Silly walks to support CADA-ON

>> by Kate Stashko
The Canadian Alliance of Dance Artists Ontario Chapter (CADA-ON) is hosting The Ministry of Silly Walks Walk-A-Thon on Wednesday, April 29th beginning at 5:30 from Yonge-Dundas Square. Participants will create their own silly walk and parade through downtown Toronto for half an hour to raise awareness and pledges, and to celebrate International Dance Day. Recruitment for the event will take place on Sunday, April 26th during the International Dance Day festivities at Yonge-Dundas Square. Online video submissions are also accepted. As Elizabeth Chitty, executive director of CADA-ON explains, “In tough economic times, it has become difficult to obtain government grants for the development of silly walks, and as a result, the city of Toronto has become gravely deficient in the splendor of silly walking. CADA-ON is calling out to our lost silly walkers, so that together we may unite as proud ambling citizens, supported by pledges from the public.” The event, in support of CADA’s Ontario Chapter, is based on the 1970s Monty Python comedy skit.

CDA reports to Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage

>> by Amy Bowring
Canadian Dance Assembly (CDA) Executive Director Shannon Litzenberger made a presentation to the all-party federal Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage on March 9th, 2009. Her presentation addressed funding reductions that have directly affected the dance milieu, specifically the PromArt and Trade Routes programs and the Capacity Building component of the Canadian Arts and Heritage Sustainability Program. Litzenberger reminded the committee that the cuts to these programs were made without consulting stakeholders. She told the committee, “Touring internationally provides added workweeks for artists and production staff, and leverages revenue returns through performance fees that are substantively higher in foreign markets than they are domestically.” She cited numbers from 2007/08 illustrating to the committee that investment from PromArt and Trade Routes had supported over 650 dance performances abroad and she informed the committee that “failing to replace investment in international touring will compromise the effectiveness of other funding commitments and the ultimate viability and sustainability of the sector as a whole.” CDA recommended that the federal government invest $12 million to support international touring and foreign market development, that the endowment matching program and investment in capacity building measures be renewed, and that $100 million in new, permanent funds be added to the Canada Council’s base funding.

Second season of So You Think You Can Dance Canada

>> by Marie Claire Forté
After a successful first season, with an average of 1.4 million viewers per episode, So You Think You Can Dance Canada will return for a second season this fall with much of the original cast. MuchMusic VJ Leah Miller will host the show alongside permanent judges Jean Marc Genereux, ballroom dance champion; and Tré Armstrong, contemporary/funk dancer and choreographer. Alternating judges will include the commercial dancers and choreographers Blake McGrath and Luther Brown. So You Think You Can Dance Canada holds cross-country auditions to select twenty dancers to perform in the season’s premiere show. Learning and performing various styles for the camera, dancers are then voted to remain on the show by viewers each week. The winner receives a cash prize and a car. Following the television show, the first season’s top ten dancers, including winner Nico Archambault from Montréal, toured the country with a live stage performance.

Lola MacLaughlin (1952-2009)

>> by Amy Bowring
Vancouver-based dance artist Lola MacLaughlin died on March 6, 2009 of cancer. The well-loved choreographer was known for her generosity of spirit and meticulous attention to choreographic details by the dancers with whom she worked. MacLaughlin was born in Oliver, British Columbia, and grew up studying dance, while also involving herself in music and drama at school. Her initial post-secondary studies were in psychology and biology but she ultimately graduated from Simon Fraser University (SFU) with a BA in dance. The interdisciplinary nature of the School for the Contemporary Arts at SFU was an important influence on her work as was the German Expressionist dance form ausdruckstanz and her studies in Berlin at the Freie Universitat. In 1982, MacLaughlin co-founded the Vancouver collective EDAM (Experimental Dance and Music) with Peter Bingham, Barbara Bourget, Ahmed Hassan, Jay Hirabayashi, Jennifer Mascall and Peter Ryan. Here, she began to present her first professional works. She left EDAM in 1989 to found her own company, Lola Dance. Among her notable group works are Four Solos/Four Cities (1999), Volio (2002) and Provincial Essays (2007). Cultural critic Max Wyman described MacLaughlin’s work in a press release, “Fresh and honest and clever, her work explored the possibilities of expressive movement in original, sometimes startling and often witty ways.” During her career, MacLaughlin received the Clifford E. Lee Award, Jacqueline Lemieux Prize and an Isadora Award. A memorial event was held on April 6th at the Scotiabank Dance Centre and a legacy fund to support emerging choreographers is being planned.

