dance central march/april 2013

continued on page 2

Small 'C' Contemporary

Dance CentralA Dance Centre Publication

Jai Govinda has for many years danced, choreographed and presented

bharata natyam Indian classical dance, in the context of his company, Man-

dala Arts and through his annual Gait to the Spirit Festival. Trained originally

at Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in his native Quebec City and in Montreal,

he went on to train as a bharata natyam dancer in India and has been per-

forming, choreographing and teaching in Vancouver for the past thirty years.

AK: I am interested in exploring how notions of contemporaneity are reflect-

ed in different artistic communities. Whose definition takes precedence, how

does the language valorize some practices and exclude others, especially

when the concept becomes a defining trope of eligibility for certain kinds of

institutional funding?

JG: This idea of the 'contemporary' is quite muddy now, because Western

dance in Canada developed at the beginning mainly through the classical

form — Celia Franca who founded the National Ballet of Canada, Ludmilla

Chiriaeff, and a few other people, side by side with the movement of Expres-

sion Corporelle, a form of physical expression outside of classical ballet.

There were pioneers like Jeanne Renauld, and then Martha Graham appeared,

which gave rise to a new term: Modern Dance. 'Modern' is not use anymore,

except to designate a type of technique such as Graham or Limón, but you

don't see it on grant applications. You do see the term 'contemporary'.

Now, is contemporary a noun or an adjective? If it is a noun, strictly speaking

the work that has been called contemporary doesn't belong, because it was

done twenty five years ago, and if you present one of those 'contemporary'

pieces today it will have lost its stature, its appeal, its momentum. If you see

a Martha Graham piece now, it is like watching an old tableau. It lacks what

it did at the time, when it revolutionized the way we were moving. Today,

these are just part of the established vocabulary, so the work now looks old

rather than contemporary. But if the intent is to refer to work that is fresh,

and of today, how can we change this fixed idea of the 'contemporary'? I find

myself getting caught, because there is no other terminology. In Montreal, for

example, they have started to call it Danse Actuelle, but that, too, is a trap:

After all, my form of dance is just as 'actuelle'. For me, 'contemporary' means

what is of today, a work whose ideology, mind, and action are relevant to the

world we are in.

A conversation with Jai Govinda

Content

Small 'C' Contemporary:A conversation with Jai Govinda.

Thinking Bodies: A conversation with Amber Funk Barton. Page 6

CO : LAB: A research process for composers choreographers and performers.Page 11

Dance Calendar March/April 2013Page 18

March/April 2013

2 D a n c e C e n t ra l M a rc h / A p r i l 2 0 1 3

Welcome to the March/April 2013 issue of Dance Central.

Welcome to the March/April issue of Dance Central. The

issue appears a little later than usual, in part because it

has grown to eighteen pages, and in part because we

had hoped to run a piece about The Gathering before

the Vancouver International Dance Festival, but could

not overcome the scheduling issues. We are aiming to

include a conversation with Jay Hirabayashi about The

Gathering in the May/June issue.

This issue focuses on transitions, in the context of three

experiences: There is a conversation with Jai Govinda

about the term 'contemporary', how it applies to a prac-

tice such Indian classical dance, and the challenges of

defining one's work in the framework of language that

locates contemporaneity exclusively in one context.

The 'Thinking Bodies' series features a portrait of Amber

Funk Barton, who describes her experience of living and

working in a transitional phase—between performance

and choreography, between generational divides, and

between curiosities.

The third feature of this issue presents reflections on a

project titled CO:LAB that took place at Scotiabank

Dance Centre in December 2012, as a joint project

between The Dance Centre and the Canadian Music

Centre, and brought together a group of choreographers,

dancers, composers and musicians for a week-long

exploration of the collaborative process.

As always, Dance Central welcomes new writing and

project ideas at any time, in order to continue to make it

a more vital link to the community. Please send material

by mail to [email protected]. or call us at

604.606.6416. We look forward to the conversation!

Andreas Kahre, Editor

continued from cover

AK: That word has come to be defined by what it excludes rather

than includes: Non-ballet, non 'ethnic', It even excludes forms that

are much more 'of the now', such as hip hop; there is a similiar

distinction in composition, for example, where 'contemporary' links

back to Bartok and the Vienna School but knows nothing of Rap.

Where do you fit in?

JG: The fact that I am a French Canadian living in English Canada,

teaching an Indian classical dance form is in itself a contemporary

situation, which you would not have seen twenty years ago. It is

totally new, but is it large 'C' 'contemporary'? What is contemporary

ballet? As far as I am concerned, all ballet companies are contem-

porary if they present new work by contemporary choreographers,

even if their main vocabulary is classical ballet. They are contempo-

rary even if they re-mount classical works, because the staging and

flair of the dancers will be of today, and so an old work can become

very much alive

The funders use the terminology to create categories that don't re-

flect contemporary dance practice. When you apply for grants, you

are asked to define your work: Is it classical ballet? Is it contempo-

rary? Or is it 'ethnic'? More recently, they have begun to break the

'ethnic' category into subgroups like 'Classical Indian Dance' and

'Flamenco' etc. but I think the term contemporary has to go. In my

work, for example, I am using an old language, but the way I now

choreograph it, stage it, and set it to music is totally different from

the way I was doing it even five years ago.

We all evolve, we see new creation; there is a beat, and it keeps

progressing, even if the language we use has a history. It is the

same in 'non-ethnic' dance: If you look at most of the dance com-

panies of today that are not ballet, — I won't call them contempo-

rary, because I know they don't call themselves that—if you look at

artists like Crystal Pite, Wen Wei, Marie Chouinard, Édouard Lock—

are not only using elements of the ballet vocabulary, but the main

training expected of their dancers is ballet. Are these companies

still contemporary? Are they making contemporary ballet? What

defines this?

Music is another example; the lines between Rock, Country, and

Pop are very permeable. People cross over all the time, and when

they achieve success in the charts, they become a Pop artist.

