Reviews

Performing Performances

By Kathleen Smith SummerWorks Festival

Dance was front and centre at SummerWorks this year, building on some serious bonds forged during past editions of this annual contemporary performance festival in Toronto.

Posted August 27, 2016

Why Love What You Will Lose?

By Don Rieder Lighted Rooms Company of Angels

Lighted Rooms is a hybrid performance that defies categorization. It is a series of poems, story monologues, dance, song and bawdy limericks, an hour-long string of pearls whose thread is the energy and commitment of an extraordinary group of performers.

Posted August 24, 2016

The Range at ROMP!

From experimental solos to Le Jazz Hot By Robin J. Miller ROMP! Festival of Dance

Joshua Beamish opened the nineteenth annual ROMP! Festival of Dance, presented by Victoria’s Suddenly Dance Theatre, with a solo show called Lone Wolf.

Posted July 26, 2016

Edge 2 and 3

Dancing on the Edge 2016 By Rachel Silver Maddock Dancing on the Edge Festival 2016

Kaleido by Tentacle Tribe for OURU Collective, Dialogue by Wen Wei Wang, the neck to fall by Ziyian Kwan and more in this series of capsule reviews.

Posted July 20, 2016

A Wild Way Home in Le Petit Prince

Choreography by Guillaume Côté By Mark Mann Le Petit Prince

Le Petit Prince is both a perfect and a problematic choice. Perfect because the story is already furnished with all the necessary components for a conventional ballet, and problematic because Le Petit Prince is actually a dark and confusing book.

Posted June 20, 2016

Memory, Music and Dance

EDAM presents Induction By Rachel Silver Maddock Induction

Induction presented three new works by local choreographers Amber Funk Barton, Anne Cooper, Tom Shroud and Peter Bingham. As the audience gathered at the warm, intimate EDAM space near the intersection of Main and Broadway, I noticed the casual coziness of the place, worn in by years of dancing and performance.

Posted June 15, 2016

Haunted by the Real in Dana Michel's Mercurial George

Festival TransAmériques 2016 By Philip Szporer, Mark Mann Mercurial George

Philip Szporer and Mark Mann review Dana Michel’s Mercurial George in conversation.

Posted June 8, 2016

Mille batailles

Festival TransAmériques 2016 By Mark Mann, Philip Szporer Milles batailles

“Dance is physical combat most of the time,” wrote Louise Lecavalier in the notes for Mille batailles, a ferocious new work by the legendary Montréal choreographer and dancer at Festival TransAmériques.

Posted June 7, 2016

Never Stop!

Festival TransAmériques 2016 By Philip Szporer Judson Church is Ringing in Harlem (Made-to-Measure) Trajal Harrell

The premise for Judson Church is Ringing in Harlem (Made-to-Measure) centres around what might happen if the Judson Church postmodern artists (Yvonne Rainer, Trisha Brown and the lot) had gone uptown to Harlem to perform alongside the vogue ballroom performers. (His previous works saw the voguers going downtown.)

Posted June 6, 2016

The Black Piece by Ann Van den Broek

Festival TransAmériques 2016 By Mark Mann

When the lights go down at the beginning of The Black Piece by Ann Van den Broek, they stay down. True to the title, the Dutch choreographer plunges both the audience and the performers into obscurity and leaves us there. The darkness isn’t perfect – exit signs and stair lighting reduce pitch-blackness to deep shadows – but it is enveloping, and surprisingly electric.

Posted May 31, 2016

Existential Reflections

Nous (ne) sommes (pas) tous des danseurs by Katya Montaignac and Sophie Corriveau By Philip Szporer Nous (ne) somme (pas) tous des danseurs.

Katya Montaignac teams with Sophie Corriveau, artist-in-residence at the Agora de la danse, for a round table event. Artists involved included a veritable who’s who, mainly drawn from Montréal’s deep pool of dance talent.

Posted May 25, 2016

Renaissance Reimagined

Ballet Kelowna By Brittany Duggan Renaissance

Renaissance is an evening of contemporary ballet and contemporary music inspired by the music of Renaissance masters, a mixed program between Ballet Kelowna and Toronto’s Continuum Contemporary Music.

Posted May 24, 2016

A Ferocious Dance Toward the Heart

Serge Bennathan and Les Productions Figlio By Naomi Brand Just Words

Just Words by Serge Bennathan reaches unabashedly for the heart with its words but hits the guts with its movement. Les Productions Figlio’s latest evening-length work addresses somewhat rare topics in contemporary dance these days such as love, beauty and art, all without apology.

Posted May 13, 2016

This Is Not a Review

Newton Moraes Dance Theatre By Lee Slinger Testosterone

Titles challenge. They confront the potential audience member with a statement about a work. In his newest work, Testosterone, Newton Moraes uses the title as a challenge.

Posted May 11, 2016

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