Vanguardia Dance Festival 2019 Presents a Week of Extended Activities

Vanguardia Dance Festival presents a week of extended activities in its 5th bi-annual edition showcasing a curated selection of interdisciplinary dance performances, workshops, panel discussions, and video dance screenings. With the support of Native Earth Performing Arts, the festival will take place from April 2nd to 6th, 2019 at the Aki Studio. This year, the festival celebrates the artistic conversations between Latinx choreographers and diverse artists from different origins and artistic approaches.

"We're proud to bring to the stage, the innovative forms of Latin American contemporary dance styles in collaboration with internationally recognizedchoreographers, poets, composers, and multi-interdisciplinary artists at this year's Festival which has grown from a two day event to a week long program. Featuring a compelling variety of performances, we invite all walks of life to experience the breadth of contemporary Latin American dance."

-Norma Araiza & Olga Barrios

Co-Artistic Directors, Vanguardia Dance Festival

This year's festival line-up continues to push the boundaries in re-defining contemporary artistic practices of dance within the Latin American diaspora in Canada that resonates to conversations with the rest of the country and globally.

· Choreographer and dancer Mateo Galindo Torres (Colombian-Indigenous) will respond to the work of visual artist Robyn Macdonald(Canadian) with the work I:Variations. Inspired by the idea of "identity" and incorporating live painting and dance, this work is an invitation to question who we think we are, and redefine who we want to be;

· Three artists activists: choreographer Norma Araiza (Mexican-Indigenous), poet charles c smith (Black), and video/media artist Julieta Maria (Colombian-Palestinian) engage in a moment of creative play inspired by childhood games and their lasting memory;

· Choreographer Diana López Soto (Mexican-Indigenous), video artist Caitlin McNannus (Canadian), and Charissa Wilcox (Canadian) will respond to Diana's investigation of the different routes and levels of grief when losing a loved one;

· Choreographer Olga Barrios (Colombian), performance artist/activist Coman Poon (Chinese-Canadian/settler-immigrant), and musician/sound composer Edgardo Moreno will present the Triangle Project, a cross-disciplinary and polyaesthetic artistic conversation across physical and technologically mediated distance, where three artists from three different latitudes send signals to each other in order to transmute the space between.

· Special international guest, dance artist Ximena Monroy representing the collective, "Agite y Sirva Festival Itinerante de Video" will share a series of dance films in Toronto featuring artists from different parts of Latin America.

Aside from the exciting performances and film programming, new this year, the festival will have a facilitated open panel discussion with participating Festival artists to provide an insight into their creative process. Audiences will also have an opportunity to join the conversation with the keynote speakers.

Vanguardia Dance Festival

With the support of Native Earth Performing Arts

Aki Studio (585 Dundas Street East)

April 2nd to 6th, 2019

Various Times

Tickets: $25 at the door; Students, Seniors, and CADA Members $18

To purchase tickets, click HERE.

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