In the post-performance artist talk-back after Kokoro Dance's "Love, Sex, and Death" performance, choreographer Barbara Bourget spoke of fusing butoh and flamenco. This idea is visible in the movements of the dancers who combined butoh-style articulated, slow-movements with flexed feet and rounded arms, with the fierce foot-stamping and proud motions of flamenco. They were accompanied by a sound track of luminous, emotional trumpet, sparse piano, intricate guitar, and rich lines of melody carried by the cello.
Mascall Dance's "White Spider" is easily one of the most out-there performance experiences that I have had this year. The stage was equipped with a large revolving disk that was tilted on an angle and moved by a pneumatic lift. Climbing ropes hung from the ceiling, and on the back wall there was a contraption that looked like the ungainly offspring of a lightening rod and a basketball net (it turned out to be a dance/drawing machine). In the second act, a three-sided ladder-like structure was also wheeled onstage for dancers to climb and tumble on.
Seven people are preparing to jump off the south side of the Vancouver Public Library. About 300 people have begun to gather, watching in anticipation. There are no paramedics on site, no safety nets have been deployed. Tension mounts. Children fidget and start to cry. Groups of friends huddle, clutching their daily dose of Starbucks.
Finally, the music starts and the dancers begin to saunter across the face of the library, held safely in place, mid-air, by rock climbing gear rigged to the top of the building. The dancers’ majestic movements are choreographed by Julia Taffe,...
Strange to say, but the more dance I see, the more I like dance that focuses less on performance and more on transcendence. I suppose I wouldn’t like to see, for example, a Shamanistic ritual onstage at the Playhouse Theatre, where I’d paid a substantial sum for my ticket unless it had really great aesthetics, but I’ll take some kind of soulful, interior journey made aesthetic over the impulse to perform for the sake of performing any day. Cloud Gate Theatre’s Moon Water was the kind of show that was so finely crafted that it seemed to emerge naturally...
Dark Matters is the latest offering by choreographer Crystal Pite, the founder of Kidd Pivot. Influenced by Kabuki and Butoh puppet theatre, Dark Matters is a two part performance that deconstructs it's own dramatic premise, immersing the audience in meditations on creation and destruction as part of a cosmic flux.
Part one is a theatrical narrative told through movement, a dark fable about a puppet maker whose creation comes to life and kills him with a pair of tailor's scissors (think Pinocchio gone terribly wrong). The second part is based in pure movement, but though free of narrative,...
Tono: A Red Sky Production is an aesthetically satisfying, dynamic piece of performance that explores the relationships between Aboriginal cultures from opposite ends of the earth, fusing modern dance, North American plains culture and Mongolian traditions.
Tono takes inspiration from shamanic horse cultures, and the result is a strong physical geometry expressive of strong spirit. Full body movements and rhythmic foot stomping are accompanied by throat singing, Mongolian long-song, and the music of the horse-head violin. These otherworldly melodies are grounded by the percussive sounds of xylophone, gongs and hand cymbals. Startling accents come from one unusual instrument...
In court masques designed by Inigo Jones in the seventeenth century, Charles I, King of England, enjoyed a perspectival vision that could be seen properly only from the king’s seat.
Naked, beautiful, natural, and perfect symbols of the male and female bodies, dancers Alison Denham and Billy Marchenski, in one full hour of a most intriguing interpretive performance, tell a history of man and woman, of the body and the soul. A piece of intricate choreography ranging from animalist primal movements to sophisticated modern gestures, their bodies reveal the rawness and the evolutionary change of the human form.
The choreographer, Alvin Erasga Tolentino, collaborates with the two dancers to weave together a unique and deep...
ADAMEVE/Man-Woman, Alison Denham and Billy Marchenski