A conversation with Jai Govinda

Small 'C'Contemporary

D a n c e C e n t ra l M a rc h / A p r i l 2 0 1 3 3

continued on page 5

AK: How have these divisions affected your own work?

JG: I am constantly creating choreography and new dance

work, but in the context of Indian classical dance, which means

that it is not eligible for support by Canada Council as 'contem-

porary' work. This is a shame, because I have so many ideas,

and I would want to do it properly, but the resources required

to mount a big production for a three-night run are difficult

to find. So the way I can be creatively involved now is mainly

through my festival, Gait to the Spirit, which is now in its fourth

year, and where I get to curate and present new work.

There are schools of Indian classical dance in the city, who

mainly teach old choreography, that was learned from their

teacher thirty years ago, but all of my choreography is created

today, with the musicians present. I choose text and melody,

we set it up together, we change and adapt it, and we create

contemporary choreography. Our young dancers are bright,

with an intelligence beyond the dancers of years ago.

When I was doing Indian classical dance, some people called

me 'Santa Claus' because I had bells on my feet. They could

not understand why a French Canadian guy was doing this,

except perhaps because it was my 'Eastern Philosophy Phase'.

They did not realize that I had gone into it so deeply that even

in India I was recognized as one of the top dancers in the field.

When they heard this, they asked: "Did Indian people mind that

you are Caucasian?" In fact, none of the reviews of my per-

formances in India referred to me as a Caucasian. What was

extraordinary to them was that I was a male dancer. There were

no male dancers when I started in Indian classical dance. Now

they are everywhere, but at the time, dancing as a guy, not in

womens' garb, not effeminately, I was a pioneer. I removed half

the jewelry, used the stage, set decor and music differently, and

what shook them was that I knew the form. They knew I wasn't

a Westerner doing it superficially, but that I had a real ground-

ing and wanted to move forward from that. That was con-

temporary and new for them. India also had an anti-classical

movement, one whose pioneers was Chandralekha Prabhudas

Patel (1928 – 2006). Chandralekha worked with Pina Bausch,

yet all the dancers she used were trained by the purest, even

archaic school of bharata natyam and she did something totally

different with them. People threw stones at her, and at the

same time, many were attracted to her work, because she was

successful. If you work in theatre or dance, you have start with

what you have.

Next:

Dance Central May/June 2013

The Gathering and Beyond: a conversation with Jay Hirabayashi

Thinking Bodies: Byron Chief Moon

Designing Dance: Lighting

and more...

4 D a n c e C e n t ra l M a rc h / A p r i l 2 0 1 3

Dance CentralThe Dance CentreScotiabank Dance CentreLevel 6, 677 Davie StreetVancouver BC V6B 2G6T 604.606.6400 F [email protected]

Dance Central is published every two months by The Dance Centre for its members and for the dance community. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent Dance Central or The Dance Centre. The editor reserves the right to edit for clarity or length, or to meet house requirements.

Editor Andreas KahreCopy Editor Hilary Maxwell

Contributors to this issue:Jai Govinda, Amber Funk Barton, Mirna Zagar

Dance Centre Board MembersChair Andrea WinkVice Chair Gavin RyanSecretary Ingrid M. TsuiTreasurer Roman Goldmann

Directors Barbara Bourget Susan ElliottMargaret Grenier Stephanie HungerfordAnndraya T. Luui Josh MartinSimone Orlando Jordan Thomson

Dance Foundation Board MembersChair Michael WeltersSecretary Anndraya T. LuuiTreasurer Jennifer ChungDirectors Santa Aloi, Linda Blankstein, Grant Strate

Dance Centre Staff:Executive Director Mirna ZagarProgramming Coordinator Raquel AlvaroMarketing Manager Heather BrayServices Administrator Anne DaroussinDevelopment Director Sheri UrquhartTechnical Director Cass Turner Accountant Lil ForcadeMember Services Coordinator Hilary Maxwell

The Dance Centre is BC's primary resource centre for the dance profession and the public. The activities of The Dance Centre are made possible by numerous individuals. Many thanks to our members, volunteers, communi-ty peers, board of directors and the public for your ongoing commitment to dance in BC. Your suggestions and feedback are always welcome. The operations of The Dance Centre are supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council, and the City of Vancouver through the Office of Cultural Affairs.

I have just returned from another one of my (frequent, I

admit) travels to Europe where, despite the ongoing financial

crisis, an amazing level of artistic activity continues to take

place. At the same time, many European governments (not

unlike our own) continue to treat the arts as if to wage war

against their own cultural identity: The Dutch government

describes art as a hobby for the lefties, in France the recent

reshuffle in the cultural scene threatens to make insignifi-

cant what has until recently enjoyed international acclaim,

and Belgian separatists would like to expunge Flemish art

from the national discourse, and on and on.

There are some small signs of hope, such as the Austrian

government's commitment to support touring of Austrian

artists within the EU, and even here, in BC, where we re-

cently learned of an announcement of significant new (or is

that newly restored?) funding to the arts. We are pleased to

hear this, but our gratitude is tempered by the fact that, even

with this increase, we will not reach anything near what had

been in place before the savage cuts to the cultural sector

three years ago, and what we irretrievably have lost since

then, in talent and in infrastructure. Elections, however, have

a marvellous effect on the attention span of politicians, and

as we get closer to the day, perhaps we should all remember

the value of our support and ask more pointedly what each

candidate and party is really prepared to do about sustain-

able funding for the arts.

Closer to home, March and April are full of dance offerings

as we welcome the Vancouver International Dance Festival,

and especially The Gathering, a coming together of artists

From the Executive Director


From the Executive Director

working in Non-Western dance forms which offers a

platform for in-depth dialogue to find solutions to better

position the works of these and all artists. It serves as

an example that the themes discussed in the context of

an event like The Gathering, focused on issues related

to culturally diverse dance practitioners, affect all of the

dance community: Audience development, marketing,

funding, touring, presentation opportunities, and hope-

fully the dialogue will grow to hold the entire community

in awareness of each others differences, similarities and

shared goals.

