Brian Webb
Edmonton
Brian Webb graduated with distinction from the University of Alberta with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre. He then moved to New York City, working with Eric Hawkins who had an influence on his early dance making. During the 1970′s, Brian premiered many of his first dances with the Carol Conway Company in New York. Returning to Edmonton in 1979, he formed the Brian Webb Dance Company as “company in residence” at Grant MacEwan College, where he was the Chair of the Dance Program for ten years. The company began presenting a dance season in 1991and is now the largest season of contemporary dance west of Toronto. Since the beginning, the BWDC has been dedicated to experimentation, the new, and a collaborative creative process.
His company has commissioned over 30 musical scores, numerous installations by visual artists and scripts by writers. Brian collaborates with local artists and works to give their work a broad context by tours across Canada and abroad. In 1986, Brian completed a master of Fine Arts degree in Choreography at the California Institute of the Arts. He returned to Edmonton and began to create a solo dance theatre repertoire that presented a series of self portraits in collaboration with composers, writers and visual artists. During this period, he created numerous works with Edmonton visual artist Blair Brennan. These works toured across Canada to Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.
Brian has a keen interest in working with artists from other media and believes in collaboration being the democratic exchange between individuals to make something new. This exchange includes the audience he has developed in Edmonton as a presenter of new dance and interdisciplinary art. His works tour Canada regularly. His collaboration with Jeff McMann, The Mountains and the Plains, toured to New York and numerous Canadian centres. His newest work, The Effects of Sunlight Falling On Raw Concrete, has been performed in Edmonton, Calgary, Regina, Toronto and Ottawa. He toured the dance in his 58th year! The piece was created in collaboration with local artists, Dave Wall [composer] David Fraser [Designer], and Nancy Sandercock {dancer]. Eleven local artists participated in the performance.
