Reviews
Make It Rain
Eroca Nicols is the truthteller By Emma DoranTruthteller is an interactive presentation engaging with performance economies, rituals and intimacies between bodies.
Posted August 21, 2018
Yes Manifesto (2018)
Linnea Swan interprets modern dance history, makes us laugh, makes us cry and makes us laugh-cry By Emma DoranWith Swan’s impeccable comedic timing, we’re in good hands on a journey through modern dance moments. Each performance is enacted by Swan as she struggles with anxiety, and each is interrupted by one of Yvonne Rainer’s tenets. Nijinsky? Swan asks through her performance (“No to spectacle”). Duncan? (“No to transformations and magic”). Chouinard? (“No to trash imagery”). Ugh, fine, karaoke? (“No to camp”). And so on …
Posted August 21, 2018
Sensational but Stuck
Breakaway Entertainment’s Anatomy of a Dancer at the Toronto Fringe Festival By Grace Wells-SmithBefitting a show dedicated to Gene Kelly, I walked in the pouring rain to the Al Green Theatre in Toronto to see Anatomy of a Dancer by Breakaway Entertainment and choreographed by Adam Martino at the Toronto Fringe Festival.
Posted August 9, 2018
The Why and How
In Threes and The Fall at the Toronto Fringe Festival By Molly JohnsonMolly Johnson reviews two selection from the 2018 Toronto Fringe Festival: Colleen Snell’s The Fall and Alison Daley, Half Second Echo & Tracey Norman’s In Threes.
Posted August 9, 2018
Curating Time
Plastic orchid factory’s i miss doing nothing By Rachel Silver MaddockIn a large white studio, an immersive dance installation is going on, drawing audience members (or participants) into a space distinct from yet porous with the street below. To mark the ten-year anniversary of plastic orchid factory, performers and directors Natalie LeFebvre Gnam and James Gnam designed a unique movement retrospective framed by the present – i miss doing nothing.
Posted July 30, 2018
Fortunate Misgivings
Quantum Fur, curated by Geranium By Xdzunúm Danae Trejo-BolesCurated by Hanako Hoshimi-Caines, Maria Kefirova and Katie Ward, this evening of works included Stick Kitties by Marc Boucher, Perennial forage by Erin Fortier (both Montréal-based artists), Wampum by composer and artist Elisa Harkins (Cherokee/Muscogee) from Oklahoma and Milk Pearl by Moine de la non existence de la pensée, a multimedia artist from Belgium.
Posted July 20, 2018
No Holds Barred
Gearshifting Performance Works’ Phase Wash By Holly HarrisIn her latest creation, Jolene Bailie once again turns to the abstract world, with her all-local eight dancer ensemble.
Posted July 16, 2018
Bodily Reflections
Sasha Ivanochko’s new works By Robert KingsburyChoreographer Sasha Ivanochko premiered two works – Modern Woman in Search of Soul and Mirror Staging the Seeing Place – presented as part of Citadel + Compagnie’s Bright Nights series. Both have been in development for four years, culminating in an evening of highly focused, personal and rigorous performance.
Posted July 4, 2018
Songs for a Nervous System
Jean-Sébastien Lourdais’ Bleu By Philip SzporerLourdais’ work is concentrated on somatic states and he speaks in the programme notes about “refin[ing] the body’s state of awareness.” What’s clear in Bleu is the importance of touch.
Posted June 7, 2018
A Night at the Juke Joint
The latest from Holla Jazz By Valeria NunziatoUnder the artistic direction of Natasha Powell, Floor’d was a fresh spin on vernacular jazz – a journey to another era, complete with live jazz music that has spectators dancing along in their seats. From the strike of the first saxophone to the last dim of the lights, we were offered much more than a show: the audience was given an experience.
Posted May 22, 2018
Shadows Against a Sunset
pataSola dance’s Rift By Olivia C. DaviesResponding to the ongoing worldwide struggle of violence against women and girls, pataSola dance has created a theatrical performance work that pays homage to victims and survivors, while offering a transformative experience of surrender and sanctity.
Posted April 23, 2018
Blurry Reverie, Retinal Rivalry
Dana Gingras’s anOther, in collaboration with Sonya Stefan and Group A By Philip SzporerThe arrival of anOther, by Montréal-based choreographer Dana Gingras, in collaboration with Sonya Stefan and Group A, signals a turning point in the intersection between dance, media and an immersion into cosmic speculation and sci-fi realm. The work is ambitious in its conception and execution, where nothing is quite as it seems.
Posted April 19, 2018
“Story-Being”
Nova Bhattacharya’s Decoding Bharatanatyam By Brannavy JeyasundaramThe spirit of Decoding Bharatanatyam imitates the moments preceding the show – fluttering with discovery, while anchored in movement tradition.
Posted April 5, 2018
When Representation (Almost) Becomes the Norm
Contemporaneity 2.0 at Progress Festival By Molly JohnsonContemporaneity 2.0 is a curating and presenting series with an aim of “unsettling the widespread use of ‘contemporary’ as describing European and white American theatrical dance.” The series opened with Gitanjali Kolanad’s Gandhari. Using Gandhari, a mythological character from the Mahabharata and the martial art form of kalaripayatuu as dual channels of influence and expression, the work is an examination of loss and its effects on the body.
Posted April 4, 2018
