my battery is pure love

Well, I'm the one who compiled all these EUNOIA interviews, and it is my blog, so it seems weird to introduce myself....But in case you don't know me, I'm a freelance dancer and theatre performer and for ten years I've been the artistic director/founder of Blue Ceiling dance. I've worked with a number of amazing choreographers and companies over almost 20 years of performing (eek!!) including Anandam Dance, Sashar Zarif, William Yong, Puppetmongers Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille/Allison Cummings, and have spent about a dozen years working with Theatre Rusticle. This is my first time working with Denise Fujiwara's company, although she was an outside eye on two small projects of mine before EUNOIA started. For what it's worth, here are my answers to the questions I posed to everyone else! What were your first impressions or thoughts about EUNOIA the poem and the dance project when you first got involved in Denise's process? I love poetry. At a...

Gerry Trentham is yet another of the impressive performers involved in Denise Fujiwara's EUNOIA. Since 1998 he has been working under the umbrella of pounds per square inch, creating three full evening works and over 30 short works. He is an in-demand voice and theatre coach for dancers, as well as teaching at the renowned National Voice Intensive. He has danced for many of the greatest Canadian choreographers, including 7 years with Dancemakers under Serge Bennathan's directorship. Gerry has a wicked sense of humour and a fluent mind for text analysis, not to mention his remarkable physical presence. Here's his take on his role in EUNOIA -- which includes voice and speech directing as well as performing.   What were your first impressions or thoughts about EUNOIA the poem and the dance project when you first got involved in Denise's process? I had read parts of the book - dense is what I thought --how in the world will the audience stay interested in sitting ...

Below is the poem selected as winner by EUNOIA poet Christian Bok for its unique structure and sound among the entries. We thank all the poetry contest entrants. Every poem was fascinating and surprising. By L.O. sun pun jump un tum must gun sump hush slump pump stump up flush ump tut pup mum fun bugs plush pub hunt puck cut rub tub cuss mutt fuzz tufts skuzz punt cup rum cult us strut hull lull musk bug hum unfug hun buck gut stung

Miko Sobreira is an impressive force in Toronto: performing, presenting a series in his home, teaching salsa at Lula Lounge and to youth, guiding troubled youth and inventing new ways to reach and interest them, and as a human hub that brings great and diverse people together.  Born in Venezuela and trained originally in theatre, Miko has worked with Moonhorse Dance Theatre and Rubberbandance  among many others. He created a raw and ferocious performance with Rebecca Hope Terry and Sasha Ivanochko in Fujiwara Dance Inventions' No Exit, choreographed by Denise Fujiwara. Here is Miko's take on Denise's latest project EUNOIA: What were your first impressions about EUNOIA the poem and the dance project when you first got involved in Denise's process? This sickish mind! (I'm talking about both Denise and Christian!) Based on my theatrical background, I've been always attracted by challenging artists that never settle for the obvious,  and in this par...

If you are following contemporary dance in Canada and don't know Denise Fujiwara you may have been living under a rock. This woman has been a force within the dance community for over 35 years. She started as a gymnast, as part of the Canadian rhythmic gymnastics team, graduated from York University's dance program, founded T.I.D.E. (Toronto Independent Dance Enterprise) and went on to cement her choreographic and performance career through Fujiwara Dance Inventions. She has been mentored by the best and is one of the best mentors herself.  Never afraid of a behemoth, Denise's last ensemble work for her company was inspired by Sartre's No Exit. Now she's taken on Christian Bok's conceptual poetry EUNOIA. Here are just a few burning questions answered by Denise.  What made you want to try EUNOIA as a dance/performance work? I got the idea to use a piece of text as a score for a dance work and pretty immediately thought of Eunoia.   Ro...

Rebecca Hope Terry or as many know her, Hope is a remarkable artist: singer, dancer, writer, choreographer, actor, healer.  I won't sum it up here, for fear of missing some wonderful facet of her so check out: http://www.themovingcompanyperformance.com/Pages/About%20the%20Artistic%20Director.html And now, a bit of Hope's impressions on the process and production of Fujiwara Dance Inventions' EUNOIA. WHat were your first impressions or thoughts about EUNOIA the poem and the dance project when you first got involved in Denise's process? It felt sort of like a monster. EUNOIA is a monster of a poem, mammoth really. An exciting, brilliant, super-charged mammoth.  It was all very intriguing, but I admit that part of me wondered if it was impossible. As the process began to shape itself I realized that it was still a monster, but a nice one. What is the greatest challenge of your role in the project? Getting my self out of the way. Embracing freedom. The p...

Justin Stephenson is an award-winning filmmaker and animator based in Toronto who has an amazing array of experiences from experimental and feature film, to children's work for TVO, music videos for the Rheostatics and Sarah Slean, and film/animation for Fujiwara Dance Inventions' EUNOIA. On top of being a remarkable and imaginative artist he is also one of the nicest people you could work with.  For more about Justin and his work:   http://justinstephenson.com/ Here's his take on EUNOIA: What were your first impressions about EUNOIA the poem and as you first got involved in Denise's project? I was surprised by the idea of staging Eunoia as a choreographed work. When Denise and I first met about the project she described her process as a reflection of the constraints used by Christian rather than an expression of the text. I was really excited by the idea of a choreography that organized the idioms of dance around linguistic ideas rather than narrative or ex...

Sylvie Bouchard has had an impressive and diverse career so far and to add to that spectrum of work she is part of Denise Fujiwara's EUNOIA, premiering March 19-22 at Harbourfront Centre's Enwave Theatre as part of World Stage. Sylvie is originally from Montreal and came to Toronto to train at the School of Toronto Dance Theatre in 1983. Her career has spanned so many things, we can't mention them all here but a few include:co-founding CORPUS, creating Dusk Dances and launching Bouchard Danse as well as dancing for Kaeja d'Dance, Winnipeg Contemporary Dancers, Dancemakers, Susie Burpee, Sashar Zarif and Roger Sinha. Here is Sylvie's perspective on EUNOIA. W hat were your first impressions or thoughts about EUNOIA the poem and the dance project when you first got involved in Denise's process? With Eunoia, I plunged in such unknown territories with speaking text, especially this absolutely beautiful but difficult text, for me, because English is m...

Lacey Smith is the founder and artistic director of Dasein Dance Theatre in London, Ontario. She completed a BFA (Hons.) in Performance Dance at Ryerson University, received Dance Ontario’s Creative Partnership and was selected as one of four finalists for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal’s first National Choreographic Competition. In addition to performing her own choreography Lacey has interpreted works by D.A. Hoskins, Andrea Nann and is an associate artist with pounds per square inch performance.  Lacey is the understudy for EUNOIA, a complex role as she is not understudying one person's part, but fragments of each performers role, as well as acting as rehearsal assistant.  She is an often unsung hero in the process of making and rehearsing EUNOIA and we thought you should know more about her and her view on this massive project. What were your first impressions or thoughts about EUNOIA the poem and the dance project when you first got involved in Den...