Reviews
Hauntings and Bleeding Hearts
Reflections on Kayoi Komachi/Komachi Visited and a crash course in Noh theatre By Heidi SpechtKayoi Komachi/Komachi Visited is an ambitious new chamber opera that blends Japanese Noh theatre and western classical music. Produced by TomoeArts, the work is a collaboration between artists from Japan and Vancouver. The story combines two Noh plays about the renowned ninth-century Japanese poet Ono no Komachi, as well as five of her original poems.
Posted December 12, 2017
Provocative Impressions
Skeels Danse’s Rose of Jericho By Philip SzporerPhilip Szporer offers this follow up to his review of Skeels Danse and Tentacle Tribe – “Sizing Up a Double Dose of Summer Dance.” At the time of publication the works were still in progress. This completed version, presented by Danse Danse, allows for view of the piece in its mature form.
Posted December 5, 2017
Risqué Ballet, Risking Clarity
Alberta Ballet’s Dangerous Liaisons By Fawnda MithrushMounted by Alberta Ballet in 2008, Dangerous Liaisons is an epistolary exchange of manipulation, betrayal, greed and threats of public shaming: the story is fraught with ugly intentions and lurid schemes, told mostly in letters between two ex-lovers attempting to humiliate each other.
Posted November 21, 2017
On Double-Touch and Performing Objects
Deanna Peters’ META By Rachel Silver MaddockMETA showcases Deanna Peters’ unabashed personal style and, with collaborators Justine A. Chambers and Kim Sato, explores the complexity of the human body and its potential for connectivity within and without its physical limits. The work delves into its topic from two angles: exploring the human body first, then placing it in relationship to objects and other bodies.
Posted November 16, 2017
A Cosmic Kind of Minimalism
Dreamwalker Dance Company’s Dual Light and a call to criticality By Molly JohnsonWhen introducing her new work, Andrea Nann is direct and affecting and serves to recast the stage as an “outer space” – a place between celestial bodies and also human ones. The work is part of DanceWorks 40th anniversary season.
Posted November 6, 2017
How Can We Be Fine?
Festival Quartiers Danses’ quadruple bill By James OscarFestival Quartiers Danses offered works by Morgane Le Tiec, Anne-Flore de Rochambeau, Elizabeth Suich and Mélanie Demers. The evening’s performances might have asked, “How might one differently totter, differently walk or differently move beyond our present fragile contemporary lives?”
Posted October 25, 2017
One Waltz, One Requiem
Belinda McGuire performs two new works By Colleen SnellWaltz and Slaughterhouse/Requiem form a double bill of powerful and compelling solo work danced by Belinda McGuire. Both are world premieres, one constructed by Sylvain Émard and one by McGuire herself.
Posted October 5, 2017
The Embodied Remnants of Relationships Past and Present
Saudade by Joshua Beamish and MOVETHECOMPANY By Brittany DugganJoshua Beamish’s Saudade, which was commissioned by Theater Freiburg in Germany, takes its name from a Portuguese word for having a deep incompleteness and recognizing that feeling as familiar. For the men performing, this idea comes across as a variety of relationship-based scenarios – romantic or not. The work depicts a range of relationships that we can relate to, those that are fleeting for us and others that have been lasting.
Posted September 29, 2017
Sizing Up a Double Dose of Summer Dance
Skeels Danse and Tentacle Tribe in Saint-Sauveur By Philip SzporerWhat does it mean to (p)review evolving choreography? Philip Szporer reflects on two works-in-progress from the Festival des Arts de Saint-Saveur.
Posted September 11, 2017
Funhouse Benediction
Tanja Faylene Woloshen’s Holy Wild By Holly HarrisWinnipeg-based contemporary dance artists Tanja Faylene Woloshen and Lise McMillan presented Holy Wild, a surrealistic walk on the wild side inspired by nature and siren calls to freedom.
Posted September 2, 2017
Pasties and Politics
The Toronto Burlesque Festival opens with a Red Carpet Reveal By Grace Wells-SmithThe Red Carpet Reveal opened the tenth annual Toronto Burlesque Festival. Filled with diversity and body positivity, it achieves what some other western styles of dance are still trying to catch up on.
Posted August 10, 2017
A New Spin on an Old Classic
Punyah Krishna and other works by Parshwanath Upadhye By Aparita BhandariRockstar bharatanatyam dancer Parshwanath Upadhye performed in an evening of contemporary bharatanatyam, presented by Sampradayada Dance Creations. Upadhye’s interpretation of a devotee’s adoration of Shiva, more specifically at the famous Chidambaram temple, was both athletic and graceful. His high kicks, leaps and knee turns did not come at the cost of nuances such as beautifully articulated mudras or clarity of movement in his adavus.
Posted August 9, 2017
Carrying a Collective Burden
Michael Greyeyes and Yvette Nolan’s Bearing By Emma DoranBearing is a dance opera co-created by Yvette Nolan, Michael Greyeyes and a cast of dancers, actors, singers and musicians, that will become a vital piece of Canadian theatre. Working with the idea that every Canadian has been in some way impacted by the disgraceful legacy of residential schools, the work is meant to encourage a collective carrying of the burden of this ugly and still present history. Bearing is a high concept work that offers a new model for catharsis via theatrical embodiment.
Posted August 5, 2017
When a Painting Breathes
Marie Chouinard’s The Garden of Earthly Delights By Sheenagh PietrobrunoIn 2016 Marie Chouinard was commissioned by the Jheronimus Bosch 500 Foundation to create a dance piece based on his paintings. United by fearless creativity and twisted beauty, Bosch’s images and the choreography of the Québecois/Canadian choreographer cut through facets of humanity. Her painting respires before our eyes.
Posted July 28, 2017
