As part of the 2011 Vancouver International Dance Festival, Battery Opera offered a duet simply titled "Lee Su-Feh and Chung Jung-Ah," which is inspired by "the encounter by two women [...] with hyphens in their names." I entered into the evening thinking "this is a pretty abstract point of entry into a non-verbal work of art -- practically speaking, what does this mean?"
If originality is the measure of excellent choreography, then Rami Be'er of Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company surely deserves the highest recognition for his achievement with his piece Ekodoom. Add to that the fact that all of the (numerous) dancers in his company are themselves outstanding artists, and you have a completely absorbing piece of dance that transported me well outside the confines of the ordinary.
So before you read this, I must warn you -- I didn't actually make it through the whole show. I had a few pre-show cocktails at the Alibi Room (a must do for anyone attending a performance at the Firehall) and my bladder simply couldn't contain itself for the entire hour. I was alright until 8:37 (the first time I checked the time on my phone) but my last note about the show simply says I HAVE TO PEE at 8:46. At this point I not so stealthily made my way out of the back of the theatre and...
With "Sound Machine," Zurich-based Company Drift blended cabaret acts into the workings of a mad scientist's laboratory. Performers Béatrice Jaccard, Massimo Bertinelli, François Gendre produced uncanny noises and clever imagery from an unlikely collection of oddities, offering the audience a scintellating array of sensory delights.
As part of the PuSh Festival, Sound Machine ran at the Scotiabank Dance Centre from January 27-29
Maryse Zeidler: I think it would be safe to start by saying wow. I mean, really, wow.
I may be one of the few people who often finds circus acts kind of boring - sitting through one circus act after another just isn't enough to keep me going - but Circa is such an interesting blend of circus with a hint of dance that I was pretty much enthralled throughout. As I sat through the first ten minutes of the show watching the performers slam themselves repeatedly onto the stage...
2010 is drawing to a close and we are still dealing with haywire news sources and mediums messaging messages of all sorts – not much conducive to a good night’s sleep or to enjoying seasonal holidays designed for celebrating peace on Earth.
Bevin Poole, Cai Glover, Vanessa Goodman, Robert Halley and Janine Kamonzeki. cred David Cooper
Collisions between dance and science or dance and technology seem de rigeur these days. In Vancouver, October 2010 saw the premiere of Co. ERASGA’s Shadow Machine, which professed to explore “the conflicting relationships humanity has held with machines and the industrial process since the first years of the industrial revolution.” VIDF 2010 gave us Kitt Johnson’s Rankefod, an “evolutionary solo performance in celebration of the origin of the species.” In the summer of 2010 the Plastic Orchid Factory offered the “contemporary dysfunction” of endDORPHIN, a work expressing an alienated, over-medicated 21st century neurosis through dance. Common to each of these...
Ballet BC opened its 25th season with Songs of a Wayfarer and Other Works. The evening began with the titular work, “Songs of a Wayfarer,” a four-movement piece set to the music of Gustav Mahler, choreographed by Emily Molnar. In many respects, the piece radiated the aura of classical refinement that one associates with ballet: cherished music is translated with lyrical gesture by dancers whose bodies are highly-trained instruments of interpretation. Mahler's Songs 1-V and VII suffused the theatre with an atmosphere of delicate melancholy, and the setting felt like a moody, early 19th century Romantic painting: dancers navigated a...
Sankai Juku has blown me away at least three times now. The first was when I initially learned about them in my Japanese Performance class during my undergraduate degree. The second time was when I saw them perform their piece Kagemi at Place des Arts in Montreal in 2006, and most recently, they did it once more through their piece Tobari: As if in an Inexhaustible Flux.
