Alberta Dance Showcase

FIRST CALGARY FINANCIAL STAGE

See Alberta’s most talented choreographers showcase their best creations to national dance presenters and Calgary audiences. A First Calgary Financial Stage event.

Co-curated by Nicole Mion, Davida Monk, and Brian Webb

Co-presented by Springboard Performance and the Brian Webb Dance Company. The Alberta Dance Showcase is made possible with the support of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the Edmonton Arts Council.

PROGRAM 1

YUKICHI HATTORI | ALBERTA BALLET

Calgary
Zen-Zen
Choreography: Yukichi Hattori
Performers: Mark Wax and Tara Williamson

Zen-Zen is a dance about an inner conflict of a person who is trying to find true state of self-effacement. The true state of peace is a perfect balance. To reach that, everybody takes a different road. And that road is what makes life interesting.

Yukichi Hattori began his ballet studies in Tokyo, Japan when he was six years old. He studied at the Hamburg Ballet School in Germany became a soloist for the company in 2003. He studied street dance in Tokyo and New York and studied No theatre and Kyogen in Japan. In 2006 he became principal dancer with the Alberta Ballet Company. He has choreographed numerous dances.

JASON STROH

Calgary
bang / crunch

Choreography: Jason Stroh
Dancer: Hilary Maxwell
Costume: Tracy Murray
Music: Mountains, Bell Orchestre with Kid Koala, Hangedup

bang/crunch examines the awakening and ultimate demise of a being. We witness the being struggle in controlling muscle and neuronal functions. The being begins to take on emotional qualities that have been harboured in its memory or make-up. Over time, the being becomes overwrought with stimulus causing an eventual breakdown of both body and spirit.

Jason Stroh’s formal dance training began at The University of Calgary. He has since trained in Victoria, Toronto, Montreal, Vienna, New York and Sweden. Jason has performed across Canada most notably with Decidedly Jazz Danceworks (DJD). Jason’s choreographic works have been presented by several Canadian companies.

GERRY MORITA | MILE ZERO DANCE

Edmonton
Ryoanji Blind

Choreography and performer: Gerry Morita
Sound: Ian Crutchley
Thanks: Lin Snelling, Lester Lee and Mile Zero Dance

A structured movement score based on the work of John Cage. While following the outlines of a traditional Japanese stone garden, Ryoanji Blind deals with principles of containment, East versus West, motion versus stillness, seeing versus hearing, and ritual/repetition.

Edmonton-based Gerry Morita is interested in performance that values honesty towards the body and communication with the audience. Choreographically, Gerry has been influenced by contact improvisation, and Japanese contemporary dance forms (butoh and Noguchi taiso). She completed a BA in dance from SFU and is currently doing an MFA in Theatre Practice at U of A. She has been Artistic Director of Mile Zero Dance for five years and has performed across Japan, Canada and Poland.

HEIDI BUNTING

Edmonton
Untitled: Excerpts New Work
Choreography: Heidi Bunting
Performers: Thea Green, Ainsley Hillyard, Walter Kubanek,, Alida Nyquist-Schultz and Raena Waddell

Heidi Bunting weaves the choreography into the music as if it were an additional instrument. She embraces a fast and flexible approach with several things occurring simultaneously, which allows each audience member the opportunity to experience the freedom of individual perception.

Heidi Bunting began her career in contemporary dance in New York City in 1972, where she worked with artists in the Village and Soho scene. She joined Dan Wagoner and Dancers in 1975, and for seven seasons she toured North America and Europe. Most recently, Heidi has been mentor/facilitator for a Creative Process Workshop, she performed with Mile Zero Dance Company Bodies in O at the Art Gallery of Alberta and has had a choreography premiere in Vancouver.

WHEN AND WHERE

Big Secret Theatre
Saturday, October 22
2:30-4:00 PM
$15

PROGRAM 2

MELLISA MONTEROS | W & M PHYSICAL THEATRE

Calgary
Triangular Theories of Love

Choreography: Melissa Monteros
Music: Recorded and live (a singer who also plays the acoustic guitar)
Performers: 6 persons

Triangular Theories of Love is a sensuous and tongue-in-cheek look at long-term love.

W&M Physical Theatre is a professional creation/production company showcasing the choreographic and performance work of artistic directors Wojciech Mochniej and Melissa Monteros. Wojciech & Melissa met in Bytom, Poland in 1991 and began an enduring collaborative partnership since. Their shared interest is in the fusing the dynamics of contemporary dance with the intensity of Polish physical theatre to create work of emotional depth and raw physicality. They have created and presented over 51 new works and have received awards for their contributions to dance in Poland. W&M Physical Theatre has performed works in Canada, Italy, France, Germany, Sweden, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, and Poland.

BOROTSIK | WINDROW PERFORMANCE

Edmonton
Here. Like This.

Choreography: Amber Borotsik in collaboration with Jesse Gervais.
Performers: Amber Borotsik and Jesse Gervais.
Music: Composed, arranged and performed by Cory Vanderjagt

Here. Like this. is an intimate exploration of how the unconscious longing for mystery, for beauty, for myth manifest through the body and the connections that these ineffable threads of longing pull together.

