Dance TO Showcase Feature #9: Forgive the pun...short and sweet with Yvonne Ng


Please forgive the pun, but our final feature on the Dance TO Showcase artists and presenters is short and sweet on all counts: Yvonne Ng. She may be small, but she is a dynamic performer, thinker, doer, high-energy, witty and compassionate. She is a choreographer and dancer like no other, but also, and importantly, the director of the dance: made in canada/fait au canada festival (d:mic/fac).

Don't forget to get yourself out to the opening party of Dance TO Showcase events, tonight September 28th 5-6:30, followed by a free showcase performance with Louis Laberge-Cote, Tribal Crackling Wind and inDANCE. 

And here, to finish off our interview series, the succinct and smart answers of Yvonne Ng.


LUCY: Why was d:mic/fac founded? How has that shifted over the years?

YVONNE: It was founded to give back to the community, my community; as a complimentary platform to DanceWorks and Harbourfront Centre; as a way to expand my dual life. In addition to dancing/choreographing i also enjoy producing. It started as a short run of shows every other year, but has since changed to a festival format - more programmes in each edition of the festival.

LUCY: What keeps you inspired as a dancer, as a creator, as a curator?

YVONNE: Inspiration for me comes from many sources, it is hard to narrow it down because that kind of isn’t how my mind or life works.  I mean, people are incredible - what we deem the brilliant or good and the less brilliant, bad people, how we respond to each other, what we do to each other knowingly and unknowingly.  I’m not really knowledgable about politics and global issues but the web like nature of the world and its cycles really fascinates me.

LUCY: What do you think dance artists can do to improve the health of the Toronto dance community?

YVONNE: In general, we should feel even more proud to be a dance artist BASED in Toronto, boast about it.  We’ve got a strong contingent of superb dance artists in Toronto.  We also have dance artists who are wonderfully enterprising and motivated, if they want to initiate change - create complimentary services or join forces with existing organisations who are probably looking for new voices etc. One negative:  Don’t be reinventing platforms just for the sake of building it yourself.  

LUCY what is your dream d:mic/fac?

YVONNE: dance: made internationally - exchanges with different countries - my dream has always been that a dance:made in canada would be a reciprocal exchange with other countries.  That an entire program would travel to Germany or China and Toronto audiences would have dance: made in Germany or China come here.

LUCY: Can you tell me about a performance you’ve seen that was a game changer — artistically or personally? Something you were in the audience for, rather than performing in. 

YVONNE: I'm not really inclined to pick favourites mostly because I just think there is such diversity in dance.  How can I compare a beautiful and raw solo at Series 8:08 to Jean Pierre’s Joe with a dozen amazing dancers creating this visual and sonic cacophony?


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My battery is pure love

Image
part one by Lucy Rupert for D and P, always. for Badie, David, Edan, Esperanza, Josh, Jovia, June, Patrice, and Yuki, with whom I shared time and space at the Ucross Artist Residency program in April 2023. And for Tawni, who understood the song. ** I fly through utter blackness. On one of those small planes that seats 50 people, the depth of the blackness is vivid. I am passing through a portal. Who knows what is on the other side? Well, most of the other people on the plane know. This is their daily commute. But for me it is flying into a myth. ** I am nervous. I am running. I am obsolete. I am stumbling. I am a calculator. I am a bird watcher. I am perpetual motion. I am an elevated heart rate. I am scared that I am not enough. I am full of love. ** I am sitting in the lobby of the hotel waiting for Tawni, the Ucross Artists’ Residency  Manager. I am allowing the almost nothing that is happening to be profoundly something. I eat scrambled eggs, toast, and coffee at the compliment...
Read more

OGRES OF LIFE: Serge Bennathan and the original cast of "Chronicles of a Simple Life"

 OGRES OF LIFE: Serge Bennathan and the original cast of “Chronicles of Simple Life” written and compiled by Lucy Rupert FIRST STEPS “Because our conceptual systems grow out of our bodies, meaning is grounded in and through our bodies. Because a vast range of our concepts are metaphorical, meaning is not entirely literal.” Lakoff and Johnson, Philosophy of the Flesh, p. 6) Meaning is embodied. This is true for the meanings found by the dancer and by the audience member. Dance strives to reveal something to the audience, perhaps something they didn’t realize they needed to know. In the best situations, this audience experience happens viscerally and invisibly. On November 5, 1993, as a second-year student pursuing a Joint Honours bachelor’s degree in dance and music at the University of Waterloo, I had my first visceral and invisible experience as a dance audience member: Chronicles of a Simple Life, choreographed by Serge Bennathan and performed by the Dancemakers company at the Hu...
Read more

EUNOIA in Calgary: Marie France Forcier relocates and Fujiwara Dance Inventions at Fluid Festival.

Image
1    Marie France Forcier is the artistic director of Forcier Stage Works, a dancer and new Calgarian. After her very recent relocation from Toronto to Calgary. She made the performance of Fujiwara Dance Inventions' EUNOIA an assignment for her class at the University of Calgary Dance Department. EUNOIA is on tonight at Theatre Junction GRAND as part of Fluid Festival in association with Word Fest. Here's a quick Q and A with Marie France.       photo of Marie France Forcier by Walter Lai       LR: How is the relocation to Calgary going for you?  MFF: There have been a lot of changes in my circumstances this year: I became a mother, I relocated out West after 15 years in Toronto and I started my first academic appointment. When people ask me this question, I find it hard to isolate the Calgary factor in the equation. So, I’ll answer as best I can: well enough! I feel as though I haven’t yet gotten much of a sense of the l...
Read more