First performed in 1987, Joan McLeod’s *Toronto, Mississippi* is as fresh and poignant in 2009 as ever. The production at the "Vancouver Playhouse":http://www.vancouverplayhouse.com/is strong, playful, and captures the heart of this wonderful play.
Alessandro Juliani and Meg Roe in Toronto Mississippi
Not long after the Dunblane shooting (where a man entered an elementary school in a small Scottish town and shot and killed a teacher and 15 kindergarten children), Martin Amis was interviewed on Michael Ignatieff’s talk show in England. Amis observed that immediately following the events, people said there are no words to describe such a tragedy.
Jennifery Mawhinney and Russell Roberts in Blackbird; photo: Tim Matheson
After a "Vancouver International Dance Festival":http://www.vidf.ca/ show comprised entirely of local performers, a dancer friend and I were discussing the merits of projecting emotion. There seems to be a disturbing trend for dancers, specifically amongst those trained at Simon Fraser University, to completely internalize their performance.
Louise Bedard, dancers willing to emote; photo: George Krump
It was a week ago that I saw *Flower*, a butoh performance with Yoshito Ohno and Lucie Grégoire, part of this year’s "Vancouver International Dance Festival":http://www.vidf.ca/. I am still carrying the memory of this experience and can’t resist writing about it anymore. As time has passed so have the details however, and what I am left with are more general impressions.
Flower: simplicity, contrasts and breaking patterns
This production by the "Evolving Arts Collective":http://evolvingartscollective.com/ misses the mark, though it is not for lack of trying. The costumes, the set, and the lighting have all been thoughtfully designed. The actors are talented and invested. But despite these earnest good intentions, the show flounders in mediocrity.
Family life can be hell: beggars in the house of plenty
Entering the world of "Louise Bédard":http://www.lbdanse.org/ is a lot like wandering into a funhouse of the surreal. There is the sound of clocks ticking out of sync, dancers twitch and writhe as though overtaken by hallucinogenic drugs while being choreographed by a bossy robot.
I wish I could tell everyone to run out and see *Pichet Klunchun and myself*, part of this year’s "Vancouver International Dance Festivalh":http://www.vidf.ca/, but it ended last Saturday and that’s a damn shame. Anyone interested in contemporary performance, and why it’s worth doing and seeing, would have found illumination and inspiration from this piece.
There it is again. Vancouver. Spread across a huge screen that is the backdrop for *Two Night Stand*: an interdisciplinary performance, part of the current "Vancouver International Dance Festival":http://www.vidf.ca/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1, it features four musicians, one singer, two butoh dancers, and a beautiful time-lapse film by Clancy Dennehy.
Tanya Tagaq, lounge-singer-meets-designated-mourner in two night stand
Finally: this is where "bharatanatyam":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharatanatyam is going; this is where it has a future as a contemporary dance form. In a city as diverse as Vancouver, with such a large South Asian population, why has it taken me so long to see a successful contemporary version of this form?
Nova Bhattacharya provides a primary view as part of this year's VIDF
