MOonhORsE Dance Theatre Celebrates Age on Stage

Older & Reckless, MOonhORsE Dance Theatre's celebrated series curated by Artistic Director Claudia Moore, presents its 40th edition featuring 15 world-class artists, 2 duets, 3 solos and a community work. Special guest renowned ballerina Evelyn Hart in a new work by Matjash Mrozewski, dynamic duo Ric Brown and Darryl Tracy in a duet by Lesandra Dodson (New Brunswick), moving dance force Heidi Latsky (NYC), Older & Reckless favourites Daniel Firth and Jane Mappin (Montreal) plus the masterful Sashar Zarif, take to the stage Friday, November 10 and Saturday, November 11 for three shows only at Harbourfront Centre Theatre.

Older & Reckless #40 also features an exciting community project: Tell Everyone, led by Peter Chin featuring a cast of 25 amateurs along with 5 seasoned dance professionals including Susie Burpee and Bonnie Kim.

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 - it's an event!

About the Works:

Lesandra Dodson (New Brunswick) presents In Two Days a Man Can Change. Performed by dynamic duo Ric Brown and Darryl Tracy, the duet reveals a "delicious and droll take on the foibles of humankind."- The Globe & Mail.

Returning to O&R, Daniel Firth and Jane Mappin (Montreal) perform Ils m'ont dit, exposing the inner world of those who struggle with mental illness. Daniel was nominated for a Dora award for Outstanding Male Performance for his 2015 appearance at O&R in Lewis et Lucie.

Heidi Latsky (NYC) performs Timestamp #4 - "a choreographer and dancer of uncommon intelligence and fluidity."- The New York Times

Sashar Zarif's solo "The wound is the place where the light enters you" is "akin to an act of love."- Susan Walker Arts Blog

Peter Chin leads a community project, Tell Everyone, for a cast of 25 amateurs along with 5 seasoned dance pros including Susie Burpee & Bonnie Kim.

Matjash Mrozewski creates a solo for world-renowned ballerina Evelyn Hart.

About the Artists:

Lesandra Dodson, originally from Vancouver and now based in Fredericton, New Brunswick, began formative Dance Studies at Simon Fraser University and developed as a choreographer at Le Groupe Dance Lab in Ottawa under Artistic Director Peter Boneham. Lesandra's interest in the marriage of different artistic mediums has generated several multidisciplinary and video/film productions including works for Bravo!, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and Global TV. Lesandra's work has been presented by the Canada Dance Festival, Winnipeg Contemporary Dancer's New Creation Series and DanceWorks.

Ric Brown completed a B.A. in English at the University of Western Ontario. He then went on to the School of Toronto Dance Theatre, graduating from the three-year professional training program. He was a company member with Le Groupe Dance Lab (Ottawa) for 5 years, working with choreographers from all over Canada and Europe. Selected favourite dance credits include: Monumental with Holy Body Tattoo; the Canadian Premiere of Masurca Fogo with Pina Bausch Tanztheater Wuppertal; Greatest Hits, Volume 2 with Danny Grossman Dance Company. Ric performs regularly with Peggy Baker Dance Projects.

Darryl Tracy is a Toronto-based independent dance artist (choreographer, interpreter, teacher and producer). He is a senior faculty member at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, and as a dancer has created roles by many of Canada's leading choreographers. He and Heidi Strauss were co-artistic directors of Four Chambers dance projects from 1999-2006, commissioning duets from choreographers including Sarah Chase, Yvonne Coutts, Lesandra Dodson, Sylvain Émard and Julia Sasso, among others. In 2004, Tracy was nominated top dancer in Toronto by NOW magazine, and he was nominated for the K.M. Hunter Award in 2013. Tracy performed with Sylvain Émard Danse in Montreal for over four years. He has created over 32 of his own works through commissions and self-produced events. In September 2010, he created and self-produced Inherencies and other Disorders to sold-out audiences in Toronto. Tracy works part-time as a neuro-based rehabilitation physiotherapist.
Heidi Latsky (Artistic Director/Choreographer/ Performer) originally from Montreal and now based in New York City, first received recognition as a celebrated principal dancer for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company (1987-1993). Her experience there profoundly influenced her style and her philosophy of dance as she developed in her own right as a choreographer for stage, theater, and film. In 2001, she founded her own company, Heidi Latsky Dance (HLD). During the fall of 2006, Latsky began an intensive period of creation with bi-lateral amputee Lisa Bufano and in 2009 she was chosen by Creative Capital Foundation as one of four choreographers nationally to receive a three-year award for her evening-length work, GIMP. Her range of work is as varied as guest lecturing at Harvard University, creating a work for high school students with learning disabilities, directing workshops in performance skills, performing in 2012's TEDxWomen and developing new works for her contemporaries. Currently, Heidi has received international acclaim for her ON DISPLAY project - a deconstructed art exhibit/fashion show. ON DISPLAY is now a social movement and has been presented around the globe. Latsky is an advocate for disability rights and serves actively on the Disability Task Force for Dance/NYC. She has a BA in Psychology with Honors from Carleton University (1979), receiving the Senate Medal for Outstanding Academic Achievement and The Ottawa Ladies College Scholarship.

