MOonhORsE Dance Theatre Celebrates 20th Anniversary with Canada's Most Distinguished Veteran Dance Artists

Older & Reckless, MOonhORsE Dance Theatre's celebrated series curated by Artistic Director Claudia Moore, celebrates the company's 20th season with its 39th edition featuring five renowned dance artists. Governor General award winner Margie Gillis (Montreal), dance theatre maverick Robert Desrosiers with cellist/singer Anne Bourne, acclaimed dancer/co-founder of COBA (Collective Of Black Artists) BaKari I. Lindsay, choreographer/director Charles Koroneho (New Zealand), and Claudia Moore in a work byApolonia Velasquez and Ofilio Sinbadinho (Gadfly), take to the stage Friday, November 11 and Saturday, November 12 for three shows only at Harbourfront Centre Theatre.

Older & Reckless #39 also features an exciting community project: an excerpt of JOE, the late Jean Pierre Perreault's iconic contemporary dance work, will be performed by amateurs, along with several former JOE performers reviving their roles. Canadian dance history comes to life in this thrilling project!

To celebrate MOonhORsE's 20th anniversary, distinguished Canadian dance artists including Veronica Tennant and Peggy Baker host each performance. Every Older & Reckless performance begins with an audience warm-up and ends with a party where audience and artists have a chance to meet and discuss the work - enlightening for all!

For more information, visit: www.moonhorsedance.com

About the Works:

Margie Gillis
Internationally acclaimed dancer/choreographer Margie Gillis shapes dance with a deceptively simple choreographic style, where the poetry of the body expresses a physical manifestation of intellect, emotion and spirituality. As part of Older and Reckless #39, Gillis offers the world premiere of her new solo, The wonder of "dissolve".

Robert Desrosiers
Returning to Older & Reckless by popular demand, the esteemed Robert Desrosiers performs Character in the Choir's Carnival (Section A: "At the Bottom of the Pool"), accompanied by cellist/singer Anne Bourne.

BaKari I. Lindsay
Artistic Co-founder of COBA (Collective Of Black Artists), BaKari I. Lindsay performs his powerful solo Ancestral Calling, reminding us that the most important and most challenging way to honour our ancestors is to fulfill our personal potential and life's purpose here on Earth.

Charles Koroneho (New Zealand)
An associate artist with Lemi Ponifasio's MAU, Charles Koroneho performs his solo The Song-Ethnomusicology and the Maori, a performance of poetic retrieval - a moment in time capturing the lives, voices and bodies of tribal leaders and artists living in 1950's New Zealand.

Claudia Moore
MOonhORsE Dance Theatre's Artistic Director, Claudia Moore performs Sylph(a) by Apolonia Velasquez and Ofilio Sinbadinho (Gadfly). Originally created for Moore's 60th birthday performance, this breathtaking solo showcases Moore's artistry and the choreographic invention of two of Toronto's ground-breaking urban dance creators, to a stunning piano composition by musician John Lang.

JOE - an exciting community project
An excerpt of the late Jean Pierre Perreault's iconic contemporary dance work from 1983 will be performed by a cast of 30, mostly amateurs along with several former JOE performers reviving their roles. In JOE, Perreault explores the body's gravity as an emblem of the human condition. With an ensemble dressed in steel-toed boots and overcoats with fedoras, this masterfully structured piece speaks to our individual condition within the mass where anonymity arises from the synchronization of a collective quest. JOE was brought to Toronto's MacMillan Theatre in 1994 where it was a huge success.

About the Artists:

Margie Gillis: Internationally acclaimed modern dancer/choreographer, Margie Gillis has been creating original works for over forty years. Her repertoire now includes more than one hundred pieces, which she performs in solo, duets and group shows. Her international tours have taken her to Asia, India, Europe and the Middle East as well as across North and South America. In parallel to her solo work, she has worked with some of the most important dance artists and companies of her time. Teaching is also an important aspect of her career. She offers workshops to dance professionals and students in various cities throughout the world, including New York where she has taught at the prestigious Juilliard School. Margie Gillis is a socially committed artist. She has been spokesperson for a number of organizations dedicated to the fight against AIDS and environmental causes as well as for OXFAM and Plan. Her numerous awards and distinctions include the prestigious Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts (2008), the Stella Adler Studio's first MAD Spirit Award (2008), and the Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award from the Governor General's Performing Arts Award Foundation (2011). She is a Chevalier de l'Ordre national du Québec and Officer of the Order of Canada.

Robert Desrosiers was born in Montreal and trained with Daniel Sellier at the National Ballet School of Canada, with Maggie Black in New York, and in Tai Chi with Master Moy. He has worked with numerous artists and companies including Felix Blaska, Dancemakers, Toronto Dance Theatre and Lindsay Kemp. Robert has also worked with Leonard Cohen, Toller Cranston, Bruce Cockburn, Jesse Cook, Neve Campbell, Dan Salomon, Claudia Moore and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. In 1980, Desrosiers formed Desrosiers Dance Theatre in Toronto. In 1981, he was awarded the first Jacqueline Lemieux Prize and the Jean A. Chalmers Award in 1986 for his innovative choreography, defined by its theatricality and powerful imagery. Some of Robert's commissioned works include Blue Snake for the National Ballet of Canada, also featured in the Robert Altman film The Company with Neve Campbell and the Joffrey Ballet; Incognito for the 1988 CalGary Winter Olympic; Full Moon for the Glory of Mozart Festival; White Clouds from the National Arts Centre in Ottawa; and Corridor which was co-produced with the Sony Centre in Toronto. His works have been performed at the Australian Perth Festival and the Hong Kong Festival. In June 2016 Robert was invited the 50 Dancer Project, entitled Timeframe, bringing together 50 dancers - all recent graduates of Canada's premier professional dance training programs - on a whimsical journey through the ages.

