The CanAsian International Dance Festival moves into the Royal Ontario Museum this weekend and next transforming select galleries into glorious site-specific performance spaces. Curated by CanAsian’s Artistic Director Denise Jujiwara, each of the four commissioned companies was invited to choose a space or artifact as the inspiration for a new original dance work.
Vancouver’s Moving Dragon (dancer/choreographers Chengxin Wei and Jessica Jone, above) sought out Toronto-based composer Michael Vincent to score their 15-minute piece; written for percussion ensemble with taped choir, the music will be performed live by Toronto’s TorQ Percussion Quartet (tonight at 7 pm and Saturday and Sunday at 2 pm, free with admission to the ROM).
“We knew our dance would take place in the Ming Tomb from the moment we stepped into the space,” says Jessica. “The challenge is that we created the dance in Vancouver after Michael had composed the music. Then we had to fine-tune the piece when we got back into the gallery this week. We discovered that the space is smaller than we recalled.”
Vincent (seated, left) was equally inspired by the tomb of Chinese General Zu Dashou (died 1656). “The gallery space was chosen in part because of the unique acoustics,” notes the composer. “It’s four-stories high and feels a little like a church and we thought percussion would really suit the space. Also, there’s a lot of history with Chinese percussion so it seemed culturally appropriate.”
“I didn’t want to make musical wallpaper for them to dance to,” he adds. “The music provides a kind of narrative so there’s a structure for them to follow in addition to providing emotional content. I can’t overshadow what the choreography’s going to be doing, there’s a fine line between being too present and being too background.”
Moving Dragon is a very contemporary dance company, albeit one rooted in classical Chinese dance tradition, and Jone and Wei have elected to costume this piece in urban street clothes as a contrast to the ancient artifacts.
“There’s a lot of cross-cultural fusion in our work,” says Jone. “We chose the costumes because we wanted to juxtapose the modern against this historic backdrop; we’re Chinese in a Chinese space and it would be too easy for us to then get into traditional Chinese costume; we wanted to represent our time in this space.”
Says Wei, “We saw the gate as a kind of passage into another time, we were inspired by the notion of past, present and future all meeting in this room.”
Adds Jone, “We find the entire concept fascinating; here’s this Chinese tomb for a General who’s long gone, it’s totally out of context in downtown Toronto. And our dance has been created specifically for this unique space — it will be performed and then it will be gone. We’ve been touched by the artifacts, the room will be touched by us and then it will all be over. It’s completely ephemeral.”
WHERE/WHEN: Museum Dances at the Royal Ontario Museum (100 Queen’s Park) May 7 – 9 and May 14 – 16, free with museum admission.
Dance photo by Norm Jone, Ming gate courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum, other images by Christopher Jones
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