Vancouver’s contemporary dance scene takes centre stage in Dance In Vancouver, November 22-25. This biennial event provides a unique opportunity to experience the energy and innovation of contemporary dance generated by local artists. The 2017 edition features some of the West Coast’s most exciting artists and companies, including Aeriosa, Co.ERASGA, Julianne Chapple, Lesley Telford | Inverso, Karen Jamieson & Margaret Grenier, Wen Wei Dance, Ziyian Kwan | dumb instrument Dance, Shay Kuebler | Radical System Art, and more. Organized every two years by The Dance Centre, Dance In Vancouver is unique for its concentrated focus on promoting the province’s contemporary dance talent, not only to local audiences, but also to dance promoters and scouts who come from across Canada and around the world to sample West Coast dance.
Wen Wei Dance
Dialogue
Wednesday November 22, 8pm
Communication and the human need to connect inspire Dialogue, created by Wen Wei Wang for six powerful and expressive male dancers. Based on his personal experience as a non-English speaking immigrant to Canada, the work expresses our basic desire to be understood, and the loneliness when connections with others are not achieved.
DOUBLE BILL:
Meredith Kalaman Femme Fatales (excerpt)
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Ziyian Kwan / dumb instrument Dance Kwan Yin
Thursday November 23, 8pm
Contemplative and entrancing, Kwan Yin is danced by choreographer Ziyian Kwan with her 78-year-old father Lihuen Kwan, and features live music by cellist Peggy Lee. The piece is rooted in Buddhist thought and philosophy, and provides a poignant reflection on the love and compassion between a parent and child.
Meredith Kalaman’s Femme Fatales takes a poetic and thought-provoking look at gender socialization, tracing historically gender-defined roles as far back as the witch-hunts of the past, to question their impact on inherited behaviours today.
DOUBLE BILL:
Karen Jamieson / Karen Jamieson Dance & Margaret Grenier / Dancers of Damelahamid light breaking broken
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Lesley Telford / Inverso Spooky Action at a Distance (Phase One)
Friday November 24, 8pm
Karen Jamieson and Margaret Grenier’s intimate light breaking broken is a personal journey by two artists reconnecting with language, culture, and identity. With different perspectives and individual histories, they use their distinct dance styles to push each other’s boundaries and forge a luminous path to understanding.
Spooky Action at a Distance is inspired by Einstein’s famous phrase referring to particles that are so closely linked, they share the same existence. Lesley Telford’s imaginative collaboration with poet Barbara Adler blends spoken word and intricately beautiful choreography, to extend the theory to human connections in our phenomenally interconnected world.
MIXED PROGRAM:
Julianne Chapple + Mahaila Patterson-O’Brien + Marissa Wong + Shay Kuebler/Radical System Art
Saturday November 25, 1pm
Julianne Chapple’s trio Self Portrait is a complex and subtle study of identity and female self-image, drawing on depictions of women in art and the relationship with the spectator.
Mahaila Patterson-O’Brien’s duet 8bitself meditates on abstract gesture.
A collaboration with musician Jamie Bradbury, Marissa Wong/TWObigsteps collective’s Surrendurance investigates social behaviour as a series of complex patterns, and themes of spontaneity versus control, in a fluent and elegant work for five dancers.
Shay Kuebler/Radical System Art’s solo Feasting on Famine (excerpt) traces one man’s journey through the extremes of bodybuilding and health fitness, exploring the symmetry between the human body, the corporation, and the excesses of capitalism.
DOUBLE BILL:
Aeriosa Second Nature (excerpt)
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Co.ERASGA Tracing Malong
Saturday November 25, 8pm
Renowned for thrilling aerial dance works which blend art, environment and adventure, Aeriosa’s latest creation is inspired by bamboo, both as a substance and a metaphor. Second Naturebrings together a cast of fearless dancers and an original score by Jordan Nobles, tracing a path through shifting perspectives.
Co.ERASGA’s Alvin Erasga Tolentino pays homage to his Filipino roots in Tracing Malong. A traditional fabric with many uses in daily life, the malong is at the heart of this dreamlike ensemble work, which explores multi-layered themes of history, culture, identity, and the relationship between tradition and the contemporary world.
Wednesday-Saturday November 22-25, 2017
Scotiabank Dance Centre, 677 Davie St, Vancouver
Tickets: $32/$24 students & seniors
Tickets Tonight: 604.684.2787 www.ticketstonight.ca
Information: 604.606.6400 www.thedancecentre.ca
Photo by Erik Zennstrom
