Atlantic Moves at the Festival of New Dance

October 18, 2012 | Five of the Atlantic Moves participants attended the 22nd Festival of New Dance in St. John's, NL. Presented annually since 1990 by Neighbourhood Dance Works, it has grown into one of the premier festivals of contemporary dance in the country, and the largest east of Quebec. While in attendance at the Festival, our presenters attended a number of dance performances and a community workshop. Here's a glimpse at the performances they attended:

Arts and Culture Centre Tuesday October 9

TORONTO DANCE THEATRE

RIVERS

Choreography by: Christopher House

Music Composed by: Ann Southam

Music Performed by: Christina Petrowska Quilico

“Rivers celebrates the sweep of the music (joyful, tender, playful, rhapsodic, serene, frenetic), alternating between large-scale, kinetic strokes and intricately-crafted movement conversations. It is a work in which both music and dance retain autonomy yet their marriage feels surprisingly, deliciously inevitable… a choreography that inspires adventuresome dancing and reveals the vital humanity of the performer.” Christopher House

Christopher House is one of Canada’s most respected dance artists. Born and raised in St. John’s, Newfoundland, he joined TDT as a dancer in 1979, was named Resident Choreographer in 1981 and became Artistic Director in 1994.

LSPU Hall Wednesday October 10

TARA CHEYENNE PERFORMANCE

GOGGLES

Created and performed by Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg

Composer: Marc Stewart

Crime Drama. Murder. We watch the death of another again and again. Either as entertainment or media news fodder or collective nightmare. We are witnesses to our own fear of mortality. Mix that mortality with morality and strange things will happen. But what is it that attracts us so strongly to these ceaseless depictions of untimely demise and bloody crime? In this full-length dance-theatre solo, obsession, bone chilling fear and black comedy translate into disturbingly compelling physicality and the heartbreaking voices.

Tara Cheyenne Performance is devoted to the creation of highly physical, character-driven performance that uniquely blends movement and text, dance and theatre. The company’s vision is to create works that speak to people on levels of common human experience, our own comic-tragic behaviour, and our lives in movement.

LSPU Hall Thursday October 11

MOCEAN DANCE

BESIDE MYSELF, GASPING (2008)

Choreography by: Lisa Phinney Langley

Music: Excellent, Mr. Renfield & Mishima/Closing by Philip Glass; Lost played by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra

Dancers: Ruth-Ellen Kroll Jackson, Alicia Orr Macdonald

Beside Myself, Gasping weaves ideas of crying and rain throughout the movement. Inspired by the interplay of left brain/right brain thought processes, Phinney Langley's choreography explores the constant struggle between instinct and reason that human beings must grapple with every day.

LOUISE MOYES

"MOORE-GALLANT: A DOCUDANCE”

Choreography by: Louise Moyes

Composer: Duane Andrews

Outside Eye: Tammy McLeod

Collaborator: Lisa Porter

Louise Moyes will be performing the first half of a new docudance based on the works of expat Canadian writer Mavis Gallant, who has lived in Paris since 1950, and Newfoundland writer Lisa Moore, who lives in St. John’s. Both acclaimed short story writers, their rich lives, words and the rhythms of language lend themselves ideally to a Louise Moyes' docudance. For this Festival of New Dance we will see a piece based around Gallant's Rue de Lille.

Community workshop

Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg // Voice and Movement

A pre-professional/professional level class in dance-theatre, questioning how voice and movement influence each other.

Check back to our website for upcoming reviews and responses from the Atlantic Moves presenters!