Oh how we love you Vancouver – one minute sun, the next a wild thunderstorm. Welcome to May long weekend, West Coast style!
Welcome to the Friday Round-Up, a place for the Vancouver community of dancers and dance lovers to come together and share what is going on in the local dance community. In this new world in which we find ourselves, it is now more important than ever to find ways to connect and share all the many new and innovative ways in which we create, communicate and relate in the world of dance. So if you have something you would like to share with the Friday Round-Up, please send it to debora@dancehouse.ca. We look forward to hearing from you!
If you are reading this before 5 pm Friday May 21(online) you still have time to join Made in BC – Dance on Tour (MiBC), in collaboration with the Vancouver Street Dance Festival, in REAL TALK Dance Convo: Women in Hip-Hop. REAL TALK is a public conversation and gathering featuring a stellar mix of five international and local guest speakers discussing their support of women dance artists in Hip-Hop and their experiences creating large-scale platforms to share the work. Speakers include Michele Byrd-McPhee – Executive Director Ladies of Hip-Hop Festival (NYC), Natasha Gorrie,Diamonds in the Rough (Vancouver), Alex ‘Spicey’ Landé, award-winning choreographer in hip-hop (Montréal) and Mycs Villoso,Director of The HipHop Dance Convention in the Philippines, the biggest gathering of hip-hop dance in the country. And direct from the birthplace of hip-hop, The Bronx, NY, Kathleen Adams co-founder of Momma’s Hip-Hop Kitchen will moderate the conversation. To register
Also tonight, May 21, 7 pm (online), Upintheair Theatre presents Stéphanie Cyr’s messier objects EP . Eager for the social awkwardness, the oversharing, the sticky hands, the inability to find the answer, the day-old sweat, the misunderstanding, the stutter, the trip, the drool, the wobbly knees, the oozing… messier objects EP is a visual album featuring three video performances directed and produced by Stéphanie Cyr. this project seeks to merge already existing formats of presenting creative content to birth new and intimate ways of making and witnessing performance. For registration and more info.
Saturday, May 22nd @ 4:00-4:45pm (Online), join New Works for a Free Online Share Dance Workshop: Creative Dance with Harmanie Rose! Classes will be live-streamed on Zoom. This program is designed for families with children 6+ years old, but everyone is welcome to participate! Harmanie blends hip hop, ballet, contemporary, and creative dance to create a unique and fun class that promotes fun and self-expression for children and their families, all in an inclusive and welcoming space for people with and without disabilities Harmanie Rose is a disabled dance artist, facilitator, and choreographer with the award-winning All Bodies Dance Project in Vancouver, BC, Canada as well as a member of the InterpenDance Collective. Harmanie is curious about how the disabled lens can enhance and provide clarity about the bodies and space we inhabit. In addition to studying with internationally renowned companies, Candoco Dance Company (UK) and Axis Dance (US), Harmanie has worked with critically acclaimed dance artist Alice Sheppard in her film Inclinations. Details & how to register.
Also on Saturday, May 22, 5 pm Flamenco Rosario brings you Regeneration, an afternoon of live Flamenco performances live-streamed from the Annex Theatre in Vancouver, and choreographed by Rosario Ancer (Vancouver), Pilar Ogalla (Spain) and Albert Hernández (Spain). FREE! To register
Tuesday May 25, join New Works and Made in BC – Dance on Tour for OUTDOOR DANCE LAB, three free online events designed to support dance and multidisciplinary artists in the development of their site-specific/outdoor dance practices and presentation planning. Outdoor Dance Lab is open to creators of all levels of experience with working out-of-doors. The day will be divided into 3 parts, and you are invited to come to 1 or join all 3! Producing Work Outdoors: A Case Study: Karma Lakoff (Rotary Centre for the Arts, Kelowna) & Anya Saugstad discuss their ongoing process to produce outdoor work in Kelowna. In Conversation with the Land: Land Acknowledgements from a Kanienkehaka Worldview: Facilitated by Lindsay Katsitsakatste Delaronde, Kanienkehaka from Kahnawake. Production and accessibility considerations for Site-Specific Work: Connect with Vancouver based experts about the long list of considerations when creating work in outdoor spaces. Waste management, power, permits, water, transportation, signage and more! Featuring Marie Lopes (Coordinator – ACE Team, Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation), Kay Slater (Accessibility Consultant), Christie Watson (Managing Director, Rumble Theatre); moderated by Heather Lameroux (Executive Director, Vines Art Festival) This event is on Zoom, and will include auto-captions in English. Registration
May 27 – 29 (online) the Vancouver International Dance Festival presents Wanted by CAMP. Wanted is a fantastical exploration of the light and dark extremes of humanity, told through the lens of the cowboy. In a performance rich with artifice, aesthetic, exaggeration and comedy, CAMP takes a campy dive into themes of systemic evil. Panic, blame, and desperate acts of self-preservation rise to the surface, and in turn, so do escapism and indulgence. Wanted references iconography of the cowboy for its wealth of imagery, a sense of nostalgia and fantasy. The violence entrenched in the history of the Wild West provides a dynamic backdrop for their characters as they try to negotiate their day to day lives. Their humanity is unraveled in a performative storm that is broken by moments of self-awareness, forcing them to reconcile with the sins that are committed in the throes of chaos. Check out a video and then buy your tickets here.C
May 28, 8 pm and May 29 3 and 8 pm (livestream), the Dance Centre presents a double bill of expressive and thoughtful contemporary dance works by Marissa Wong and Katie Cassady of the innovative collective TWObigsteps. Departure, choreographed and performed by Wong, is a solo exploring the impact of past experiences on our behaviour patterns. Cassady’s duet II explores a relationship between two women, and the dynamics of power, connection, and support. Check out a trailer and buy your tickets here. And for more news about new directions for Marissa Wong, check out her new company The Falling Company!
Also May 28 at 7 pm and May 29 at 5 pm (livestream), the plastic orchid factory presents entre chien et loup, a new solo performance by James Gnam. entre chien et loup [literally, between dog and wolf] is an expression from old French commonly used to describe a time of day when the light is so dim one can’t distinguish a dog from a wolf. Twilight, dawn, dusk. entre chien et loup is also a moment for transformation, “the hour in which every being becomes their own shadow, and thus something other than themselves. The hour of metamorphoses, when people half hope, half fear that a dog will become a wolf.” (Barbara Bray, from the translation of Jean Genet’s Prisoner of Love.) Gnam embodies multiple layers of this expression to expose his process of making a solo during a pandemic. The work develops through cosplay and child-like inquisitiveness, reaching into the thresholds of the familiar and unfamiliar, of safety and threat, of human nature turning wild and uneasiness replacing certainty. Broadcasting live from Left of Main, entre chien et loup uses live camera feeds and restricted space to travel counterpointed movement scores and physical states, accompanied by James Proudfoot’s responsive lighting design and Eric Chad’s generative projections that obscure and reveal the domesticated beast within the feral animal. FREE/by donation. Tickets
