Reviews
That Sweet Spot Between Gallery and Stage
Alexa Mardon and Erika Mitsuhashi’s Tender Engine By Rachel Silver MaddockAcross four evenings this June, VIVO presented Tender Engine, a performance-installation piece co-choreographed by Alexa Mardon and Erika Mitsuhashi. The artists have been in research for over a year through residencies in Vancouver and Halifax, during which they investigated four areas: technology, language, storytelling and “performative expertise.”
Posted July 23, 2019
An Electric Bolt of Messy
Helen Simard’s Requiem Pop By Philip SzporerHelen Simard explores the life and work of music icon Iggy Pop in her newest creation called Requiem Pop, which tackles the notions of hero worship, fandom and the cultural icons we don’t know but love. The work unleashes an electric bolt of messy, self-destructive Iggy chaos onto the stage.
Posted May 21, 2019
Gogol’s Glitch
Kidd Pivot’s Revisor By Philip SzporerThe co-creators of the bold and distinctive Revisor, Jonathon Young and Crystal Pite, bear witness to themes of deceit, tyranny, greed and corruption in their re-telling of Nikolas Gogol’s The Inspector General.
Posted April 23, 2019
Skin, Pain, Plastic and Paper
Kelly McInnes’s SHINY at the Vancouver International Dance Festival By Rachel Silver MaddockJust how deep does the damage go? In SHINY Kelly McInnes gets to the guts of this question in a persistent and stealthy topic: the effects of the beauty standards inflicted on women through media.
Posted April 16, 2019
Alien Rituals
10 Gates Dancing’s TRUST at the Vancouver International Dance Festival By Rachel Silver MaddockThe program describes the duet as a “requiem for wood and stone” – a “primitive mystery of vulnerability and transformation.” With or without these descriptions, the setup places us immediately inside some kind of ritual or spiritual journey, though its parameters and significance are unclear.
Posted April 15, 2019
Renaissance, Ritual and Passion
Toronto Dance Theatre’s Persefony Songs By Collette MurrayAn inquisitive storyline begins as a pomegranate flips through the air. In response, the ensemble rises to engage in a syncopated choreographic trail.
Posted April 5, 2019
Lonely Elegy
Akram Khan’s XENOS By Philip SzporerTo appreciate Akram Khan, the exalted British dance artist, is to see his fierce spins, angled gestures, intricate patterns and the sublime articulation of hands, fingers and feet. But it also means seeing his moments of soft repose, which give pause.
Posted March 4, 2019
In the Cypher
Three street-to-stage performances in Montréal By Helen Simard2019 might be the year that the Montréal stage dance community finally catches on to what’s going on in our city’s street dance scene.
Posted March 1, 2019
Phosphorescent Figures Rattle
Priscilla Guy and Sébastien Provencher’s Deux squelettes By Philip SzporerGuy and Provencher’s characters are, in their work Deux squelettes, two artists who’ve shed, well, everything to probe the meaning of their existence.
Posted February 11, 2019
Stepping into the Twilight of the Sacred
Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet presents Vespers at the National Arts Centre By Sheenagh PietrobrunoJames Kudelka transforms the religious evocation of this 1610 choral masterpiece into a contemporary spiritual testament to the union between animals, humans and nature.
Posted January 11, 2019
Navigating the Voyage
Lucie Grégoire’s Territoires By Philip SzporerIn many ways Lucie Grégoire’s new work, Territoires, is like an elusive secret. She notes that this piece is drawn from previous works and new material – a revisiting of her creative bank of work.
Posted December 7, 2018
Turn Me Inside Out
Rock Bottom Movement’s fantasylover brandishes a feminist awareness with a self-aware wink By Jillian Groeningfantasylover layers pop culture references and vibrant subversion of fairy tale tropes to create a feminist utopia.
Posted November 23, 2018
The Roots and Realities of Colourism
Esie Mensah’s Shades: What is Colour? By Collette MurrayRooted in the fractured phenomenon of shadeism or colourism, Shades: What is Colour? engages with the discrimination deeply embedded in global communities of colour.
Posted October 31, 2018
Watching is Not Seeing
Rebecca Margolick and Andrea Peña & Artists By Lucy FandelA video projection of swaying torsos opens New York-based choreographer Rebecca Margolick’s birds sing a pretty song. Belonging to Austin Tyson and Margolick the torsos slowly turn and cross in front of one another, arms loosely wrapped around themselves.
Posted October 29, 2018
