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
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
The Dusty Flowerpot Cabaret is a collection of thirty or more multidisciplinary performance artists. They have recently been given a commission from the Pivot Legal society to investigate the meaning of the word “justice”. The concept they arrived at through a process of collaboration with each other, and with their community, is that the core essence of justice is an action. The act of listening.
Listening to the Jar is Meris Goodman as the Seeker, with Crystal Draper, Candice Curlypaws and Alex Danard; photo by Christache Ross
Your quick thinking Plank Panel: *Ashleigh Dalton*: writer and community development worker who can teach you to tango in twelve minutes. *Rachel Scott*: writer and theatre gal who can make and drink a martini in twelve minutes.
