The January edition of The Dance Centre’s Discover Dance! series features the reconnection of music and contemporary dance by Ne. Sans Opera & Dance and artistic director Idan Cohen. Accompanied by pianist/conductor Leslie Dala, this program features the counter-tenor Shane Hanson and Ne. Sans dancers, who will share excerpts of recent works to music by Handel, Bach and Philip Glass.
An award-winning choreographer and multidisciplinary artist based in Montreal, Mélanie Demers dives into the political and the poetic with works which aim to fuse dance, theatre, literature and music with explosive effect. La Goddam Voie Lactée is her response to the harshness of the world: a pagan mass, both celebration and challenge, inspired by the constant mourning that marks our current age....
Designed to allow participants to familiarize themselves with the work of Montreal’s Mélanie Demers, this workshop seeks to be an immersion in the MAYDAY universe. Its aim is to provide tools to explore the questions and intuitions that permeate the company’s repertoire, retracing the path that leads from the quivering of an idea to the deployment of a reality. Body work, heart work, voice...
Flamenco trio Calle Verde - dancers/choreographers Maria Avila and Michelle Harding and guitarist Peter Mole - explores what happens when light becomes an integral fourth member of the group. Focusing on experimentation, play and process, their aim is to share their learnings and present excerpts of work in progress in this informal showing. Supported through The Dance Centre’s DanceLab interdisciplinary research program.
Justin Calvadores, Marco Esccer, Eliza Regenyi, Sarah U and Sarah Wong share and discuss new works in progress in an informal studio showing. 12 Minutes Max aims to foster experimentation and the development of new dance works, along with critical feedback and community dialogue.
glint is a triple bill with new works by Erika Mitsuhashi, Francesca Frewer and Alexa Mardon. Each piece is in a different stage of completion, and invites the audience into a unique context for experiencing the work. Mitsuhashi’s work-in-progress, on the cosmic shore, is multi-media installation for human and non-human performers. Frewer’s new solo, When I Think It Has Yet...
The Music and Dance Project was created last year by Ne.Sans Opera & Dance in partnership with The Dance Centre, to offer local dance artists and musicians the opportunity to come together and develop new works. This short film features work in progress by two of the groups - Kate Franklin and Jeremy O’Neill, and Claire French and James Maxwell...
A world premiere from Corporeal Imago, Throe aims to explore our interdependence in an inhospitable world through an intersection of aerial acrobatics, contemporary dance and visual theatre. Created by award-winning choreographers Gabrielle Martin and Jeremiah Hughes, this new work features six performers in a world of aerial ropes as they cling to what remains in the throes of survival. While Throe hopes to...
Echoing the hashtag #Never21 coined by the Black Lives Matter movement, Never Twenty One pays tribute to the young Black men who have been victims of gun violence in New York, Rio de Janeiro and Johannesburg – and will never reach the age of 21. Three dancers – their torsos inscribed with testimonials from the victims’ families – recount the stories of...
The 5th edition of Matriarchs Uprising Festival, curated by Olivia C. Davies, features a program of new works by Indigenous women artists who aim to be both nurturing and advancing the art of contemporary dance. The week includes live performances, VR screenings, masterclasses, community workshops, conversations and a film series.
The internationally-renowned Indigenous dance company Dancers of Damelahamid brings its work to the stage for the March edition of The Dance Centre’s Discover Dance! noon hour series. Spirit and Tradition aims to layer vibrant dances, singing, drumming and projected imagery to immerse audiences in the ecosystems and culture of the Indigenous lands and waters of the Northwest Coast.
Israeli choreographer Hillel Kogan brings together the materials of his creations in a process that begins with improvisation. This workshop will aim to experiment with the tools he draws upon during the creative process, extracting strategies and applying to them new content that is relevant to the participants: questioning the medium itself and the artistic and social conventions surrounding spoken...
Israeli choreographer Hillel Kogan’s award-winning duet We Love Arabs aims to dive headlong into the toughest of questions – how can we co-exist within conflict? Somewhere in Tel Aviv, a Jewish choreographer enlists an Arab dancer to help create a work that will overcome fears and carry a message of peace: but as the work progresses, power struggles ensue. With...
The Dance Centre’s Discover Dance! noon hour series features Lamondance, a contemporary dance training company designed for emerging artists about to embark on a professional performing career. Drawing dancers from across Canada and overseas, Artistic Director Davi Rodrigues aims to mould ensembles of honed, expressive and fluent performers. This performance will feature a selection of works from the current repertoire.
New Works and The Dance Centre present a preview excerpt of Family Room by The Falling Company. Choreographed by Marissa Wong, it recreates a studio apartment through a set design of furniture and home decor. This is the foundation for a series of solos to interact with the same household objects, each object representing a relationship, dynamic, and history between...
The Dance Centre’s Discover Dance! noon hour series features aerial dance company Aeriosa. New Artists and Approaches in Vertical Dance will share works by company members, Deaf Theatre Artist Landon Krentz and Butterflies In Spirit, a group which uses hip hop, contemporary and First Nations dances to raise awareness of violence against Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirit...
Tethered features three works by Virginia Duivenvoorden and Kay Huang (VDCM) that explore the invisible threads that push us forward and pull us back. Kite is a solo performed with a length of tulle; Yellow is about namesake and cultural identity and Crossing is a duet/dialogue between two artists at different stages of their careers and lives exploring themes of...
doublevision is a contemporary dance duet and digital media performance that seeks to re-imagine the classical ballet pas de deux through physical reclamation and technological intervention using ballet, contact improv, digital avatars and 3D scan technology.
Sammy Chien and Caroline MacCaull co-run Chimerik 似不像, an award-winning interdisciplinary art collective. We Were One is a movement and new media research project which investigates human connections and questions the prejudices we experience as a society. In this informal studio showing, the artists will share and discuss work in progress.
From dance theatre mash-ups and site-specific works to films and interactive installations, the work of Queer Canadian dance artist Meagan O’Shea is almost impossible to categorize, crossing disciplines and continents. Anatomalia is an adventurous international collaboration and a passionate collective healing of the damage done to 'femalia'. Bringing together a cast of five dancers, original sound anddesign and local participants,...
Founded in Montreal by Alexandra ‘Spicey’ Landé, Ebnflōh has earned national acclaim for a distinctive choreographic approach which transposes hip hop dance and culture to the stage. La Probabilité du Néant (The Probability of Nothingness) is Spicey’s most ambitious creation to date; it asks how we can make sense of our actions when witnessing extreme situations - are we spectators...
Interdisciplinary artist Nellie Gossen’s Returns is a convergence of dance, labour and garment fabrication: an innovative experiment and month-long artistic inquiry into the standard 30-day retail return policy. Garments of all kinds are purchased and brought to the studio where they are carefully disassembled, and their materials reimagined into new forms. Gossen works alongside dance artist Erika Mitsuhashi, clothing artist...
The Dance Centre’s Discover Dance! noon hour series features Vancouver’s Voirelia Dance Hub.Choreographed by Alina Sotskova, De/Formed Revival is inspired by Renaissance art and sculpture:three expressive, finely honed dancers take us on a journey of transformation, exploring how we canemerge from a mould that someone else has built around us – to release the past and embrace change.
The Dance Centre’s Discover Dance! noon hour series features Aché Brasil, a renowned company whosework embodies the exuberant culture and rhythms of Brazil. The company will demonstrate folkloric Afro-Brazilian dances and music, including the famous dance-martial art of capoeira – an astonishing displayof acrobatics, breathtaking kicks and self-defence tactics, accompanied by the irresistible sound of theberimbau.