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Volume 17, Issue 6
November/December 2014

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Features

Making Show Choir

The Real Glee

By Moze Mossanen

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in show choirs, thanks to American television programs like Glee. Moze Mossanen catches up with some of the teachers who make it happen, asking them about the challenges and rewards of working in arts education.

Dans les dernières années, il y a un intérêt renouvelé pour les chorales grâce à des séries télévisées américaines comme Glee. Moze Mossanen échange avec quelques enseignants qui produisent ces chorales, et leur pose des questions sur les défis et les récompenses du travail en enseignement des arts.

Wexford Collegiate “Gleeks” competing at the Show Choir Canada Championships (2013) / Photo courtesy of Moze Mossanen

In Conversation

at Ballet BC

Dancers Alexis Fletcher and Christoph von Riedemann join choreographer Lesley Telford to discuss the process of creating her new work, An Instant, part of a triple bill that opens Ballet BC’s season. The work explores risk, vulnerability and precariousness through pushing the limits of technique and comfort. Compiled by Janet Smith.

Alexis Fletcher et Christoph von Riedemann, danseurs du Ballet BC, s’assoient avec la chorégraphe Lesley Telford pour discuter du processus de création de sa nouvelle pièce An Instant qui figure dans un programme de trois oeuvres présenté cette saison. Le travail explore le risque, la vulnérabilité et la précarité en repoussant les limites de la technique et du confort.

Lesley Telford in rehearsal for her own work An Instant for Ballet BC / Photos by Yvonne Chew

In Mocean

Susanne Chui

By Jane Doucet

From Halifax to Toronto and back, Susanne Chui took a circuitous path through life and dance before taking up the artistic directorship of Mocean Dance. Jane Doucet sits down with Chui to talk about making dance in Nova Scotia.

D’Halifax à Toronto à Halifax, Susanne Chui suit un parcours personnel et artistique tortueux avant d’assumer la direction artistique de la compagnie Mocean Dance à Halifax. Jane Doucet rattrape Chui pour parler de personnes, de projets, et de la fierté de produire la danse en Nouvelle-Écosse.

^{Susanne Chui in Her Blameless Mystery by Lesandra Dodson / Photo by Holly Crooks}

Canadian Dance by the Numbers

A Report

By Kathleen Smith

Kathleen Smith enumerates research conducted by the Canada Council for the Arts on dance across the country. She queries its major contributions and how the dance community might use this data as a resource in the future.

Kathleen Smith énumère les recherches entreprises par le Conseil des arts du Canada sur la danse au pays. Elle se penche sur les grandes contributions du travail et se demande comment la communauté pourrait se servir des données comme ressource.

Holiday Gift Guide

Our search for Canadian products that would appeal to dancers and dance aficionados led us to some amazing – and unexpected – gift ideas for your holiday season. Full of classics and recent hits, our guide makes it a little easier to find an inspired and local gift to add to your wish list. We also asked a number of dance stars from across the country what goods they can’t live without.

View the full Gift Guide Index here.

Idées cadeaux pour les fêtes

Nous sommes tombés sur d’excellentes – et parfois inusitées – idées cadeaux pour les fêtes en cherchant des produits canadiens qui pourraient plaire aux danseurs et aux amateurs de danse. Rempli de classiques et de récents succès, notre guide vous permet d’ajouter un cadeau inspiré et local à votre liste de souhaits. Nous avons aussi demandé à quelques vedettes de danse au pays les produits dont ils ne peuvent se passer.

Departments

Editorial

Canadian Dance: At Home and Abroad

By Kate Morris

In this issue you’ll find our Holiday Gift Guide. We asked some of the biggest names in show business (who also happen to be Canadian!) about their favourite Canadian products: Stacey Tookey, well-known for her Emmy-nominated work as a choreographer on So You Think You Can Dance, Sergio Trujillo, choreographer of Jersey Boys, Tiffany Mosher, second soloist with The National Ballet of Canada, and two of Vancouver’s hottest hip-hop dancers, Richard O’Sullivan and Kim Sato. They let us in on the quirky tools they keep in their dancebags and told us what products are on their “dancer” wish lists.

