dance: made in canada / fait au canada celebrates their fifth anniversary this August with new works by internationally recognized Iranian-Canadian artist Sashar Zarif, renowned Toronto-based choreographer DA Hoskins, and Dora Award-winning Molly Johnson. Living legend and 2019 Dance Hall of Fame inductee Louise Lecavalier opens this year's festival with a special artist talk and screening of the recent documentary Louise Lecavalier – In Motion on Wednesday August 14 (see below for details).
The festival wraps up with lottery-based "What You See Is What You Get," interdisciplinary exhibitions called "Arts Encounters," and a dance film series co-programmed by writer and filmmaker Kathleen Smith and festival director Yvonne Ng. This is their most ambitious festival, with five world premieres plus eight Toronto premieres, and according to Ng, “This year’s program centres around impact, whether it is through a connection between two people or an unintended effect between colliding objects. The festival artists grapple with vacillating notions of power and social contracts, but also a keen sense of relation to our bodies and our emotions. From the creative synergy of DA Hoskins and Danielle Baskerville to the formal aesthetics of Katia-Marie Germain’s work, the vast and varied presentations look to literature, fine art, urban culture, and personal experience to probe the boundaries of the contemporary human condition.”
Trailer:
FESTIVAL LINE-UP INCLUDES:
MAINSTAGE Mrozewski Series: Curated by Matjash Mrozewski
Thursday, August 15 at 7pm / Friday, August 16 at 9pm / Saturday, August 17 at 4pm*, *Post-show chat at 5pm
Katia-Marie Germain (Montreal): Habiter (excerpt)
Toronto Premiere
Singular interdisciplinary choreographer and performer Katia-Marie Germain was awarded the prestigious Prix de la danse de Montréal in 2018. In this excerpt of Habiter, the artist experiments with the art historical aesthetic of chiaroscuro, using a single light to explore the relationship between body and place, object and viewer. The work will also be performed in the 13th International Festival of Contemporary Dance, directed by Marie Chouinard and organized by the Venice Biennale.
Josh Martin (Company 605) (Vancouver): Leftovers
Toronto Premiere
Artistic co-director of Vancouver-based Company 605, Josh Martin has worked with iconic artist Justine A. Chambers, Wen Wei Wang, and Out Innerspace Dance Theatre. This solo dance investigates the body as a physical memory bank, traversing muscle tissues, bones, tendons, and organs as sites of remembered histories.
Morrison Series: Curated by Yvonne Ng
Thursday, August 15 at 9pm / Saturday, August 17 at 7pm* / Sunday, August 18 at 7pm, *Post-show chat at 8pm
Named after the late lighting designer David Morrison (1960–2007), this series is dedicated to a dance enthusiast who helped shape the festival.
Parts+Labour_Danse (David Albert-Toth & Emily Gualtieri) (Montreal): La vie attend
Toronto Premiere
Montreal-based co-choreographers David Albert-Toth and Emily Gualtieri transpose political philosopher Thomas Hobbes’ social contract theory onto the movements of five male performers, as they oscillate between a desire for power and the power of fear. The work embodies a theatrical sensibility, as the two creators explore absurdist conflicts of the human experience by co-opting the audience into the performance.
Danse K par K / Karine Ledoyen (Quebec City): GLORIOUS FRAGILITY (excerpt)
Toronto Premiere
From the creator of Osez!, a project that helped popularize dance in Quebec from the early 2000s, comes a work that celebrates dancers’ lifelong passion for a vocation they must inevitably leave. Recorded testimonies from former dance artists are woven into performative treatments in this touching, inspirational piece.
Sashar Zarif (Toronto): Kismet: Opposing Destiny
World Premiere
Internationally recognized Iranian-Canadian artist and researcher Sashar Zarif received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012. Kismet: Opposing Destiny is a work rooted in shamanic transformation rituals; performers embody space and time in raptures of interrupted stillness and silence.
Cruz Series: Curated by Lina Cruz
Friday, August 16 at 7pm* / Saturday, August 17 at 9pm / Sunday, August 18 at 4pm, *Post-show chat at 8pm
Alexandra Elliott Dance (Winnipeg): Logarian Rhapsody
Toronto Premiere
Commissioned by the renowned Tedd Robinson in 2015, this unrelenting duet, featuring Alexandra Elliott and Ian Mozdzen, is never the same twice. Reality is transformed through the two performers’ whispers of desire, urgency, and unattainable need. Charles Quevillon’s intoxicating sound score injects the pair with a physical and emotional intensity that will reach into the audience’s viscera.
Jolene Bailie/Gearshifting Performance Works (Winnipeg): Phase Wash (excerpt)
Toronto Premiere
Founding artistic director of Gearshifting Performance Works and artistic director of Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers, Jolene Bailie pays homage to the endless layers of connectivity between people and locations. Phase Wash is attuned to the expression of deep feeling and sentiment through movement, finding the physical in the abstract.
DA Hoskins/The Dietrich Group (Toronto): Janus is a god
World Premiere
One of the country’s top choreographers, DA Hoskins is the recipient of the Clifford E. Lee Award from the Banff Centre for the Arts, the KM Hunter Award, and the Canadian Stage Award for Direction. Danielle Baskerville won a KM Hunter Award in 2014, a Dora Mavor Moore Award in 2015, and hosted the country’s first-ever Trisha Brown Dance Company Intensive. The two reflect on their 20-year creative relationship in the world premiere of Janus is a god.
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