Video

Backbone

New Contemporary Indigenous Dance

Backbone by Red Sky Performance / Video provided by artist

Contemporary indigenous dance and raw athleticism come together to express power, formation and spirit in Backbone by Red Sky Performance’s Artistic Director, Sandra Laronde. Backbone is a new dance creation inspired by the backbone of the Americas, a continuous sequence of mountain ranges spanning North, Central and South America, as well as Antarctica.

This work features collaborative choreography by Thomas Fonua and Jera Wolfe with excerpts by Laronde and Jacob Frazier on eight dancers from Canada, the United States, New Zealand and Mongolia. Backbone is co-produced and commissioned by The Banff Centre, where it premiered August 27, 2015.

In 2016, Backbone was selected to participate in the 98th International Society for the Performing Arts’ Pitch New Works Committee, at their annual congress in Melbourne, Australia. Laronde will have the opportunity to present and discuss the work in a forum with over 400 performing arts professionals from 50 countries.

Learn more about Laronde and Red Sky Performance’s creative process in the profile the May/June 2016 issue.