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Julio Hong: Yemayo

By Julye Huggins

The Dancing on the Edge festival in Vancouver, running July 5th through 14th, has a great lineup of artists this year. Among them is Julio Hong of Montréal, whose show Yemayo runs July 10th and 11th. The work is inspired by Yemaya, an orisha (spirit manifestation of god) that is the essence of motherhood, creation and the ocean. Hong explores how, in projecting male identities onto the female deity, one may find Yemaya’s attributes in a man: Yemayo. The four male roles are played by Jacob William Cino, Yadil Suarez Llerena, Geosmany Perez Pulido and Josue Exposito Sanchez.According to the festival’s website: “In this contemporary choreography filtered through ballet and Cuban folkloric dance, music, religion and daily rituals, Julio questions pervasive notions of masculinity in Hispano-American culture and the contradictions of metro-sexual man. A mutual understanding and shaping of a new equilibrium materializes within this intercultural and intergenerational duality of the sexes.”
Learn more:Julio Hong Dancing on the Edge

Posted July 9, 2012

Writing With a Sharp Pencil

As a part of our series, Dance Criticism: Perceptions, challenges and the future, Grace Wells-Smith speaks to four Canadian dance critics about how dance criticism fits into the current fold.

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Perpetually in Motion

Principal dancer and resident choreographer with The National Ballet of Canada, composer, creator and, again this summer, artistic director of the Festival des Arts de Saint-Sauveur – an inspired meeting point of Canadian and international dance and music – Guillaume Côté describes himself as neurotic about dance.

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