It’s the second Monday video!
This video originally started as the simple idea of filming my feet. It turned into an experiment with perspective on the awesome footbridge on 114th avenue and 97th street in Edmonton. It’s also a bit of an homage to fall – look at all the leaves!
This footbridge will appear again in another video coming up, a project that’s been in the making since June. I’ll keep you in the dark with that one too, but only for a little while… the trailer will be out soon!
Avenue Edmonton’s 2012-2013 dance season – I’m near the bottom in Mile Zero’s season! Performing my work-in-progress on February 28, 2013. Plan ahead! Come out and see it! I’m sharing the stage with the Good Women Dance Collective (therefore, the evening is going to ROCK!).
Toronto Urban Film Festival is now over, but you can still watch Anna Kraulis’s dance video “Twixt” here. It won an honourable mention! I went to SFU with her and both of the dancers in the film, Philippa Myler and Lindsey Ridgway.
This article about Gerry Morita’s piece, “Limbs”, performed by Heidi Bunting on September 12 as a part of Visualeyez. I unfortunately didn’t get the chance to see it, but it seems as though the work was striking and thought-provoking.
Bboyizm is coming to Edmonton! Here’s a preview from the St. Albert Leader. They perform at the Arden Theatre on September 28 and 29.
This is a really interesting piece about racial stereotyping in ballet.
Alberta Ballet is also coming to Edmonton this weekend.
And, last but definitely not least, this video with choreographer Crystal Pite of Kidd Pivot on Vancouver’s Creative Mornings. What an inspiration. Pite’s dances are “not about balance” and she’s interested in “energy created by tension.” She “wants the audience to connect to their own bodies through the dancer.” Watch it!
I’m so stoked to announce my new project – I’ll be posting a new, original contemporary dance video every Monday!
Along with continuing to develop my website, I’ll be doing this weekly series to explore some interesting locations in Edmonton, Alberta and making (mostly) site-specific dance videos in and around them every week.
I’m currently interested in exploring dance on film, and this is the perfect opportunity to play with some new ideas.
This first video is shot in one of the classrooms at St. John’s Institute on Whyte Avenue – a space that I’m using for another very exciting project (more details coming your way soon!). It’s a set improvisation within a movement score that I created, moving in and out of the light of the studio.
And enough chatter – here’s the video:
Check out the footage of some choreography that I created in collaboration with composer Sebastian Laskowski.
The movements that the dancers performed triggered different sounds that Sebastian supplied the musicians with. He gave them directions on how to manipulate the sounds based on the qualities of the movements that the dancers were performing.
I provided an overall outline and phrases of movement that the dancers worked around – some of the choreography was set but a lot of it was improvised within a set structure.
The two coolest parts about this, other than working with an amazing composer, was that the musicians were playing on laptops (no instruments directly involved!) and that we showed the piece in a reverse round.
Take a look!
Just a few good and important dancey reads!
An article about Edmonton’s Good Women Dance – their first full length piece, Pod, premiered this weekend. This was a preview of it in the Edmonton Journal.
Rachel Browne, founder of Winnipeg Contemporary Dancers, passed away this week.
A new Edmonton dance blog – Dance Conspiracy!
And my sis, Ileanna, and I were in the paper! Check out the awesome jumping pic, and more dance photos from Nextfest on Tracy O’Camera’s website.
Here’s a few dance quotes to get the mind and body rolling. I love looking for new stimulus to keep me motivated and on track (kind of like helpful procrastination!):
“Move, and the way will open.” – Author Unknown
“The truest expression of a people is in its dance and in its music. Bodies never lie.” – Agnes de Mille
And I love love this one!
“The way people move is their autobiography in motion.” – Gerry Spence
Nextfest is Edmonton’s festival of emerging artists. There are shows in every art discipline you can think of. It features the work of artists under the age of 30. It’s fantastic and it’s happening NOW.
I may be a little biased. I’ve shown my work in Nextfest for the past couple years. “Booking Streets,” the dance piece I presented last year, in the process of being turned into a dance film – look out for the trailer soon!
This year my sis, Ileanna, and I collaborated to choreograph a duet for ourselves. It’s called “Sometimes a Pet.” It’s form-based (lots of cool moves, not much of a story) and it’s the first time that we’ve co-created a piece.
Our first show was yesterday and we had a blast. We’re in the show entitled Shimmer with five other dance pieces. The show is diverse, ranging from the performance art of Jeannie Vandekerkhove in “Moon River,” a contemporary/jazz piece by Stephanie Lilley called “Starry Eyed,” dances from Victoria School of the Arts’s composition and IB classes, and us.
Shimmer also shows tonight at 9:00pm and on Tuesday, June 12 at 9:30pm at the Roxy Theatre in Edmonton, AB.
Nextfest has a TON of other things going on though. Their website is here. Check out all of the amazing work that young artists in Edmonton are creating now! Hope to see you there!
This is an awesome article about Michael Kidd and his choreography for the movie Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.
Nora Younkin’s article “What the Heck is a Modern Dancer?” for Huffington Post really hits home. I have the same problem explaining what I do, and it totally relates to my first post – “What is a Dance Artist?!”
This Bhangra Festival in Vancouver looks really fun!
A video of Vanessa Goodman’s site specific choreography on Vancouver’s Kitsilano Beach. My friends and classmates Michael and Erika rock it out!
New choreography in progress from Joshua Beamish. It’s beautiful.
I just found Alexis McKeown’s blog and webpage – she’s an Alberta dance photographer and has taken TONS of great dance shots!
He’s awesome. And this speech is SO motivational for artists everywhere.
“The one thing you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and dance and build and play and dance and live as only you can.”
More info about the rest of the convocation can be found here.
I’m a graduate of Victoria School of the Arts and I will be the first to tell you that it’s an amazing school. The arts program at Vic is unparalleled and it’s a place where young artists thrive. All of my hopes and dreams were formed in those hallways – it’s a place that’s hard to forget once you’ve stepped in the doors.
And you can see for yourself this Thursday and Friday, May 24 and 25! The dance program is presenting Dance Collective, a show choreographed almost entirely by guest artists, most of them alumni. This will be a fantastic opportunity to see many faces of Edmonton’s small but lively dance scene come out of the woodwork and to see the work of the city’s up-and-coming dance artists!
I have choreographed one of the pieces in the show, entitled “Cosmic Gridlock” for a high school contemporary class. They were the most dedicated group of young women that I’ve ever worked with and it was SUCH a treat to choreograph for 20-some dancers! Also in the show are pieces by local artists Ainsley Hillyard, Raena Waddell, Gerry Morita, and Heidi Bunting, among others, and LOTS of works by alumni. This is a dance show that is sure to inspire and you won’t want to miss it!