Older & Reckless, MOonhORsE Dance Theatre's celebrated series curated by Artistic Director Claudia Moore, opens its 2013/14 season with ALL SOLOS featuring four dance artists in four evocative solos and a gaggle of bankers in a group work. Sylvie Bouchard, Louise Moyes (Newfoundland), Mi Young Kim and Gerry Trentham take the stage from today, November 15 to 17 in Edition #30 of Older and Reckless at the Distillery District's Dancemakers Centre for Creation.
Award-winning choreographer Marie-Josée Chartier (Chartier Danse Artistic Director) remounts seated woman/femme assise on Sylvie Bouchard (BoucharDanse Artistic Director,). Originally created and performed by Chartier in 1990, seated woman/femme assise conveys the courage and fragility of the human experience, performed from the confines of a chair. The twitched, tensed, and contorted movements play on the mind's fears, suggesting images of aging and loss of self-control.
Additionally, MOonhORsE also presents Chartier's The Midnight News, a special community-based dance work performed by an enthusiastic team of bankers. Originally premiered at Everyday Marvels (Nuit Blanche 2013), The Midnight News is a performance based on Lorna Crozier's The Book of Marvels: A compendium of everyday things.
St John's choreographer/performer Louise Moyes (Docudance Artistic Director) performs All Zoos Everywhere, a solo based on the story by Lisa Moore, who was recently shortlisted for the prestigious Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. The work features a gorilla, a child, a man and Heidegger, crossing paths one day in a zoo in Rotterdam, trying to "break through that retaining wall of time" - and other enclosures, real or imagined.
Rounding out the program is Korean traditional choreographer Mi Young Kim (Mi Young Kim
Dance Company Artistic Director,) who performs Salpuri Chum, perhaps the most haunting and complicated of all Korean folk dances, while Gerry Trentham (pounds per square inch performance Artistic Director) presents a new solo work.
And the public doesn't need to just stand on the sidelines - they can sign up for a Dance for the Rest of Us workshop - square dance with Hannah Naiman (live music),5:30pm on Saturday, November 16 ($10). And they are invited to join in a gentle and rejuvenating audience warm-up prior to each performance; and to stay for an after-party and a chance to talk one-on-one with the artists.
About the Artists:
A multi-faceted artist, Marie-Josée Chartier moves easily between the worlds of dance, music, opera and multi-media in the roles of choreographer, performer, director, vocalist or teacher. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, notably the 2001 K.M. Hunter Artist Award, a finalist for the Muriel Sherrin Award from the Toronto Arts Foundation honoring International Achievement in Dance and nine Dora
Mavor Moore Awards nominations in categories of choreography, direction and performance. She won the 2002 Dora for fifty-one pieces of silver and shared with the multi-disciplinary collective URGE two Dora Awards for And by the way Miss. Since 2000, Marie-Josée Chartier has been active as a choreographer and director in music, multi-media and opera productions and collaborates regularly with Queen of Puddings Music Theatre (Sirens, Echoes, Love Songs), the Gryphon Trio (Constantinople), Toca Loca and l'Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal as a resident director since 2005. Chartier continues to dance and her performing career has taken her on international and national stages as a freelance artist and with dance companies from Montreal and Toronto. She is also active as a guest teacher in major training centres and universities in Canada as well as in Latin America in the field of modern dance, movement for singers and musicians, voice exploration and improvisation.
Louise Moyes most often performs docu-dances: shows she researches, choreographs and performs, working with the rhythm of voices, language and accents like a musical 'score'. Previous works include Moore-Gallant: a docudance, St. John's Women, Florence, Taking in Strangers and unravelling the borders. Moyes is also currently performing dance and interdisciplinary pieces by choreographers Jo Leslie and Eryn Dace Trudell. She is excited to have been commissioned to make a docudance on dancers Tammy Mcleod, Calla Lachance and Andrea Tucker. Moyes studied at Studio 303 in Montreal and has performed throughout Canada and in Germany, Italy, Iceland, New York, Australia and Brazil. "I call my own work 'docudance'; it tells my own and others' life stories/oral histories in a multidisciplinary form that draws from dance foremost, as well as theatre, video and performance. My process involves gathering stories through video and audio recordings and my own writings, improvising with them through dance in the studio and then framing a show's through-line by what comes out in studio, discovering whether a story is best told in 'pure' dance, choreographed monologue, theatrical monologue or video. The result is a very contemporary take on what are sometimes traditional, yet extraordinary lives."
Mi Young Kim has established herself as one of the leading figures in the Korean-Canadian cultural scene. She works as a dancer, choreographer and teacher; and founded the Korean Dance Studies Society of Canada in 1979. Mi Young Kim was born in Seoul, Korea and started learning traditional Korean dance at the age of 6 from Yunhak Kim. In 1997, Mi Young Kim began her annual stage performances showcasing her traditional and contemporary/creative choreography. In November 2004, Mi Young Kim premiered her Hwang Jin Yee, based on an ancient Korean tale. The choreography featured Korean rap music and creative new costumes introducing young audiences to this exciting meld between contemporary music and traditional Korean dance. Mi Young Kim's achievement in Canadian-Asian dance is widely recognized. In 1998, she was awarded the title of Chief Artist in Cultural Area by the Korean Times Daily, and in 1999, the best award in Artistic Achievement by the Korea Central Daily. She has been appointed a dance committee member at the Toronto
Arts Council for three years and has served as a member of the Community Folk
Arts Council of Toronto.
Gerry Trentham, founder and Artistic Director of pounds per square inch (lbs/sq") performance, has created over 30 dance works including three full evening productions. Mr. Trentham has performed throughout North America and Europe in the works of many of Canada's most prominent choreographers including a seven-year tenure with Serge Bennathan's Dancemakers. The New York Times dance critic
Anna Kisselgoff called his performance "remarkably lyrical" and Clive Barnes of theNew York Post wrote, "Špowerfully acted by the outstanding Gerry Trentham." He is presently creating a new solo, Apology, a collision of visual and performing art, and is part of the select cast of Denise Fujiwara's new work Eunoia which opens in January 2014. Trentham has an MFA in Performance and a Graduate Voice Diploma from York University and has taught, directed and choreographed productions throughout Canada, the United States, Australia and, most recently, the U.K. As a core member of Canada's National Voice Intensive over the last 15 years, he has become one of only a few dance artists whose expertise bridges deeply into voice and speech.
Older & Reckless, an informal performance series, features work from OLDER artists who continue to grow more RECKLESS as time goes by. Older & Recklessprovides 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, Artistic Director of MOonhORsE Dance Theatre, Older & Reckless is "an intimate exchange for both the performer and the observer; exciting, terrifying, and lots of fun. The performances are followed by a party with music, refreshments, and a chance to talk with the artists about work, process, and whatever else comes up!"
Older & Reckless - Edition #30 - ALL SOLOS
featuring works by Marie-Josée Chartier, Louise Moyes, Mi Young Kim, and Gerry Trentham
November 15-17, 2013
Performances: Friday & Saturday at 8pm, Sunday at 2pm
Dancemakers Centre for Creation in the Distillery Historic District, 9 Trinity Street, Studio 313
Tickets $25 ($22 CADA, students and seniors)
For tickets to ALL SOLOS, call 416-504-6429 ext. 30 or visit
www.moonhorsedance.com.
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