In that spirit, International Dance Day which takes place

at the end of April, provides the dance community with

an opportunity to come together in a united way to show

its strength and diversity, and to present the value and

contributions of dance to the well-being of society –

whether it allows the community to engage in dance

for fun, to experience something new, to be active, or to

offer a deeper experience through the engagement of

dance as an ancient and contemporary artform. If you

wish to be an Ambassador for the art of dance, or if you

would like to get involved in the BC celebration of dance

during National Dance Week and International Dance

Day, please contact us, or simply come an join us for

the many dance events on offer during this time.

Mirna Zagar, Executive Director

Small 'C' Contemporary

At his point, there are many movements in dance in India that

are moving away from the classical root, because they have

been exposed to modern dance teachers, to audiovisual media

and so on. Thirty years ago they started with classical dance

because that was all they had. Now they have exposure to ballet,

to modern dance, some have travelled, taken workshops and

have brought new information back, so they are different. This is

contemporaneity, and it will happen in any field, unless you are

deliberately remounting previous work to show your history.

I would really like to see the 'contemporary' category disappear,

especially from grant applications, because it creates an implica-

tion that those of us who work in a 'non-contemporary' form are

not creating contemporary work.

AK: If 'contemporary' is used to describe a conceptual trope

rather than to characterize an approach to one's work, does it

become especially problematic for dance defined in the funding

grid as 'ethnic'?

JG: Yes, especially if it means that I must do bharata natyam

in black leather pants with a video behind me to appear con-

temporary. But the same is true for ballet. For example, Emily

Molnar is really trying to set her company apart from other ballet

companies in the country by pushing those boundaries, but still

it is very much a ballet company. It is not a contemporary dance

company—or is it?

AK: There is an analogous situation in music, especially as it

concerns 'contemporary opera' which is suspended between the

tradition of operatic vocal styles and a contemporary composi-

tional idiom. Capital 'C' contemporary music, similiar to con-

temporary dance, inhabits a historical space, which is anything

but contemporary at this point, but it continues to dominate the

language. As with dance, people in Quebec have been using the

term Musique Actuelle, but it refers to a specific form that com-

bines improvisation with through-composed music, and doesn't

define what actuelle actually means—except to those who are

immersed in the ongoing development of the form.

JG: The frame of reference is critical: I would not want to call

what I do 'Contemporary bharata natyam'. I think putting the

two words together would give people the wrong idea. They

continued from page 3

continued on page 16

looking for the subtle dance.

6 D a n c e C e n t ra l M a rc h / A p r i l 2 0 1 3 Photo Credit: Steve Wylie

every single day. But when we travel, we walk a lot every day,

eight, nine hours sometimes, and we are active in a differ-

ent way. Travel forces you to live a different life. When you

create, you are so 'in it' that you sometimes can't see what is

not working—especially when you are performing your own

work. You don't always have the time to question or step

outside. I have learned to know what works for me, and how

to be creative, but I love these periods when I have to wait

before taking the next step. I do what I call 'stewing': I think, I

visualize, I rehearse it in my head. I listen to the music before

I go to sleep and that results in dreaming about it. Sometimes

I have woken up with phrases of choreography in my mind. It

becomes an internal process

AK: I first became aware of you about ten years ago, when

you appeared in series like 12 Minutes Max. Since then, you

have appeared all over Vancouver as a performer, started

your own company, and the last time we met you were a col-

laborator in a theatre project with Horseshoes and Handgre-

nades, so your artistic range has clearly grown. What is the

mix between performance, choreography and other work

now?

AFB: I feel that I am in a transition period. Around 2010, when

I turned 30, I realized I had been performing continually for

ten years, and I realized how exhausted I was. Until then, I

had always wanted to choreograph side by side with being a

performer. Now I feel like I would like choreography to take

over. I love creating dance, and I feel that is what I am sup-

posed to do. When I am in the studio with dancers, I just love

it. My company is entering its fifth year; it is going slowly, but

that is how I want it now. When I worked mainly a performer,

I pushed myself, for a number of years. Now, in this transi-

tion, I am happy to take my time to really develop my skills as

a choreographer, which is a title I really respect and want to

earn. I want to be as versatile as I can, and eventually I would

like my company to be a more full time occupation. Right now

I feel I lead a 50/50 life, where half the time is spent on my

company, creating, and the other half is as a performer.

looking for the subtle dance.

AK: You have been out of town?

AFB: My husband and I went to Nepal, India, Bangkok, Myanmar,

Laos, the Philippines, and finally to Japan. We travel every year,

and every year the trips get a little longer and more exotic. This

is something we have long wanted to do, and I have become

addicted to travel. It doesn't have be exotic, but to get a different

perspective is great, personally and artistically, and the physical

separation from the city really helps.

AK: Do you think about your choreographic work at all when you

are on the road?

AFB: Surprisingly often, yes. I am in the middle of a creation

project, and after a month I started receiving images, or con-

nection between sections that began to make sense to me. We

have to do a work–in–progress showing this summer, and while

I travel I begin to visualize with the music what I might do. I start

working mentally, and I make notes.

AK: Do you seek out dance when you are travelling?

AFB: Usually I don't. When I am in those areas of the world,

I look for art in other ways. I am inspired by architecture,

museums, visual art, and by daily life. It is interesting to me

what behaviours and gestures are universally human. My

husband loves photography, and we both try to capture images

of people. I try to take advantage of the subtle art that I wouldn't

necessarily seek out here.

AK: When you say "subtle" art, what are you thinking of?

AFB: For me, subtle art is what I find in observing people; I am

fascinated by their gestures and how they act. When you are

travelling you see how we all do the same things— but differ-

ently. We all get up and have breakfast, but wherever you are,

it is different. I find that refreshing, and I rejoice in it. I also find

that when I travel now, I enjoy and need the physical rest for my

body. When I was younger I would freak out if I didn't go to class


THINKING BODIES | Portraits

A conversation with Amber Funk Barton

Photo Credit: Steve Wylie


AK: Where are you performing nowadays?

