my battery is pure love

Last week I was invited to sit in on two rehearsal sessions at the Theatre Centre, both for portions of the two-week shared programming of Kaeja d'Dance and Cloud 9 (produced by Moonhorse Dance Theatre).  It's a clever sharing. Each company takes an entire evening, but over the two weeks each company also gets a longer trajectory of performance. Contemporary dance performances in Toronto often suffer from dismally short runs, which truncates the potential growth of the creation and its interpretations, so when the arc of performances can be 5 or 6 shows and even those shows over the longer stretch of two weeks, the performers and the performances have a chance to flourish, mature, recalibrate and refine. Toronto artists and producers are getting more creative in finding way stop make this happen. My last blog entry was about witnessing D.A. Hoskins' brand new work for Cloud 9 and today I've got something a little different: CRAVE, Karen Kaeja's 2013 duet fo...

It is worth noting that in my recent visit to a Cloud 9 rehearsal of D.A. Hoskins' "Bird Nesting in Fingers in Bloom" I did not see a run of the piece. Instead I saw a working rehearsal with technical elements at play; spacing, working, playing and serious figuring-out by all members of the team in the room from stage management to lighting designer to choreographer to dancers.  Observing these often awkward and painstaking parts of the creative process taps into a different kind of electricity from watching a run: how do artists choose succinct and simple words to communicate twisting, multi-layered ideas? what is the image-world mutually created by the artists involved? which small moments get a large chunk of time and attention and which are left to sort themselves out? how do authority and collaboration intermingle? My impressions of course are coloured by my personalization of these experiences.  Watching dance is...

It had to be quick because the celebratory performance, An Iconic Journey, is coming up so soon, but I am thrilled to share a brief, but no-less love-filled interview with one of my favourite ladies in Toronto dance, and someone who got balls rolling in new ways in Toronto when she founded her company 35 years ago. Esmeralda Enrique LR: You are celebrating such a big anniversary for the company! What are a few of your proudest achievements with Esmeralda Enrique Spanish Dance Company? EE: I am very proud that we have been able to achieve a high calibre of artistry with our individual dancers, as well as recognition from our peers in Spain, an affirmation of the many years of excellent, well-rounded training and integration of guest artists into our company productions. My core dancers have been with me for over twenty years. EESDC in Letters to Spain LR: What made you want to have your own company? What fuelled that first spark to form your company? EE: It ...