In the feature article “Making Show Choir: The Real Glee,” Moze Mossanen looks at the Canadian teachers and educators behind the phenomenon of show choir. With the success of the popular American show Glee, Mossanen wonders if, behind the scenes, it is really “all rainbows and lollipops?” What led these teachers from their careers in performance to education? And what are the rewards and challenges they face?

In Kathleen Smith’s report “Canadian Dance by the Numbers,” you’ll read about the Canada Council for the Arts dance mapping project, which collected information about professional and non-professional forms of dance in Canada. For this study, researcher Lys Stevens identified 190 different dance genres that are practiced in this country – an astounding number that The Dance Current hopes to explore and write about in the months that follow.

On behalf of The Dance Current team, I wish you a happy holiday season!

dc.editor@thedancecurrent.com | Follow me on Twitter at @TDC_editor

Emerging Views

Point of View Dance Project

By Kate Morris

Kylie Thompson and Amy Adams co-founded Point of View (POV) Dance Project in late 2013. They met while pursuing undergraduate studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, where they began collaborating on various dance projects. In August 2014, the company completed a series of commissioned performances at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto, as part of an urban art installation titled Sketch.

Making Waves

Vanessa Goodman

By Naomi Brand

Vancouver-based dance artist and co-artistic director of The Contingency Plan, Goodman has garnered the support of local presenters, stellar collaborators and impressive interpreters.

Inspired!

David Nixon

By Brittany Duggan

Artistic Director Jean Grand-Maître invited Canadian choreographer David Nixon to remount his work The Three Musketeers on Alberta Ballet. Nixon, who was born in Chatham, Ontario, trained at Canada’s National Ballet School and danced with The National Ballet of Canada before moving abroad.

Studio Now

Harbour Dance Centre

By Kate Morris

With five studios at their disposal and roughly 1,000 students per week, Harbour Dance Centre has become a juggernaut in the Vancouver training scene, attracting some of the country’s best teachers in each genre and students with a variety of training needs.

What’s In Your Dancebag?

Moe Brody, Co-Owner of Harbour Dance Centre

Healthy Dancer: Training & Conditioning

How to Dance Gracefully in Heels

By Dr. Blessyl Buan

Dancing in heels is sexy … and precarious. Women wear beautiful and sometimes uncomfortable heels for ballroom, jazz, burlesque and tap, so much so that heels classes have been gaining popularity across the country. And men are joining in, too! How do dancers make wearing heels look so easy? What are their secrets?

Healthy Dancer: Nutrition

Protein-Packed Granola

By Sarah Maughan

Confluences: On the Screen

Filmmaker Élisabeth Desbiens: Dancing the City

By Marie France Forcier

A go-getter, blessed with a creative disposition that includes a love for writing and a degree in film, the transition from dance artist to filmmaker occurred naturally for Élisabeth Desbiens.

Check It Out

Librairie Formats/ Formats Bookstore

Initiated by the Regroupement des centres d’artistes autogérés du Québec, Librairie Formats features publications on dance, art, performance, theory, music, literature, film and design in both English and French.

Body Language

Posturing

Women in Clothes is a book of projects by Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits and Leanne Shapton that is a creative inquiry into the performance of clothing, femininity, necessity and all of the latent thought processes associated with these.

Moving Others

Most dance artists and presenters must negotiate the tension between creating work that meets their artistic goals, that is accessible to their community and that provides the fiscal support required to live as an artist and to run a company. Emma Doran speaks with artists, organizations and presenters across the country to discuss how they envision their audience, how they are seeking to reach those individuals and what constitutes meaningful engagement with them.

Video

Going Home Star – Truth and Reconciliation

Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s Going Home Star – Truth and Reconciliation, choreographed by Mark Godden with original music composed by Christos Hatzis, was inspired by a story by Joseph Boyden about a young aboriginal woman, her multiple identities in the modern world and the trauma caused by violence against indigenous people

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