Dance Company KasheDance to Present Toronto Premiere of FACING HOME, 11/26

TORONTO (October 28, 2015) - When did you first fall in love? Kevin A. Ormsby, Artistic Director of Toronto's KasheDance, and Christopher Walker, a Jamaican choreographer working out of the U.S.A., join forces for FACING Home: Love & Redemption, a powerful contemporary dance production that investigates the global impact of Bob Marley's music - its expression of humanity's struggle and its inspiration toward love, redemption and hope - and contrasts it to the active, deep-rooted homophobia in Jamaican/West Indian Culture. The Toronto premiere of this bold new work featuring eleven performers runs Thursday, November 26 to Sunday, November 29 at the Aki Studio Theatre in the Daniels Spectrum arts hub in the revitalizedRegent Park area of Toronto.
The two choreographers aim to engage communities in conversation about homophobia using movement, music and poetry to access ideas of liberation and highlight the blurred lines between love, survival and choice.

FACING Home: Love & Redemption draws from the many influences of reggae music and Jamaican culture and is set to covers of Bob Marley's songs by Matisyahou of New York City, Luciano of Jamaica and Jonathon Butler of South Africa, among others.

"I wanna love you and treat you right..is this love, is this love that I am feeling?" - Bob Marley

"FACING Home highlights the paradox around the West Indian preaching of liberation we find in Marley's music, while simultaneously oppressing the LGBTQ's community's ability to participate in family, community and culture," says Walker, who is also an Associate Professor of Dance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,

"We're inviting audiences to think of the global influence of Bob Marley's music and its connection to larger social issues. We're inviting them to ask themselves 'when did I first hear Marley's music?' and 'when did I first fall in love?" says Ormsby, "and we hope audiences fall in love all over again while thinking about love and redemption in light of the real stigmas of homosexuality, especially in the West Indian/Jamaican community."

Walker's previous work, FACING Home: A Phobia premiered in New York City in June 2013. It explored the violent attitudes towards homosexuals in their home countries that, for many, resulted in forced exodus and the reconstruction of their identities in new lands as a means of survival. Reconstructions of identity are also explored in Love & Redemption as it champions hope in spite of adversities.

A pre-production residency and showcase of FACING Home: Love & Redemption will be held in Wisconsin at the Margaret H'Doubler Performance Space, University of Wisconsin-Madison Dance Department November 19-21 where the first university degree program in dance in America started in 1926. The tour then continues to Minneapolis, MN before its Toronto premiere November 26-November 29.

KASHEDANCE echoes in a new genealogy of Afro-contemporary dance grounded in creation, research and presentation, supported by outreach initiatives in community and arts education. KasheDance works are rooted in a technical style, grounded in human expression, poly-rhythms and technical virtuosity. The company has performed at the Canada Dance Festival, Dancing on the Edge Festival, Fleck Dance Theatre and Jamaica Dance Umbrella, among other venues. to critical acclaim. http://www.kashedance.com

CHRISTOPHER WALKER is an Associate Professor of Dance and the Artistic Director of the First Wave program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also a choreographer and dancer with the National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica, and Co-founder/Artistic Director of NuMoRune Collaborative-an ensemble of dancers, choreographers, storytellers and musicians, who come together under a united artistic vision to create collaborative works. He is the recipient of numerous scholarships and awards including the New York-Thayer Fellowship, and the GOJ PM Award. He was most recently awarded the prestigious UW-Madison Romnes Fellowship. In February 2015, Walker was selected to present the annual Philip Sherlock Lecture in Kingston, Jamaica.

KEVIN A. ORMSBY is Artistic Director of KasheDance and Adjunct Artist at the Dance Exchange (Washington D.C.). He is a Canada Council for the Arts' Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award (2014) recipient and a Toronto Arts Council's Cultural Leaders Lab Fellow (2015). He has honed his passion for dance, advocacy, writing and education while performing in Canada, the Caribbean and the United States with various companies and projects in works by Garth Fagan, Marie Josée Chartier, Allison Cummings, Patrick Parson, Ron K. Brown, Menaka Thakkur, Mark Morris and Bill T. Jones. He is Program Manager for Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement Ontario (CPAMO) and the Co-Vice President at Canadian Dance Assembly where he chairs the National Standing Council (Dance Companies).

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