Toronto's Renowned Festival DUSK DANCES Presents 25th Anniversary

Dusk Dances proudly presents its 25th annual season, returning to Withrow Park this summer with another week of exquisite dance works from Canada's finest dance makers! Dusk Dances is a renowned and beloved outdoor dance festival presented at Withrow Park each August. Dusk Dances 2019 features some of Canada's top choreographers and dancers, including Hanna Kiel, Meredith Thompson, Mix Mix Dance Collective, Denise Fujiwara and Yuichiro Inouo, Pulga Muchochoma & Naishi Wang, in a diverse program of dance.

For the 25th anniversary, Dusk Dances will be hosted by the sensational Madame Beaucoup (aka Lisa Anne Ross) who hosted the event from 2006 to 2009. Madame Beaucoup will lead the audience to various sites throughout the park. The evening will begin with FREE square dance workshops with professional caller Hannah Shira-Naiman, accompanied by live music.

DUSK DANCES 2019 PROGRAM:

FALL (A festival commission and a world premiere) CHOREOGRAPHY BY HANNA KIEL Performance: Michael Baboolal, Sierra Chin Sawdy, Mairi Greig, Gavin Law and Brendan Wyatt

Why do we feel how we feel? Love makes us act in certain ways. Fall explores the emotional roller coaster of falling in love! A Dusk Dances commission and a world premiere.

2018 Dora winner HANNA KIEL is from Seoul, South Korea, and moved to Vancouver in 1996. She has presented her work at 12 Minutes Max, Plan B Singles and solos Festival, Dancing on the Edge Festival and Pulse at the Scotiabank Dance Centre in Vancouver. In 2007, she collaborated with Yoko Ono as a dancer and choreographer at the Centre A. Moving to Toronto in 2008, Hanna has continued choreographing for Rosedale Heights School of the Arts, Conteur Dance Academy, George Brown Dance, Ryerson Dances, School of Toronto Dance Theatre, Kenny Pearl's Emerging Artist Intensive, IGNITE, ProArteDanza, Ballet Jörgen, Alias Dance Project, The National Ballet of Canada, Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre, Toronto Dance Theatre and Decidedly Jazz Danceworks in Calgary. In 2012 she won Northwest Dance Project's 'Pretty Creatives' international choreographic competition. She was an E- choreographer in 2015 for Springboard Danse Montréal and one of the choreographers at Osez 2018 in Québec City. Hanna is the artistic director of Human Body Expression and one of the founders of "The Garage" dance development and exchange collective group.

IMPRINT (A festival commission and a world premiere) CHOREOGRAPHY BY MEREDITH THOMPSON Performance: Michael Baboolal, Sierra Chin Sawdy, Gavin Law and Brendan Wyatt, with a large community cast

To imprint is to impress or stamp - to leave our mark. We carry with us these marks and stamps and those of many others whom have crossed our path. Imprint explores these impressions - and our interdependence on one another. At any given moment, we exist and live suspended by ten thousand threads of connection and interdependence. With a large cast of performers ranging in age from 8 to 80, this group work is a physical tracing, collision, and reflection of these threads and marks, at many of life's stages. A Dusk Dances commission and a world premiere.

MEREDITH THOMPSON is a Toronto-based dance artist, dance maker and arts educator originally from Huntsville, Ontario. She has performed throughout Canada and beyond with BoucharDanse, Dancetheatre David Earle, the Danny Grossman Dance Company, Mairéad Filgate, Tina Fushell, Kaha:wi Dance Theatre, Barbara Lindenberg, and Yvonne Ng, among others. A core artist with Dusk Dances, Meredith has also been performing, touring, and creating for this popular outdoor, site-specific dance festival for over a decade. As a maker/creator, Meredith works both independently and collaboratively, and past projects have been presented at a number of festivals and events across Canada, most recently SummerWorks, Halifax Fringe, Nuit Blanche North, and the Sunrise Festival in Inuvik, NWT. Meredith has also worked extensively as a teaching artist with the Toronto District School Board, and is the Director of the Young Apprentice Program at Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre. Meredith is a graduate of York University's Department of Fine Arts and Faculty of Education.