Windrow Performance was founded in 2007 by Edmonton-based interdisciplinary artists Amber Borotsik and Jesse Gervais. Amber and Jesse are contemporary theatre and dance artists; their work straddles the disciplines of theatre, dance and performance art. Individually and together they have performed all across Canada and the United States. In Calgary Jesse has performed twice at One Yellow Rabbit’s High Performance Rodeo, most notoriously in Pig by Kristine Nutting. Amber recently performed in Ghost River Theatre’s production, ONE, by Jason Carnew, which has toured to Toronto, New Mexico and Edmonton. Windrow repertoire includes the multiple award winning Scythe, Relay, Ariadne, Backwater and most recently, a series of improvised performances with the Boreal Electroacoustic Music Society for The Works Art and Design Festival.

ROSANNA TERRACCIANO

Calgary
The not happening was so sudden that i stayed there forever

Choreography: Rosanna Terracciano
Performer: Rosanna Terracciano
Music: Original composition by: Alistair Smith

The not happening was so sudden that i stayed there forever is a flamenco- and contemporary-based work that uses imagery based on an exaggerated idea of the traditional female flamenco costume, the ‘bata de cola’— a dress with a long tail extending from the end. The work was presented as part of a mentored choreographic residency at Dancers’ Studio West in its 2009–10 dance season.

Rosanna Terracciano is an independent flamenco dance artist based in Calgary who dedicates her work to developing a distinct and personal voice at the intersection of traditional flamenco and contemporary dance practices. She travels to Spain regularly to deepen her understanding of the flamenco tradition, most recently training for three months in Seville in early 2011. Among her many performances and choreographies, she has also created a short dance film.

TANIA ALVARADO / LINDA TURNBULL

Edmonton
Crash
Performance by Linda Turnbull, Tania Alvarado and Amber Borotsik.

Co-created and conceptualized by Tania Alvarado and Linda Turnbull, Crash explores our most basic impulses by exposing where catastrophe lives in the body/intrinsic self. On a personal level, what happens when disaster strikes? How significant is the impact of that moment and how does it manifest from our bodies into movement?
Tania Alvarado has been creating contemporary dance and performing professionally since 1997. She has maintained a strong connection with the Brian Webb Dance Company in Edmonton, and performed her solo choreography across Canada, in the U.S. and Europe.
Linda Turnbull has been an active member of the Edmonton dance community as a choreographer, performer, curator and teacher. Since 2004, she has been performing and self-producing dance works and continues to work with the performing arts community in Edmonton on creation and movement workshops, as well as movement-based theatre projects.
This project was made possible with the generous support of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Alberta Creative Development Initiative, the Edmonton Arts Council and the Banff Centre for the Arts.

NAOMI BRAND

Calgary
Close In

Choreography: Naomi Brand
Performers: Veronica Benz and Jennifer Jaspar

In Close In, two bodies are tied in an inextricable tangle. Enmeshed in each-others world, the dancers negotiate the awkward complication of shared space and an intimacy woven with play and rivalry. Close In was premiered in Calgary in October 2010 as part of the Artist in Residency at Dancer’s Studio West.

Naomi Brand began her formal dance training at the University of Calgary where she earned both a BA (Dance) and an MFA (Drama). She has created works for the Alberta Dance Festival, The Fluid Festival, The High Performance Rodeo’s Freakshow and MoMo Dance Theatre, among others. In 2010, she co-founded the Calgary Contemporary Dance Collective to support the development of the local dance community.

HELEN HUSAK

Calgary
Fight or Flight

Choreographer and performer: Helen Husak
Composer: Amir Amiri

A woman, a box, fragmented language and a Czech lullaby, Fight or Flight investigates ideas of multiple cultural identities, expressing loss and finding “home‟ through the universal vocabulary of movement. The piece navigates through emotional seas, igniting the question: where is the state of equilibrium or “home‟ and will she ever get there? Fight or Flight premiered at the 2011 edition of the Canada Dance Festival at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.

Helen Husak is an independent dance artist based in Calgary, with a B.A. degree from the University of Calgary, Program Of Dance. She has studied with reputable dance artists and mentors from across Canada. She is co-director of the Calgary Contemporary Dance Collective, which is focused on establishing a consistent training program and meeting place for independent dancers in the local community.

KIMBERLEY COOPER | DECIDEDLY JAZZ DANCEWORKS

Calgary
Wilds

Artistic Director/Choreographer: Kimberley Cooper
Dancers: Sarisa F. de Toledo, Marc Hall, Catherine Hayward, Dinou Marlett-Stuart, Ivan Nunez Segui, Deanne Walsh, Danielle Wensley. Understudy- Joey Braunwarth
Musicians: Chris Andrew (composer, music director, piano), Rubim de Toledo (composer, music director, bass), Jonathan McCaslin (drums), and Bob Tildesley (trumpet)

Wilds is a 65-minute piece comprising a series of dance landscape paintings based on first moments in the history of the universe and the visceral growing pains of evolution. This section of the piece is about running with the pack, ache and desire, curiosity and hunting. Wilds featured a dramatic set of 15 hanging inverted 20-foot aspen trees that were painted in white flocking and moved throughout the piece. It premiered in Calgary in March 2011.

Kimberley Cooper has danced with Decidedly Jazz Danceworks (DJD) since 1989 and has been Artistic Associate/Resident Choreographer since 2001. She has also had an extensive independent career as a dancer and a choreographer. She is endlessly inspired by the exploration and evolution of jazz dance.

WHEN AND WHERE

Big Secret Theatre
Sunday, October 23
2:30-4:00 PM
$15