PHOTO: Lola MacLaughlin / Photo by Alex Waterhouse-Hayward

Anniversaries

>> by Amy Bowring
Halifax’s YOung Company, which presents pre-professional dancers in modern dance concerts, celebrates its twentieth anniversary with performances May 8th and 9th, 2009 in Halifax … Decidedly Jazz Danceworks marks its twenty-fifth anniversary with performances in Calgary June 3rd through14th … The 2009/10 season marks other notable anniversaries. The Royal Winnipeg Ballet (RWB), the oldest ballet company in Canada and the longest continuously run ballet company in North America, will celebrate its seventieth anniversary. As part of the festivities, the RWB recently launched its “70 Stories for 70 Years” campaign for which it is gathering fond, funny and interesting stories from alumni, staff, audiences and others. Stories can be sent to anniversary@rwb.org; stories will be published on the RWB website and in newsletters throughout the season … Canada’s National Ballet School (NBS) celebrates its fiftieth anniversary and is planning to exhibit materials from its archives in its Toronto home. Among other events spread throughout the year is an international choreographic festival titled “Assemblée Internationale, 2009: Collaboration. Choreography. Conference. A Student-Centred Dance Celebration” scheduled for November 2009, which involves pre-professional schools in Canada, Europe, the United States and other countries. There will be an Alumni/Homecoming Weekend in April 2010, a 50th Anniversary Spring Showcase in May 2010, and the Moved to Dance ’10, Annual Teachers’ Seminar in August 2010 …

PHOTO: Jean McKenzie and Arnold Spohr in Swan Lake / Photo by Phillips-Gutkin and Associates Ltd., courtesy of Dance Collection Danse

Canadian artists win at the Bruhn competition

>> by Marie Claire Forté
Two Canadians were honoured at the Eighth International Competition for The Erik Bruhn Prize on March 18th, 2009 at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto. The National Ballet of Canada’s Russian-born Elena Lobsanova won the award for best female dancer, competing alongside female dancers from American Ballet Theatre, Royal Danish Ballet, San Francisco Ballet and Stuttgart Ballet. Canadian contemporary choreographer Matjash Mrozewski won the new Choreographic Prize for his work Dénouement, performed by the National Ballet’s Lobsanova and Noah Long. Cory Stearns, a soloist with American Ballet Theatre, won the award for male dancers. The winners each received a cash prize and a sculpture by Canadian artist Jack Culiner. Erik Bruhn (1928–1986), danseur noble and artistic director of the National Ballet from 1983 through 1986, created the prize as part of his legacy to celebrate talented young dancers.

PHOTO: Cory Stearns of American Ballet Theatre and Elena Lobsanova of The National Ballet of Canada, winners of The Eighth International Competition for The Erik Bruhn Prize / Photo by Bruce Zinger

Recent dance on screen

>> by Marie Claire Forté
In March, Bravo!FACT screened Sven Johansson’s short film En-Trance Assoluta, at an event in honour of the 2009 Innoversity Summit for innovation, creativity and diversity in media and the cultural sector. BC-based artist Johansson is the inventor of the ES Dance Instrument, an operator-run device that enables a performer to be moved up to twenty-three feet above the floor and to be rotated 360 degrees … The television documentary Ballet High premiered in March in Winnipeg before airing on Bravo! in April. After making the three-part series Ballet Girls, co-producers Merit Jensen Carr and Vonnie Von Helmolt and director Elise Swerhone created Ballet High, a feature documentary on the 2008 graduating class of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School’s Professional Division. They followed the twelve graduating students through their last year at school, preparing for their transition to professional dance … Izabel Barsive premiered Lustrale at the Ottawa Film Festival in March. Lustrale features the choreography of Ottawa’s Anik Bouvrette and performances by Christel Bourque and Jaqueline Ethier.

Dance abroad

>> by Marie Claire Forté
The Danube University Krems, in a city on the outskirts of Vienna, Austria, will be hosting The International ChoreoLab Austria as a pilot postgraduate program in dance and choreography, developed in cooperation with the Tanz Atelier Wein in Vienna. The two program directors, dancer and choreographer Sebastian Prantl of Tanz Atelier Wein, and professor Gerhard Gensch, department head for arts and management at Danube University Krems, will teach fifteen to twenty-five students during three project modules beginning in September 2009 … Under Artistic Director and CEO Alistair Spalding, Sadler’s Wells launched The Global Dance Contest, an annual competition that will run for four years. The contest asks participants eighteen years of age and older to upload a thirty-second to three-minute excerpt of dance to YouTube by July 17th, 2009. From these works, a panel of judges chaired by Spalding will select ten finalists and invite them to create a longer work with their own resources that will be submitted to public voting via the contest website (www.globaldancecontest.com) on September 1st. The winner will be announced in November and will receive a cash prize along with an invitation to perform in January 2010 at Sadler’s Wells Sampled, a showcase of different dance styles designed to introduce new audiences to dance. “It’s really a global search for new dance talent,” says Spalding.

Dance Ontario Community Dance Partnerships & Dance For Youth Forums

>> by Amy Bowring
Dance Ontario has been building partnerships with communities from southern to northern Ontario. Since the fall, the provincial service organization has held its Dance for Youth Forums in London, Parry Sound, Sault Ste. Marie, North Bay and Hamilton. Along with the forums, Dance Ontario’s Community Dance Partnerships have helped to bring companies such as Kaeja d’Dance, Canadian Children’s Dance Theatre, Esmeralda Enrique Spanish Dance Company, Ballet Creole, Motus O Dance Theatre and The Chimera Project to these communities.