SPACE WITHIN US (A festival commission and a world premiere) CHOREOGRAPHY BY YUICHIRO INOUE, PULGA MUCHOCHOMA AND NAISHI WANG Performance: Yuichiro Inoue, Pulga Muchochoma and Naishi Wang

Do our individual perspectives change if we are in a space together? Connections come and go as we discover the truth within our body and mind through various paths. The goals of the movement that connects us, where our decisions influence one another, are based on three basic changes: rhythm changes, movement changes, and life changes. As we make movement choices, we also accept that those choices change on a daily basis. However, we cannot change the truth that lives in our body. Being free to share our experiences is what makes us who we are. A Dusk Dances commission and a world premiere.

YUICHIRO INOUE has danced with the Toronto Dance Theatre for the last thirteen years. Born in Japan where he received his initial training in ballet at the age of 11, Yuichiro moved to Germany at the age of 15 where he studied full time on scholarship at the John Cranko Ballet School in Stuttgart, Germany. He spent five years performing with Staatstheater Braunschweig and additional two years with Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe before moving to Saarländisches Staatstheater in Saarbruecken and danced in Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria, Croatia, China, Ukraine, USA and Japan. Mr. Inoue is a RAD certified teacher. In addition to teaching at Canada's National Ballet School, Pia Bouman School for Ballet and Creative Movement, the Canadian School of Ballet, the Quinte Ballet School, Kobe Jogakuin University Japan, and numerous schools and dance companies throughout Japan, Yuichiro teaches both ballet and contemporary classes for Toronto Dance Theatre. As a choreographer, his works have included commissions for an award-winning short film, festivals and international competitions.

PULGA MUCHOCHOMA was born in Quelimane, Mozambique. His dance career and training began in Quelimane with Montes Namuli Dance Company. In 2006 he came to Toronto with the company for the International AIDS Conference. With Montes Namuli / Shakespeare Link Canada, he performed in several shows in Toronto and Mozambique. Muchochoma then stayed in Toronto to study at The School of Toronto

Dance Theatre, and since 2009, Pulga has been working with Toronto Dance Theatre under Artistic Director Christopher House. While with TDT, he has had the pleasure to work and collaborate with local and international choreographers such as Christopher House, Ame Anderson, Veronica Tennant, Susie Burpee, Peter Chin, Tawiah Ben McCart, Patricia Beaty, Thomas Hauert, Heidi Strauss, Estelle Clareton, Deborah Dunn, Deborah Hay, Simone Orlando, Josh Beamish, Alban Richard, Jean-Paul Kelly, Alicia Grant and Jeanine Durning.

Born in Changchun, China, NAISHI WANG began his dance training at Jilin College of Art and Beijing Dance Academy. In 2004, Naishi joined Toronto Dance Theater for 9 years. Naishi collaborated and co- choreographed with Berlin-based Tanz-Theater artist Christoph Winkler in Crossing Half of China to Sleep With You, and Tale of the Dragon and Lion. From 2009 to 2010 he was commissioned by SXM studio in Beijing, China, to create concept-based contemporary dance works Split and Avatar's Tree. In 2018, at a showing in Kinetic Studio (Halifax), he premiered his solo Taking Breath, also shown in Toronto, presented by Citadel + Compagnie, followed by a German premiere at Monsun Theater, Hamburg, Germany. In 2019, Naishi is creating a new work on Toronto/Halifax based company Nostos Collective.

FOLLOW ME MIX MIX DANCE COLLECTIVE CHOREOGRAPHY ARRANGED BY EMILY LAW & Ashley Perez WITH INPUT FROM THE PERFORMERS Performance: Kristine Flores, Caroline Fraser, Emily Law, Ashley Perez and Sarah Tumaliuan

Follow Me was created for the 2017 Jeux de la Francophonie in Abidjan, where Mix Mix Dance Collective was selected to be part of Team Canada as part of the cultural component! Their motivation for competing in the games was to celebrate the excellence in artistry, athleticism, and expression Canada has to offer. The work has been performed at Guelph Dance Festival, Fall For Dance North, and Winterlude. A Dusk Dances premiere.

