Company Wang Ramirez (France)

Borderline

October 26 & 27, 2018, 8pm
Vancouver Playhouse (600 Hamilton Street)

Running Time: 70 minutes

Speaking of Dance Pre-show Talk 7:15PM each night in the Vancouver Playhouse Upper Lobby. Moderator: Dorothy Woodend. Guests: Sébastien Ramirez and Honji Wang
Post-show Social after the performance on Friday night in the Playhouse Salons.

VIEW PROGRAM NOTES

Gravity turns elastic in Wang Ramirez’s sensational new work Borderline that weaves together diverse movement styles to trace a line between chaos and control.

Borderline pits five dancers and one rigger against the gravitational forces of weight and resistance. As bodies bend and flip, transgressing emotional and physical boundaries, the apparatus of the work is laid bare. The rigger acts in concert with and against the dancers — manipulator, liberator, and Deus ex machina, a capricious force that upends the story, drags lovers apart, and sends bodies tumbling into space.

Fueled by the performers’ stunning technical skill, and composer Jean-Philippe Barrios’ (Lacrymoboy) score, choreographic duo Sébastien Ramirez and Honji Wang fluidly blend contemporary dance with diasporic identity and blunt social commentary to carve out new territory in the interstitial space between air and ground.

While in Vancouver, the company will offer masterclasses on Thursday, October 25.

“It isn’t enough for Borderline to just be awesome to watch. It opens itself up like hip-hop knows how to do. Societal, political, the performance overflows with the traces of individuals’ journeys.” – Le Monde

“In Honji Wang and Sébastien Ramirez’s new show, Borderline, bungee ropes allow the dancers new powers of movement, letting them defy gravity and struggle against forces of restraint… an ingenious show by stunning performers.” – Evening Standard

“The contemporary dance revolution is taking place. And dancers like Sébastien Ramirez and Honji Wang are on the frontlines.” – L’Indépendant

Top photo: Wang Ramirez, Borderline © Frank Szafinski