Anne Bourne is drawn to create form reflective of the complexity of languages with other artists in Canada: pianist Eve Egoyan, composer John Oswald, choreographer Andrea Nann, author Michael Ondaatje, Omaskeko Cree visual artist Duane Linklater, and filmmaker Peter Mettler. Anne performed the works of living composers James Tenney, Nicholas Collins, Alvin Lucier, and Pauline Oliveros. After a Telematic performance with Oliveros centred in New York, Anne spent a series of summers in the mountains of northern New Mexico on retreat listening with Oliveros. Anne was inspired to contemplate her way of engaging with sound in the world and with creating sound, she wrote about this experience in Anthology of Essays on Deep Listening. Anne improvised in the creation of Oliveros' composition Primordial/Lift and has appeared on all subsequent performances and recordings of this piece, a listening experience of the resonant frequencies of the earth. While touring internationally with the Jane Siberry band, Anne was invited to be a resident composer for Robert Desrosiers Dance Theatre.

Claudia Moore, performer, curator and artistic director of MOonhORsE Dance Theatre, has been a force on the Canadian dance scene since the late 1970s. She founded MOonhORsE in 1996 and continues to perform commissioned works through her company. Claudia's recent performance projects include her solo evening, Escape Artist, created by Susanna Hood, Christopher House, Paul-André Fortier and Gadfly, which premiered in 2013 to celebrate her 60th birthday. Moore's series for senior and intergenerational dance artists, Older & Reckless, is now in its 16th season. Claudia is co-director of Cloud 9 with Karen Kaeja and is currently working towards the second Cloud 9 production with commissions by Lina Cruz and DA Hoskins. The 2016-2017 season marks MOonhORsE Dance Theatre's 20th anniversary.moonhorsedance.com

Charles Koroneho works in the fields of performance, culture and visual arts. In 1997 Charles created Te Toki Haruru, a conceptual platform to explore cultural collaboration and the intersection between choreography, theatre, visual arts and design. Te Toki Haruru projects are presented as performances, exhibitions, workshops and research exploring the collision between Maori cosmology, New Zealand society and global cultures. He is a founding member of Te Kanikani O Te Rangatahi, graduate of the New Zealand School of Dance and Elam School of Fine Arts. He has performed extensively in New Zealand and abroad with Te Toki Haruru, Lemi Ponifasio MAU, Michael Parmenter's Commotion Company, The Royal New Zealand Ballet, Taiao Dance Theatre and worked in collaboration with Min Tanaka and Guillermo Gomez-Pena. He shares his vision of dance and performance with the community by providing professional movement, improvisation classes and performance workshops. He supports the freelance dance community as a mentor and works as an associate artist with Lemi Ponifasio's MAU. In 2014 he was awarded The Arts Foundation of New Zealand Arts Laureate for Dance.

BaKari I. Lindsay studied at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, The School of Toronto Dance Theatre on scholarship and with various teachers from the Caribbean and the African Continent. He holds a Masters Degree in Dance Ethnology, and Bachelors of Education degree from York University. Bakari developed a physical language for training in West African and Diasporic African dance culture entitled A-Feeree - The Physical Language. Artistic Co-founder of COBA (Collective Of Black Artists), BaKari has danced for Danny Grossman Dance Company, Artcho Danse Repertoire (Haiti), Jubilation Dance Co. (USA), Toronto Dance Theatre, National Dance Company of Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), Les Enfants Dance Co (T&T), and several independent choreographers in Canada, United States and the Caribbean. He also appeared in the original performing cast of Canada's Production of Disney's The Lion King. BaKari has choreographed works for Les Enfants Dance Co., Entre Duex, and The National Dance Company of T&T, while creating a body of work on COBA Collective Of Black Artists. He taught dance at National Cultural Foundation (Barbados), The National Dance Association (Trinidad and Tobago), Ryerson University, York University, Humber College, Lester B. Pearson School for the Performing Arts and for several dance schools, institutions and community groups nationally and internationally.

Older & Reckless features work from OLDER artists who continue to grow more RECKLESS as time goes by. Older & Reckless provides an opportunity for seasoned dance artists to perform short works and a chance for the audience to see some of Canada's most celebrated senior choreographers.

Conceived by Claudia Moore, founder and artistic director of MOonhORsE Dance Theatre, Older & Reckless is an acclaimed dance series gaining notoriety for its celebration of mature dance artists and their tenacious life-long pursuit of physical expression. Appealing not only to a senior audience, but to all generations, Older & Reckless shines a light on those Canadian dance artists who have dared to approach mastery in their art form.

To post a comment, you must register and login.