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!

Right around the corner, on February 17 – 23, (online, link is available for 7 days), DanceHouse is thrilled to present the online Canadian premiere of Body and Soul, choreographed by Vancouver’s own Crystal Pite, and performed by the Paris Opera Ballet. A work in three distinct parts, Body and Soul articulates Pite’s ongoing fascination with conflict, connectedness and the embodiment of the human spirit. Here is a great article that shares a deeper look at the choreographer’s vision in the creation of Body and Soul. As a bonus, before the performance, there will be a 15-minute pre-recorded exclusive interview with Crystal Pite and the Kidd Pivot creative team, all of whom contributed artistically to the creation of Body and Soul. For more information on the work, a trailer to wet your appetite and to buy your tickets, go here.

Tuesday, Feb 9, 7:00pm (online, free) the Rotary Centre for the Arts (Kelowna) presents Body Parts Online Circle Discussion & Performance with Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg. Circle Discussion: A small group of local female-identifying and non-binary people are invited to gather online and/or physically distanced to talk, listen, share our experiences around body image. This discussion is an opportunity to witness and reflect on our lived experiences common and unique. Performance: Body Parts is a solo performance by veteran artist Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg in which she tries to perform her show but gets comically sidetracked by her own body issues and the absurdity of performing virtually. Something has gone terribly wrong! Part stand-up comedy, part Greek tragedy, part performance art, part contemporary dance, this solo is the result of the ever-changing nature of creating art during a global pandemic and our inability to talk about our bodies. To register

Tuesday February 16, 4 pm, Company 605 will share their Dance Centre program DanceLab proposal, a collaboration between filmmaker Brian Johnson and multiple dance artists. They experiment with building movement and choreography filtered through a filmic creation processes, but intended to be performed and experienced within a live context – with dancers attempting to replicate and embody the inhuman processes and digital effects typically only possible with the use of camera and editing techniques seen in video. Responding to the impossible task of physicalizing these digitally altered images and movements in real time, the artists aim to uncover unnatural and re-sequenced iterations of their action, with uncomfortable speeds, extreme qualitative shifts and bizarrely broken momentum, re-imagining their dance through a “digital body”, and replacing their original human movement with something other. As a live sharing of this research is not possible at this time, the artists will be presenting video samples from different stages of rehearsals during an open discussion about their process and findings. Pay what you can – tix. Capacity is limited and registration will close at 3pm on February 16. Please note that latecomers will not be admitted after the event has started.

Thursday February 18 – Saturday February 20, 6pm (online), Francesca Frewer presents her work And does it edge closer? Experience this performance as Francesca dances continuously for one hour. Three separate screens show three different performances of the piece, each shot in a single take. The viewer has the option to cycle through the three videos, to watch them simultaneously, or to experiment with different combinations of playback. And does it edge closer? is a celebration of movement, of being with what arises in the unfolding present, and of the joy, frustration, bewilderment, and, ultimately, satisfaction, of deciding to continue on. To register and watch. FREE

On Wednesday February 24, 6 pm (online), in an informal studio showing, dance artists Maria Avila, Liat Har Lev, Caroline MacCaull & Indigo Porebska-Smith, and Jhoely Triana will share and discuss their work developed in 12 Minutes Max , a Dance Centre program that aims to foster experimentation and the development of new dance works, along with critical feedback and community dialogue. Dancer bios here. FREE