AFB: For the past two years, I have been working with Dana

Gingras and her company Animals of Distinction. She is cur-

rently based out of Montreal, so I have been going back and

forth a lot to work with her. I like the distinction it has given me:

When I am in Montreal, it is clear that I am a performer, and

when I come home, it is clear that I am running my company.

AK: Does working as a performer for another choreographer

influence the decisions you make about your own work?

AFB: Sometimes you don't plan it that way, but you can't help

being informed by other people. Especially the people who

excite and inspire you; it's only natural. All the people I have

been working with have been very supportive, and there are

always discussions between us. I have learned so much from

Dana, and I know it has affected my dance making. I love to be

exposed to different ideas and ways of working and to what I

call 'formulas of creation'. When I am in Montreal, the city and

the festivals I have gone to there give me a different sensation

of dance and what is possible.

AK: When you choreograph, do you improvise to generate

material or do you use more formal strategies?

AFB: Eventually I would like choreography to take over. Right

now, it is a little bit of both. For the last two pieces, I gave the

dancers tasks to improvise from, but recently I have been re-

turning to making steps and saying: "This is the music and these

are the steps." I want to try to find out what each dancer, each

person has to offer, and I am curious to understand what makes

them who they are, in order to marry my movement with their

sensibility. During the last workshop, I filmed myself improvis-

ing and asked the dancers to pick material from that source. I

have also used the technique of creating eight or nine simple

steps, and asking them to use all, some or none as a source,

which means that there is a collaborative process, but I am

generating the source movement. It is a mixture and trial and

error, but right now I am going back to setting movement.

AK: Do you work from music, from a conceptual frame, from

the space, or from something completely different?

AFB: Each piece has been different until now. My first full-

length piece, and a couple of others started with the music as

the main driving force. For the last two projects I have gone

back to motion and character ideas. At one point I was

afraid that the music was in control and dictated everything,

which might mean that the movement, if it depended so

much on the music, might not be valid without it. So the last

two pieces have come from movement—movement that

is functional and not necessarily recognizable as 'steps', i.e.

Chassé, Pas de bourrée and Pirouette, but is movement that

becomes just energy in space. I don't always want to have

recognizable dance steps, but I want a fusion between the

throughline that ballet technique gives, and the grounded-

ness of urban sensibility, and I want something functional:

Go from here to there in a leap.

AK: You use ballet language to describe movement. You

trained at Goh ballet?

AFB: Yes, I was all about ballet. I did Goh ballet very seriously

in the half-day program in Grade 11 and 12, from there I went

to Arts Umbrella and did their graduate program, I did the

mentor program at Ballet BC and thought I was going to be

in contemporary Ballet, but then I started working immedi-

ately, with Joe Laughlin and with Judith Marcuse. I saw Joe's

work at the Banff centre when I was fifteen, and it was as if a

light bulb went off in my head, and I said: "That's what I want

to do, I want to be a choreographer. I want to make move-

ment that is imaginative and big an bold and musical, and

functional, and connects viscerally." That has always stuck

with me.

AK: When you look for performers for the response., do you

look for people with a ballet background?

AFB: Being trained in several forms is definitely an asset. In

the beginning stages of creating my first full-length piece, I

found incredibly talented dancers that could do everything.

I was working with Josh Beamish and Shay Kuebler and Josh

Martin who were ready to give anything. It was a great gift.

As the work progressed, I also got to work with David Ray-

mond, as well as Heather Laura Gray, who also has an eclec-

tic background of acting and dance. For my last piece, I went

more into contemporary modern. The women I worked with

were willing to try anything and extremely supportive.

I really like to work with people who look like people on

stage, because I want the audience to be able to see them-

selves on stage. I also came from a very diverse background.

Even though I was a super-bunhead, I took Jazz and hiphop


"This is the music, and these are the steps..."

classes, and at while I tried to connect to the classical move-

ment, which I love and respect, I never felt I was being myself;

I was also trying to be someone else. When I found modern

dance—I was fifteen and at the Banff Centre, doing, of all things,

Graham technique which isn't necessarily everyone's favourite,

I felt "this is it." It made sense, I could do the movement, it felt

easy and natural, and from there on I knew. I love ballet, but

there is a part of me that was not connecting, and when I was

doing modern or jazz the shoe just fit.

A lot of creation is me dealing with my identity.As I was training, I could do various things well, but I didn't think

I fit into any one of them. I did ballet and teachers said: "It's too

jazzy", Then I did Jazz and they said: " It's too ballet, too clean...."

That is also where creation started for me: Trying to create a

place for myself, rather than fitting into a definition. Now, when

I teach or give lectures, I really believe in not labeling artists. I

experienced being labeled, and I don't think that is positive for

kids. It's not fair, not allowing the child or the artist to pursue

their own path. I did take it to heart, and I didn't want to teach

for a long time because I knew that what you say makes an

impression and sticks with people. It can determine their self

worth. At the end of the day, I think it is steps and choreography,

and strengths and weaknesses. For example, I would never con-

sider myself a hip hop dancer but the way I can get out of the

feeling that I am not good at it, is to just focus on the fact that I

am learning steps.

AK: I remember that when I first saw you dance, I was struck by

how comfortable you were on the floor. That is not usually the

first thing you associate with someone who comes from ballet.

AFB: Yes, the floor and I are friends. The floor makes sense to

me, Maybe it addresses some subconscious aspect of myself?

Last year I created a solo for 10x10x10, much of which came

from a day when I just didn't want to get up from the floor. I

have been told by my dancers that my floor work can be chal-

lenging, but I never felt that way. Another aspect of my work that

falls outside the ballet frame is that I find dance can be

very presentational and frontal, which I want to question,

and so I try to think of changing the direction of 'front', and

as a creator and performer it helps me change my brain.