EMILY LAW is a contemporary dancer, street dancer, and emerging choreographer. She graduated from The School of Toronto Dance Theatre and The Etobicoke School of the Arts. She has trained and competed in house dancing and waacking. Emily is a founding member of Mix Mix Dance Collective, the Toronto house dance crew Warehouse Jacks and Parks N' Wreck. Emily has had the pleasure of working with companies and artists such as: Kaha:wi Dance Theatre, The Dietrich Group, The Chimera Project and Alias Dance Project. Her choreographic work has been showcased on companies and in festivals such as: Toronto Dance Theatre, The Next Stage Theatre Festival, Toronto Fringe Festival, CanAsian Dance Festival, The Reel Asian Film Festival, Guelph Dance & Fall For Dance North. She has been nominated for two Dora Mavor Moore awards, a Gemini & the 2017 Premier's award. Also, she recently represented Canada in the hip hop category at Jeux de la Francophone with Mix Mix Dance Collective in Abidjan.

Ashley Perez "Colours" is a dancer, choreographer and entrepreneur making waves in the Canadian dance scene. Training in funk styles and hip-hop, she later specialized in voguing, waacking and house with mentors Archie Burnett (New York), Caleaf Sellers (New York), Jojo Zolina (Vancouver) and Kaiti Dangerkat (Calgary/New York). Ashley is the Co-artistic director or Mix Mix Dance Collective with whom she has co-created two full length works and recently represented Canada at 2017, Jeux de la Francophonie in Abidjan. With Mix Mix, she was a resident artist at York Woods Library and presented a new work at Fall For Dance North in October. Ashley was a resident choreographer and performer with the artist collective House of Dangerkat. Developing works that allowed her to travel and perform in places such as New York, London & Paris. Her most recent teaching enterprise has been Class with Colours, to share the essence of Waacking - the glam, sass, and punk - with people of all backgrounds. These workshops have popped up at spaces such as Sketch Studio (Artscape Youngplace), Lululemon Attic, and Parks N' Wreck 2016/17.

MOVING PARTS FUJIWARA DANCE INVENTIONS CHOREOGRAPHY BY DENISE FUJIWARA Performance: Sylvie Bouchard, Rebecca Hope Terry, Jen Hum, Jillian Peever, Lucy Rupert, Miko Sobreira, Brodie Stevenson and Gerry Trentham Music direction and song arrangements: Phil Strong & Laurel MacDonald Choir leader: Cathy Nosaty

We find the world in difficult times, where people are becoming increasingly polarized, taking sides with rancour and falling for simplistic solutions. We are curious about how to embrace complexity with skill and grace, and how to stay open, kind and uplifted in the midst of turbulent times. With Moving Parts, we are investigating these questions with a moving choir and singing dancers. A Dusk Dances premiere.

DENISE FUJIWARA began a series of careers starting in childhood as a gymnast. She became a Canadian Champion in Rhythmic Gymnastics and competed internationally for Canada. Upon completing an Honours B.F.A. in Dance at York University, she co-founded T.I.D.E. (Toronto Independent Dance Enterprise), a now-defunct but still notorious company that danced across Canada for 10 years. Her six solo dance concerts garnered praise and toured to festivals across Canada, and to the U.S.A., South America, Europe and Asia. In 2015 she was a soloist in the Luminato Festival's Apocalypsis under Lemi Bonifasio. She is a recipient of the Toronto Arts Foundation's Muriel Sherrin Award for international achievement in dance. She is thrilled that EUNOIA, based on Christian Bök's masterpiece, a work that delighted and bewildered us over five years of creation, continues its adventure touring the country.

ABOUT DUSK DANCES Founded by Festival Director Sylvie Bouchard in 1993, Dusk Dances is an outdoor dance festival that brings high quality contemporary and traditional dance to public parks. As dusk descends, a theatrical host leads the audience to eclectic dance pieces that unfold in different areas of the park.

Choreographers from various backgrounds are invited to perform a ten-minute piece inspired by the park's natural environment. Audiences are invited on a pay-what-you-can basis to an innovative site- specific festival, which is not only an artistic event but a social and cultural one as well.

DUSK DANCES 2019 Withrow Park, Toronto South of Danforth between Logan and Carlaw (Chester Subway Station)

Nightly Performances: August 4-11, 2019 Preview on August 4 / Opening night on August 5 Free square dance workshops start at 7:00pm & dance performances start at 7:30pm

+ Matinée Performance: August 11, 2019 at 2:00pm Free square dance workshops start at 2:00pm & dance performances start at 2:30pm

$15 per person suggested / Pay-What-You-Can More info: http://duskdances.ca / or call 647.671.0075

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