage at L’Agora de la danse, where so many moments in dance have met our gaze, we came together to analyze, understand, challenge and renew our passion for dance discourse and all its shifting potentials.

L’Atelier de recherche chorégraphique annuel de Montréal Danse est une plateforme unique au Canada. En particulier, les conférences du matin, ouvertes au public, inscrivent le projet dans la communauté et offrent un lieu d’échange dans un contexte plus large que le studio. Après quatre jours et environ sept heures devant quatre praticiens très engagés, Chris Salter, Larry Lavender, Daniel Léveillé et Sylvain Lafortune, la chorégraphe et rédactrice Thea Patterson s’est rappelé à nouveau l’importance de stimuler la pensée par le dialogue. Elle raconte : « Dans un cercle de chaises sur la scène familière de l’Agora de la danse, où nous avons été témoins de tant de moments dansés, nous nous sommes réunis pour analyser, comprendre, mettre au défi et renouveler notre passion pour le discours sur la danse et tous ses potentiels transformateurs. »

^{Photo courtesy of Montréal Danse}

Departments

Editorial

Buddies in Bad Times

By Kathleen Smith

Making Waves

Riley Sims

By Chick Snipper

Inspired!

Vicki Adams Willis

By Kate Stashko

Emerging Views

Chloe Hart

By Samantha Mehra

Studio Now

Jade’s Hip Hop Academy in Brampton

By Brittany Duggan

What's In Your Dancebag?

Jade Jager Clark

Healthy Dancer: Training & Conditioning

The Paleo Phenomenon

By Dr. Blessyl Buan

Healthy Dancer: Nutrition

Key Foods to Eat or Limit

By Dr. Millie Lytle

The Goods

Bodyblade

Confluences

Sketching Choreography

Sketches of Habiba Nathoo’s process with Sinha Danse

Check It Out

Airport Oasis

LoungeBuddy app

Artifact of the Month

Marial Mosher Glass Plate

By Amy Bowring

Courtesy of Dance Collection Danse

Shortwaves

By Jacqueline Hansen, Samantha Mehra, Kathleen Smith

Kinesiology and dance at the University of Calgary; Lawrence Gradus (1936-2014); NBoC Principal Aleksandar Antonijevic to retire

Performance & Event Listings

March & April Highlights

Goh Ballet and Select Works/Mustard Seed in Vancouver; Dancetheatre David Earle and Silent Voices in Toronto; Fujiwara Dance Inventions and Eunoia in Toronto; Israel Galván and La Edad de Oro in Toronto; Maria Osende Flamenco Company in Halifax; Bust A Move in Montréal

Everyday Moves

Displacements

By MJ Thompson

Caribana is Our Stage

Themes of becoming, shaping from and returning to are central to Caribbean performance arts. As one of these art forms, Carnival is a nuanced performance art practice rooted in the cultural memory of the lives of Caribbean peoples throughout Canada and the diaspora. But whose story is told (or not told) and in what context? The telling or omission of stories can be traced to a lack of understanding of the complexity of the Caribbean and its Carnival – a performance tradition that is more than the mass commodification, sexuality and “loud music” we often associate it with.

Video

Geo and Kim: Salsa Class at Toronto Salsa Fridays

Bachata in Canada

Toronto-based Latin dance couple, Kimberly Ramos and Geovanny Ricardo, have established themselves as a powerful force in the Canadian bachata dance community. Recognized for their smooth, yet strong, energy and presence, the couple has gained national and international success through numerous avenues including competing, performing and instructing at a professional level.

Listing