AK: It reads to the audience, I believe. The first few times

I saw your dances, I was struck by the variety of facings,

with many more three-quarter views, and backs and

sides and bums than I would have expected if you had

been aiming to present to the fourth wall.

AFB: I try to challenge whatever appears to be the most

obvious. I like to refer to Jonathan Burrows' A Choreog-

raphers Handbook, which is a fascinating collection of

notes and questions to which there are no right or wrong

answers, but challenges what I call templates of creation.

Somewhere in your brain you have registered the suc-

cessful formula and try to copy it. I want to be conscious

when I am making a decision that it is what I want to

make, rather than to emulate. So in my studio notebook

it sometimes says, in capital letters, " What are you trying

to say?" For me, the answer is often to find less. I love

technical and complicated movement, but the satisfac-

tion lies in images, moments and looks, and so much of

the work is taking away, until these are what is left. For

example, I like the focus on a hand gesture, which can get

lost in the gloriousness of space in the theatre. That is an-

other reason why I am interested in pursuing professional

development as a choreographer in film, where the subtle

moment that I love can be the center.

AK: If you hadn't turned out to be a dancer, what would

you have done?

AFB: I never thought I would dance professionally, but

ever since I was thirteen or fourteen years old, I knew I

wanted to be a choreographer. I didn't really think about

anything else since I started dancing when I was three,

and only now am I thinking about different careers, and

while I want to make dance and run my company I have

all sorts of other fantasies.

D a n c e C e n t ra l M a rc h / A p r i l 2 0 1 3 1 0

continued from page 9

AK: Do you work with outside eyes?

I always ask trusted peers to have a look when I feel I

can share the work. For my last piece I decided to ask Joe

Laughlin to act as a mentor, because it was the first time that

I wasn't in the work myself, but usually it is less formal and

I ask dancers from my peer group. I try to have a rehearsal

director if I am dancing in my own work.

AK: In working with Joe, do you experience yourself as part

of a community with 'gaps' between generations, or are the

layers permeable?

AFB: A few years ago I would have said "there is no gen-

eration gap", but now, as I transition into mid-career as

performer, I really feel it, and see what is happening to my

peers, both younger and older. But I don't think that those

levels are thwarting anyone, and everyone is gracious and

approachable in my experience. I remember reading recently

that we should have three mentors: One who is of the same

age so you can talk about what is going on now, one who

is five years older, so can you can see what's coming, and

someone who is established so they can give you a wider

picture. I am also aware as I get older that I have to pace my-

self more. I get injured more easily, and I feel the wear and

tear of the past years, but when I was younger I was quite

scared; I couldn't imagine not dancing, but now that I'm here,

I think I'm okay with it. I love the stage I am at right now as a

performer. I have worked with a lot of people and am happy

and satisfied with what I have experienced as a dancer, so if

something happened tomorrow that meant I couldn't dance

any more, I would be sad, but I would be able to make peace

with that. Not everybody feels like that when they are in

transition time. I am lucky.

AK: How do you adapt to the physical changes?

AFB: I like to dance hard, so now I am trying to train specifi-

cally for the work I am involved in. I cross-train. I do yoga,

which has really saved my body, and cardio-training at the

gym. The dancing I do now as a performer means I have

to train more parallel lines, and if I am doing contemporary

modern virtuosic work, I kick it up a notch at ballet class.

Everything is different, and I am learning to work in different

ways, but I like it.

AK: Do you have a sense of where things might be going in

the next five years?

I am trying to figure that out right now. It could be more of

the same, with more focus on working as a choreographer,

but there is something about film that I also want to actively

pursue. I might like to take a film directing course, work with

actors more, explore theatre.

AK: I noticed you have become part of a theatre project with

Horsehoes and Handgrenades Theatre.

AFB: That was very exciting. I like to experience different ways

of working, and I think I would like the challenge of being in

a play, learning lines, being a character. I like to challenge

myself, and I have reached the point where it is time to think

about something new and creative.

AK: What is the new piece that you are working on?

AFB: It will be a full length work that premieres in the Spring

of 2014 with six dancers, including myself, in a kind of post-

apocalyptic setting. Last year was all research, and this year

we are workshopping the idea, and we will be showing an

excerpt as a work–in–progress at the Dancing on the Edge

Festival this summer. Next year, and leading up to the pre-

miere, we will have another work in progress showing at the

Shadbolt Centre, when we focus on the production aspect

of the work. I like creating complete experiences, which is

something I learned from Lola MacLaughlin. She created

these worlds where everything was on the same level: The

movement was as important as the lighting, the set design

was as important as the sound, it was all one piece of art. That

is something I would like to do: To create a dance show, that

is also the experience of a world that connects with people,

that offers crazy imaginative experiences, and lets me having

fun with my imagination. The current working title is The Art

of Stealing. I'm interested in the physical act of theft itself but

also in a greater unseen, anonymous force that steals from

us-the stealing of your time, your money, your energy, your

health, so I'm hoping to create movement that essentially

breaks down and a force that drains the world I'm creating.

We'll make sweet moves and then we'll see...

AK: Thank you!


A Laboratory for Collaborators

CO:LABA joint project by The Dance Centre and the Canadian Music Centre, CO:LAB was

a ‘collaborative laboratory’ where six choreographers and six composers came

together for a week in December of 2012, to explore the possibilities of a contem-

porary interdisciplinary creative process. The concept of CO:LAB was to provide

an opportunity for artists to share, challenge and surprise each other creatively,

provoking new ideas and opening dialogue without the pressure of a final pro-

duction. CO:LAB was led by facilitator/directors Martha Carter, John Korsrud and

Lee Su-Feh.

Composers: Christopher Reiche, Adam Hill, Viviane Houle, Michael Park, Dorothy

Chang Bortolussi, Edward Henderson

Choreographers: Barbara Bourget, Paras Terezakis, Daelik, Deanna Peters, Troy

McLaughlin, Julianne Chapple, Carolyn Chan

Musicians: Timothy Van Cleave, Stefan Smulovitz, Dory Hayley, Lisa Miller, Ron

Samworth, 'Joseph Pepe Danza'.