Jane Mappin has worked actively as interpreter, choreographer and teacher for over 30 years. As creator, she is interested in the relationship between dance and other forms of artistic expression. Her choreographic work has been shown across Canada, South America and Europe. Jane has collaborated with visual artists (Mikihiro Nishumatsu) and filmmakers (Léa Pool and Pepita Ferrari). In 2013, Jane created Ils m'ont dit with interpreter Daniel Firth. Their collaboration continues with Je marche à côté de moi, a trilogy treating the delicate subject of mental illness. Jane has taught and choreographed at L'École supérieure de ballet du québec in Montreal since 2007.

Internationally renowned Sashar Zarif is a Toronto-based multi-disciplinary performing artist, educator and researcher whose contemporary practice is steeped in the artistry and history of traditional and ritualistic performing arts including Sufi-Shamanic practices of the Middle East and Central Asia. He has formulated a dance medium, Mugham, by integrating the story telling, music and dance traditions of these areas. During the last two decades and across 32 countries, Zarif has worked to promote cultural dialogue through intensive field work, residences and performances. He is a research associate at York Centre for Asian Studies and is on the executive board of Dance Ontario. His numerous awards and fellowships include the Ontario Arts Council Chalmers Fellowship, Uzbekistan's National Choreographic Institute's Master of Dance and Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.

For 30 years, Peter Chin has been creating work in multiple media that has gained him great respect from peers, audiences and critics in Canada and abroad. Chin has been described as a "Renaissance man" of the arts world (Glenn Sumi, NOW magazine). A choreographer / dancer, a singer / instrumentalist / composer, designer, writer, director, and performance artist, he began his classical music training at St Michael's Cathedral Choir School Toronto (1970 - 1979) where he became a chorister, a pianist and an organ scholar. Peter's works have been presented internationally and throughout Canada including the Canada Dance Festival in Ottawa, Festival International de Nouvelle Danse in Montreal, Toronto's Harbourfront Centre World Stage and in India, Bangkok, Mexico, Singapore, Amsterdam and many other centres. Peter was named Now Magazine Best of Toronto dancer / choreographer / designer in 2008. He won the 2006 Murriel Sherrin Award for International Achievement in Dance and the 2005 inaugural Interdisciplinary Arts K.M. Hunter Award. Chin received a Gemini Award for "Best Performance in a performing arts program" and Grand Prix Japan Dance and Media award in Nick de Pencier's film Streetcar with Peter Mettler. Peter has received four Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Outstanding New Choreography and for Outstanding Performance for Bite in 2000.
Evelyn Hart's dramatic intensity and sublimely lyrical dancing have made her one of the most compelling stage personalities in CanadA. Hart was principal dancer with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet (RWB), entering the company in 1976 and leaving in 2005. In 1980 she won the gold medal for best female soloist at the International Ballet Competition in Varna, Bulgaria, the first Western dancer to do so. Hart's international profile and her artistic brilliance in the full-evening classics led the RWB to mount a variety of new productions to showcase her talents as its star ballerinA. Hart was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1983 and was elevated to the rank of Companion in 1994. In 2001 she received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award and in 2007 she was inducted into the Order of Manitoba.

A graduate of Canada's National Ballet School, Matjash Mrozewski is a Toronto-based choreographer and director with an international career, having created works for, among many others, the National Ballet of Canada, the Australian Ballet, the Royal Ballet and Les Ballets de Monte Carlo. Last year he directed the Dora Award-winning Botticelli in the Fire for Canadian Stage.

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 renowned 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.

MOonhORsE Dance Theatre presents Older & Reckless - #40 Featuring 15 world-class artists, 2 duets, 3 solos, a community work and special guest Evelyn Hart Friday, November 10 - Saturday, November 11, 2017

Performances: Friday & Saturday at 8:00pm, Saturday matinee at 2:00pm Harbourfront Centre Theatre 231 Queens Quay West, Toronto Tickets $30 ($25 CADA and seniors; $15 Culture Break for students under 25) For tickets to call 416-973-4000 or visit www.moonhorsedance.co

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