There were more people in Withrow Park last night to see Dusk Dances – I’m guessing 500 – 600 – than lots of small dance companies play to over an entire run. As choreographer Peter Chin, left, points out, the crowd that attends these by-donation performances “is a general audience, often people who don’t go to the theatre to see dance and also, families.”
Which goes a long way to explaining the populist nature of the work that’s programmed in this summer series. Chin’s piece, “The Arrangement” is the most thoughtful of the five works being performed through Sunday at Withrow (7 – 9 pm). Three of the remaining four pieces run from amusing to flat-out funny: Julia Aplin’s crowd-pleasing “Inner City Sirens Part II” (performed in inflatable splash pools) could accurately be described as a clown performance with dance.
Chin, an award-winning composer/choreographer, has been involved with Dusk Dances as a performer or member of the audience, nearly from the beginning (the 2010 season is the 16th annual installment). “I did Dusk Dances maybe 14 years ago as a solo artist. I enjoyed the experience and at that time I was doing a lot of outdoor work and site-specific performances,” he says.
This year, Chin’s piece – danced by Kate Holden and Yves Candau, above — is one of a handful of commissioned works. “I wanted to create something that would engage people and hold their attention,” says the choreographer, “where I could use the dogs and the trees and the wind and changing sky as part of what I’m creating and speak with that. It’s not lit as in a real theatre and the proximity is very close so I wanted to create something that reaches out to the audience.”
Chin accompanies the dance as a musician (along with Debashis Sinha) and is seated among the audience. “There’s no fourth wall,” he observes, “so there’s less separation between the performers and the audience. Last night one person turned to me after the performance and gave me a nice comment, so there’s an immediacy and it really counters what some people say about art being elitist or esoteric.”
Born in Kingston, Jamaica, of Chinese heritage, Chin first came to Toronto in 1966; he trained at the St. Michael’s Choir School and later did a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at York University.
“I’m more Torontonian than a lot of people I see on the street, even some who were born here,” he laughs. “I travel for my work but I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. My artistic life really is based in Toronto, I’m established here, this is where my roots are.”
In 1999 Chin founded Tribal Crackling Wind, “a one-man company” hiring artists and crew for each project as needed. “It would be hard to say I prefer either music or dance,” offers Chin. “I follow a very holistic approach to all disciplines and certainly the traditional Asian paradigm of total theatre is something that inspires me. You can’t alienate music, dance and theatre, they’re very fluid disciplines.”
Chin will be travelling to Cambodia this fall to prepare a piece he’ll be bringing to the CanAsian International Dance Festival in February 2011. He’s also working on a piece right now with Toronto and Vancouver dancers called “Fluency.”
“It’s a comic and serious piece about trying to become a member of a different culture,” says Chin, a phenomenon with which he’s quite familiar.
WHERE/WHEN: Dusk Dances is at Withrow Park (south of Danforth between Logan and Carlaw) nightly until August 8 at 7 pm. Different works will be performed at Chalkfarm Park (Jane/Wilson) August 12 – 15 and at Earlscourt Park (St. Clair West/Caledonia) August 19 – 22.
Photos of Peter Chin by Christopher Jones, photo of Yves Candau and Kate Holden by Gary Mulcahey
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