Dancers: Laura Avery, Elissa Hanson, Jennifer McLeish-Lewis, Molly McDermott,

Michelle Lui, Lisa Ho, Paul Almeida

'Speed Dating' at CO:LAB. This and all following photos: A. Kahre

D a n c e C e n t r a l S e p t e m b e r 2 0 0 4 3

Collaboration is perhaps both the most commonplace and

the most elusive form of practice, and one that has to be

re-invented with each new project and configuration of

collaborators. No two collaborations are alike, and neither

are the expectations with which artists seem to enter into

them, even if the formal framework is well established.

Between dance and music, forms of collaboration range

all the way from the strictly hierarchical to the radically

collective, and every conceivable model in between. The

objective of CO:LAB was to open a space for both discus-

sion and experimentation between artists. The concept

grew in part out of 10x10x10, a project between The

Dance Centre and the Canadian Music Centre, which had

brought together ten teams of composers and choreogra-

phers to create a series of ten-minute works which were

presented at Scotiabank Dance Centre in October of 2011.

With CO:LAB, the intent was to focus on the collaborative

process itself, while removing the pressure of having to

think of creating a 'product', and to provide the resources

for three groups of collaborators to devote several days to

the experiment. The result was an extraordinary week at

Scotiabank Dance Centre, and the beginning of an ongo-

ing and valuable dialogue among the participants.


While dance and music have been connected from their very

origins, collaborations between choreographers and compos-

ers continue to take on new forms, as styles, working meth-

ods and technologies change in both practices, and as each

project constitutes a unique dialogue between the forms. In

the case of CO:LAB, the frame for the experiment included

both composers and musicians, choreographers and dancers,

and a group of facilitators/directors, who recombined each

day into three groups that shared a studio space each.

Following the evening reception and a talk by Merran Smith,

the first day began with a 'speed dating session' followed by

a group discussion about the process of collaboration itself.

It was noticeable from the introductions how wide a range of

practices were represented, in both disciplines, with partici-

pants ranging from artists who worked mainly in a classical

idiom, to those who were primarily improvisers— and several

whose creative range encompassed both, and more.

The question posed at the beginning was: What is the collab-

orative process? How does it function in relation to creative

work within each discipline, what are the conditions it re-

quires and imposes, and how does an open-ended collabora-

tion differ from the process of creating a product?


Each day was going to be devoted to exploring these ques-

tions in practice, in a shared process that would begin with

a new configuration of collaborators and end with a 'shar-

ing' of the results, in whatever form they had taken over

the course of the day. In the first discussion of the process

with all the participants it quickly became apparent how

much the participants' experience of previous collabora-

tions has been shaped by the need to create a product, and

how challenging it is to navigate a creative space outside of

that goal. There was evident enthusiasm for the experiment,

along with questions about the ways in which it would be

structured.

The three groups that formed, each with two choreog-

raphers and composers, as well as a four musicians and

dancers, went to separate studios and began the process of

finding source material. It was interesting to observe how

differently each artist reacted to the propositions that were

made. In a group that used a set of magazine images to

explore ideas of character and narrative, for example, the

composer made it clear that visual material did not work

for him as a source of inspiration. The discussion that en-

sued was fascinating as it explored various ways of finding

source material related to the musical and the kinetic realm,

and how it could be transmitted or shared.

Another group began with a series of improvisations that

literally connected the musical and the physical dimension

by 'playing the body' as a percussive instrument. In some

instances, composers worked with musicians as co-cre-

ators, while others composed and shaped material as they

would in a classical context. Percussion played an impor-

tant role in two of the groups, augmented by tap dancing in

one instance, and some groups abandoned instruments for

completely vocal scores.

Movement creation similarly ranged from structured im-

provisation to setting repeatable steps. Since the groups

were quite large, the studios could quickly become noisy

and somewhat chaotic, but they were also for the most part

filled with a palpable enthusiasm for the process. Some

groups, working collectively set themselves to working

with tasks, and involved the 'audiences' at the end of the

day in organizing the material, for example by memorizing

'snapshots' that would be recreated when their 'number'

was called. Directors in some instances worked with theatre

game structures, props, and spatial motifs such as loops,

which in turn gave rise to discussions between collabora-

tors about the role of iterative, repeating structures in their

respective disciplines.

"In this process, we are looking

for an epiphany"

Barbara Bourget




The facilitator/director's personality strongly influenced

the creative flavour of each studio, which ranged from the

methodical and restrained to the cheerfully anarchic, and as

the groups reconfigured each day, these styles of directing

asserted themselves anew, along with an observable differ-

ence in how the directors shaped the relationship between

movement and music.

In some sessions, one shared space was negotiated by all

the participants, while in others, space exploded in simul-

taneous and overlapping activities. One group, began the

creation process with large sheets of paper which evolved

into a landscape of ideas that found their way onto the walls,

the windows, and the instruments, while two floors down,

a slow unison movement sequence was carefully devised

and crafted into a finished form accompanied by a through-

composed piece of Japanese Shakuhachi flute music.

Some studio spaces reverberated with sound and move-

ment shared across large distances, while others gathered

around a tightly compacted collective working in direct

physical contact. There were moments of shared impro-

visation and exuberant play, as well as sometimes difficult

discussions that focused on the tension between roles, the

complexities of having more than one composer working at

"Can you dance in the same space-without dancing together?"Ron Samworth


the same time, the expectations related to 'outcome', and

the degree to which a collaborative process shifts agency

from outcome to process, and thus demands the skills and

openness to accept and shape an 'incomplete' structure,

both as the starting point and possibly as the result.

