Black History in Focus
February is Black History Month and to get the party started TD Bank hosted a launch event at the Royal York Hotel’s Imperial Room Monday evening to unveil this year’s BHM poster by photographer Michael Chambers, above.
It also so happens that Chambers has curated an exhibition of posters celebrating black dance in Canada, which opens today at BAND Gallery (823A Bloor Street West). The BAND show is called Motion and the opening kicks off the 24th Annual International Association of Blacks in Dance (IABD) Conference and Festival hosted by Dance Immersion and running all weekend at Toronto’s Sheraton Centre and the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.
Busy Season For Little Pear Garden
The Canadian Opera Company’s free concert series in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre gears up for another year beginning Tuesday (January 10) with a lunch hour performance by Toronto’s Little Pear Garden Collective. Artistic Director Emily Cheung, left, takes on the role of MC introducing each piece in a program that spans classical and contemporary Chinese dance.
The winter/spring season is particularly busy for Little Pear with performances across the GTA in conjunction with Chinese New Year, January 23. Then it’s straight on to the annual CanAsian Dance Festival February 9 – 11 where Cheung is collaborating with choreographer/
dramaturg Peter Chin on a new work. May brings another flurry of performances with Asian Heritage Month.
It’s an impressive agenda for a small collective with no permanent home. Little Pear Garden exists virtually and is marshalled by Cheung on a project-by-project basis; she books rehearsal space with Toronto Dance Theatre in addition to a regular rehearsal slot at the Menaka Thakkar Dance Company studio in Willowdale.
Putting the Multi in Disciplinary
When I interviewed choreographer Andrea Nann last week following a rehearsal of Tumbling into Light (left), the multidisciplinary show was still coming together, far from nascent but not yet fully formed. With music by artistic director David Buchbinder and Dave Wall, the show features a live band, video and dance from a diverse cast of local pros working with emerging artists and non-professional members of the Thorncliffe Park community.
Playing at Harbourfront Centre’s Enwave Theatre December 1 – 4, Tumbling into Light is the latest creative offering from Diasporic Genius, whose first show, last January, was a critical and creative hit.
This year’s effort explores “a journey through the darkness of our times to arrive at a new illumination . . . Tumbling into Light questions some of our basic assumptions about who we are and how we got here,” according to the press materials.
“The idea,” explains Nann, “is to work in an interdisciplinary manner so that no one form really stands out, there’s always a movement of the audiences’ attention from one area to another as opposed to, oh, there’s a dance number, and oh, there’s a vocal number. We’re trying to blend and blur those lines.” READ MORE
Mayor Proclaims National Ballet Week
Members of the arts community were out in force at City Hall today to cheer as Mayor Rob Ford proclaimed this National Ballet Week in Toronto, a recognition of the launch of the company’s 60th anniversary season. Artistic Director Karen Kain graciously accepted the proclamation and noted that about 300 National Ballet of Canada alumni will be at the Four Season Centre for the Performing Arts on Wednesday when the curtain rises on the premier of the company’s new Romeo and Juliet, created by internationally celebrated choreographer Alexei Ratmansky. Kain presented the Mayor with a copy of Passion to Dance, James Neufeld’s lavish new chronicle of the history of the National Ballet. READ MORE
Sixty Years In the Life of a Brave Lady
Mi Young Kim begins our interview by apologizing; the Korean dancer, choreographer and educator has been in Canada for 32 years “but still my English not so good,” she says.
And while it’s true that her syntax is less than perfect, Kim has no trouble conveying the passion for dance that has been the hallmark of her 60 years on the stage and in the classroom.
That legacy is being celebrated Tuesday (November 15) with a gala celebration at the Toronto Centre for the Arts featuring Kim herself, plus guest performers Sampradaya Dance Creations, York Dance Ensemble, Keiko Kitano and Daniel Schnee, Kozakura Sensui and Samulnori Canada.
The evening is likely to be Kim’s swan song as a dancer: “Sometimes I’m ashamed because of my age. I’m not young anymore,” she acknowledges. “My family say this is my last chance to perform on stage, and then just teach.”