All collaborations pose questions: How is power divided

and shared, what elements and forms take precedence and

why, and how does the framing of the process inform its

results? Ideally, these questions are related to the content of

the work, and lead to greater mutual understanding and re-

spect between the partners in the collaboration. But as with

any other intimate relationship, the rewards are commensu-

rate with the degree to which we invest ourselves and leave

behind the 'script'. In the arts, failure is not always allowed

to be an option, and success can be habit-forming, which

sometimes translates into the type of working relationship

that masquerades as a collaboration, when it can in fact be

a form of instrumentalizing another's work.

Removing the 'deliverables', as CO:LAB did, therefore opens

a realm where old reflexes can be allowed to retire, and it

showed, in a kind of fearlessness that grew with each day,

and with each new constellation of collaborators.

It helped, of course, that many of CO:LAB's artists were old

hands at collaborative ventures, but the frame of the proj-

ect created a pressure cooker in which the polite responses

would soon evaporate, and an observer could note how

each day the confidence in the integrity of the process,

and with it a measure of assertiveness for each participant

grew, until they all appeared to have a voice at the table.

The 'showings' at the end of each afternoon reflected this

growing sense of involvement and investment. They also

reflected the range of personalities and the many modes

of creation that had been brought to the process: Some

collaborators searched for ways of breaking down the

methods they would normally use to create material, while

others worked more formally and seemed to treat each

others' work as a complete, autonomous entity to which

they responded. Accordingly, each presentation involved

the 'audience'—made up of the other groups as well as a

few guests— in a different way: Some groups presented an

instance or example of a process, while some presented

what could pass for a finished work. Some sessions result-

ed in a constant flow of movement that involved the musi-

cians as well as the dancers, while others created a space

dominated by objects and other obstacles to the body, to

the point where they began to resemble installations.




Small 'C' ContemporaryA conversation with Jai Govindacontinued from page 5

would say: "He is still wearing the costume. It sounds like

the same type of music. How is it contemporary?" They

would not understand it because they have not seen

what was done twenty five years ago. If I present Bharata

Natyam today for someone who doesn't know anything

about it, they will think it has been done like that for the

past two thousand years.

Knowing the history of a form is important to under-

standing the choice we make in the present, and what

they mean. Presenting it on the stage is such a choice.

Here is a dance form that began as a practice in a

temple, without an audience. Only a hundred years ago it

evolved, first from the temple to the stage, then to being

performed by women for an audience. My teacher, who

passed away just five years ago received death threats

for bringing his wife on the stage, because they were

Brahmin. In the last few years it has changed again, as

artists make use of lighting and staging in new ways. This

is evolution in the context of a classical form, and while

some artists, just as they do here, choose to use the clas-

sical language, others decide to start from scratch, but

you have to be informed to be able to tell the difference.

I remember being at a conference and sitting beside Pina

Bausch when she was visiting India. All the top dancers

and choreographers were there, and there was a panel

discussion. They were all talking about their differences

and how unhappy they were. Pina was the guest artist,

dressed in a gray Marlene Dietrich outfit, with her hair

pulled back, sitting in the audience, smoking, and they

asked her if she would talk. She went to the microphone

table and before she could speak she choked, and a tear

appeared on her face. She said: "I don't know what to say;

the only thing is that I discovered that I love India; what

a marvellous country, all the colours, smell, art, culture

everywhere, such rich heritage, and to hear you bickering

among each other has saddened me.

It was interesting to see how small a role digital media,

musical form, or dance technique per se played in either

the process or the 'outcome', and how much freedom each

day brought to explore both the musical and the kines-

thetic dimensions of the encounters. This was reflected in

the 'showings': They became increasingly focused on the

process, and recorded the questions that each group had

encountered, rather than the solutions they had devised.

They invited the audience to witness a space that openened

up rather than ways of filling it.

Fill it did, however: Crumpled paper, eggs, landscapes of

cardboard, clothing and instruments framed the physical

encounters and the sounds that enveloped them, and while

something of the formal framework remained intact, the

encounter between music and dance produced a moving

record of the connections and differences that bind these

disciplines together. It reminded us that they may long to

merge completely, but like oil and vinegar, they can cohabit

in the same space only when an effort is made to bring

them together, and they form what is known in chemistry as

an emulsion. We witnessed something of that in CO:LAB.

AK

CO:LAB



You have such fantastic roots, a deep heritage of dance and mu-

sic, where you can start from a focused point. When I started to

make dance I didn't have all that. I had to start from nothing."

Pina also came to Montreal to present Cafe Müller, which was

the most contemporary thing at the time, at Place des Arts - "Midi

de la place", where you could go at lunchtime to see artists show

some of their work or give a talk. She showed an excerpt, and

during the question and answer, I asked: "I don't know if you have

a school, but if you were to train dancers, what would you train

them in?" There was no hesitation, and she said "classical ballet".

Everybody's jaw dropped, because her work was total anti-ballet

at the time, but she saw that in the classical form you train a tool,

an instrument, and that you make it more flexible and expressive.

Forms are tools, they are not handicaps. The reason so many

contemporary companies are using ballet is that they understand

what an incredibly valuable tool it is. Some people work differ-

ently; they take their vocabulary from different sources, and cre-

ate a form of dance with it. How you understand it depends on

how you see and how well informed you are, both as a choreog-

rapher and as an audience member.

AK: There is a parallel in contemporary music written for non-

Western instruments. Indonesian Gamelan is a good example.

It is a musical form — or rather a vast range of connected forms

— with a three thousand year long history, and a classical canon

that is very much alive, and it has a contemporary dimension,

with composers both in Indonesia and in the West writing new

work, and completely contemporary music, using Gamelan in-

struments and idioms.

JG: But would anyone who has never heard Gamelan be able to

tell the difference between the ancient and the contemporary

form?

AK: People in Indonesia will know, and some of the contempo-

rary work includes non-traditional instrumentation or electronics,

or text, but an audience that has no other point of reference may

well not. It is similiar in visual art, where the term contempo-

rary has shifted from describing a manner or language—be it

figurative or abstract, conceptual or community-engaged—

and is now understood to mean an explicit engagement with

what is referred to as critical discourse. This has created a

division similiar to what you find in dance, where 'contempo-

rary' is used as a noun rather than an adjective, and has left a

number of artists, particularly those who work in a figurative

style, feeling excluded, and without access to funding.

JG: As humans, we try to categorize everything. I think that art

ultimately navigates between all of these categories. Some

people change their work in order to be part of the main-

stream. You do what you do, and it may or may not be part

of the mainstream. I never felt the need to be apologetic, for

example for the narrative dimension of dance, when it is such

a rich source. Indian classical dance has about eighty hand

gestures— why should we throw these away? We can be

creative with those elements, and our work should be judged

on the basis of the informed choices that we make rather than

whether it fits a predetermined category.

AK: Thank you!


Calendar of Events

For a regularly updated calendar of dance performances and events, please visit our website www.thedancecentre.ca.

March 1, 2Ballet BC presents The National Ballet of China in Swan Lake. 8pm at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Vancouver. Tickets and info: www.balletbc.com/single_tickets.html, www.balletbc.com

March 1, 2Undergraduate students in the Dance Program at SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts present Motion, Pictures Student Dance Show. 8pm at Studio D at Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, Vancou-ver. Tickets and info: http://www.sfu.ca/sca/index.php/events/details/motion-picture-sfudance-2013

March 2-23Vancouver International Dance Festival. For a complete list of performances, show times and venues, and ticket information visit: www.vidf.ca

March 2-April 26Ballet Kelowna tours Passages. For a complete list of venues and dates, showtimes, and ticket information visit: www.balletkelowna.ca/

March 6-9Joe Ink, The Dance Centre's Global Dance Connections series and the Vancouver International Dance Festival present Retrospective: 25 Years. 8pm at Scotiabank Dance Centre, Vancouver. Tickets: www.vidf.ca Info: www.thedancecentre.ca / www.joeink.ca

March 6-10The Dancers of Damelahamid present the Coastal First Nations Dance Festival at the Museum of Anthropology (MOA), Vancouver. Info: www.damelahamid.ca March 7-10The fourth and final Vancouver International Salsa Festival at the Westin Bayshore Hotel, Vancouver. Info: www.salsafestival.ca

March 13Cowichan Theatre presents Atlantic Ballet Theatre of Canada performing Ghosts of Violence. 7:30pm at Cowichan Theatre (located in the Island Savings Centre) Duncan, B.C.Tickets and info: 250-748-7529 or www.cowichantheatre.bc.ca

March 15, 16Dance Victoria presents Black Grace (Auckland). 7:30 pm at Royal Theatre, Victoria. Tickets and info: www.dancevictoria.com

March 22-24Ballet Victoria presents The Secret Garden and other works. 7:30pm on Mar 22 and 23, 2pm on Mar 24 at McPherson Playhouse, Victoria. Info: www.balletvictoria.ca

March 22, 23DanceHouse presents Carte Blanche (Bergen, Nor-way) Corps de Walk.8pm at Vancouver Playhouse. Tickets and info: www.dancehouse.ca

March 23- April 13Flamenco Rosario proudly presents Mis Herma-nas: Thicker than Water, My Sisters and I. For a complete list of venues and dates, showtimes, and ticket information visit: www.flamencorosario.org

March 28The Dance Centre presents the Discover Dance! noon hour series - Mozaico Flamenco Dance Theatre. 12 noon at Scotiabank Dance Centre, Vancouver. Tickets: www.ticketstonight.ca, Info: www.thedancecentre.ca / www.mozaicofla-menco.com

March 31New Works presents Dance Allsorts - South Asian Arts Bhangra/Bollywood.2pm at the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre, VancouverTickets: Advanced tickets at eventbrite.com or at the door. Info: www.newworks.ca



March/April 2013

April 18-20The Dance Centre's Global Dance Connections series and Vancouver New Music present Marta Marta Productions (Vancouver)The Ligeti Project (Premiere). 8pm at Scotiabank Dance Centre, Vancouver. Tickets: www.ticketstonight.ca, info: www.thedancecentre.ca / www.martamartapro-ductions.com / www.newmusic.org

April 21New Works presents Dance Allsorts - European Folk Dance at the Balkan Spring Festival. 2pm at the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre, VancouverTickets: Advanced tickets at eventbrite.com or at the door. Info: www.newworks.ca

April 22-29The Canadian Dance Assembly proudly presents National Dance Week leading up to International Dance Day. For information on NDW and events across the country, visit http://www.cda-acd.ca/en/programs-services/national-dance-week.

April 24-27The Firehall Arts Centre presents Arkadi Zaides and Company Land-Research.8pm at the Firehall Arts Centre, Vancouver. Tick-ets and info: www.firehallartscentre.ca

April 25The Dance Centre presents the Discover Dance! noon series - Historical Performance Ensemble. 12 noon at Scotiabank Dance Centre, Vancouver. Tickets: www.ticketstonight.ca, info: www.the-dancecentre.ca / www.historicalperformance.net

April 25-27The Dance Centre presents theGlobal Dance Connections seriesChartier Danse (Toronto/Montreal) –Stria. 8pm at Scotiabank Dance Centre, Vancouver. Tickets: www.ticketstonight.ca, info: www.thedancecentre.ca / www.chartierdanse.com

April 25-27Ballet BC presents the World Premiere of Jose Navas' Giselle. 8pm at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Tickets and Info: http://www.balletbc.com/single_tickets.html, www.balletbc.com

April 29International Dance DayIn 1982 the Dance Committee of the International The-atre Institute (UNESCO) founded International Dance Day to be celebrated every year on the 29th April, anniversary of Jean-Georges Noverre (1727-1810), the creator of modern ballet. Find out about how you can celebrate:http://www.international-dance-day.org/en/danceday.html

April 30-May 4The Cultch presents Tara Cheyenne Performance (Vancouver) – Highgate. 8pm at The Cultch, Vancouver. Tickets and info: www.thecultch.com

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dance central march/april 2013

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