dance: made in canada Presents Fifth Anniversary Festival; Full Line-up Announced

dance: made in canada / fait au canada Festival (d:mic/fac) proudly unveils a diverse program featuring the country's most sought-after dancers and choreographers for its milestone fifth biennial edition on stage from August 14-18, 2019, at the Betty Oliphant Theatre.

Living legend and 2019 Dance Hall of Fame inductee Louise Lecavalier will open this year's festival with a special artist talk and screening of the recent documentary Louise Lecavalier - In Motion. Additionally, 13 artists and companies will be presented across three Mainstage programs - curated by Matjash Mrozewski, Lina Cruz, and Festival Director Yvonne Ng - coupled with a lottery-based platform titled "What You See Is What you Get" (WYSIWYG). An ancillary Arts Encounters program explores photography, media arts, and other creative expressions created by seven dance artists.

"Our 2019 anniversary edition will be one of our most ambitious festivals to date with five world premieres and a thrilling selection of eight Toronto premieres," says Ng, who oversees d:mic/fac alongside Festival Directors Jeff Morris and Janelle Rainville. "This year's program centres around impact, whether it is through a connection between two people or an unintended effect between colliding objects. The festival artists grapple with vacillating notions of power and social contracts, but also a keen sense of relation to our bodies and our emotions. From the creative synergy of DA Hoskins and Danielle Baskerville to the formal aesthetics of Katia-Marie Germain's work, the vast and varied presentations look to literature, fine art, urban culture, and personal experience to probe the boundaries of the contemporary human condition."

Festival passes are available from $65 and single tickets from $19. Full festival details at dancemadeincanada.ca.

The 2019 d:mic/fac Festival line-up includes:

MAINSTAGE

Mrozewski Series: Curated by Matjash Mrozewski

Thursday, August 15 at 7pm / Friday, August 16 at 9pm / Saturday, August 17 at 4pm*

*Post-show chat at 5pm

Katia-Marie Germain (Montreal): Habiter (excerpt)

Toronto Premiere

Singular interdisciplinary choreographer and performer Katia-Marie Germain was awarded the prestigious Prix de la danse de Montréal in 2018. In this excerpt of Habiter, the artist experiments with the art historical aesthetic of chiaroscuro, using a single light to explore the relationship between body and place, object and viewer. The work will also be performed in the 13th International Festival of Contemporary Dance, directed by Marie Chouinard and organized by the Venice Biennale.

Josh Martin (Company 605) (Vancouver): Leftovers

Toronto Premiere

Artistic co-director of Vancouver-based Company 605, Josh Martin has worked with iconic artist Justine A. Chambers, Wen Wei Wang, and Out Innerspace Dance Theatre. This solo dance investigates the body as a physical memory bank, traversing muscle tissues, bones, tendons, and organs as sites of remembered histories.

Morrison Series: Curated by Yvonne Ng

Thursday, August 15 at 9pm / Saturday, August 17 at 7pm* / Sunday, August 18 at 7pm

*Post-show chat at 8pm

Named after the late lighting designer David Morrison (1960-2007), this series is dedicated to a dance enthusiast who helped shape the festival that d:mic/fac is today.

Parts+Labour_Danse (David Albert-Toth & Emily Gualtieri) (Montreal): La vie attend

Toronto Premiere

Montreal-based co-choreographers David Albert-Toth and Emily Gualtieri transpose political philosopher Thomas Hobbes' social contract theory onto the movements of five male performers, as they oscillate between a desire for power and the power of fear. The work embodies a theatrical sensibility, as the two creators explore absurdist conflicts of the human experience by co-opting the audience into the performance.

Danse K par K / Karine Ledoyen (Quebec City): GLORIOUS FRAGILITY (excerpt)

Toronto Premiere

From the creator of Osez! - a project that helped popularize dance in Quebec from the early 2000s - comes a work that celebrates dancers' lifelong passion for a vocation they must inevitably leave. Recorded testimonies from former dance artists are woven into performative treatments in this touching, inspirational piece.

Sashar Zarif (Toronto): Kismet: Opposing Destiny

World Premiere

Internationally recognized Iranian-Canadian artist and researcher Sashar Zarif received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012. Kismet: Opposing Destiny is a work rooted in shamanic transformation rituals; performers embody space and time in raptures of interrupted stillness and silence.

Cruz Series: Curated by Lina Cruz

Friday, August 16 at 7pm* / Saturday, August 17 at 9pm / Sunday, August 18 at 4pm

*Post-show chat at 8pm

Alexandra Elliott Dance (Winnipeg): Logarian Rhapsody

Toronto Premiere

Commissioned by the renowned Tedd Robinson in 2015, this unrelenting duet, featuring Alexandra Elliott and Ian Mozdzen, is never the same twice. Reality is transformed through the two performers' whispers of desire, urgency, and unattainable need. Charles Quevillon's intoxicating sound score injects the pair with a physical and emotional intensity that will reach into the audience's viscera.

Jolene Bailie/Gearshifting Performance Works (Winnipeg): Phase Wash (excerpt)

Toronto Premiere

Founding artistic director of Gearshifting Performance Works and artistic director of Winnipeg's Contemporary Dancers, Jolene Bailie pays homage to the endless layers of connectivity between people and locations. Phase Wash is attuned to the expression of deep feeling and sentiment through movement, finding the physical in the abstract.

DA Hoskins/The Dietrich Group (Toronto): Janus is a god

World Premiere

One of the country's top choreographers, DA Hoskins is the recipient of the Clifford E. Lee Award from the Banff Centre for the Arts, the KM Hunter Award, and the Canadian Stage Award for Direction. Danielle Baskerville won a KM Hunter Award in 2014, a Dora Mavor Moore Award in 2015, and hosted the country's first-ever Trisha Brown Dance Company Intensive. The two reflect on their 20-year creative relationship in the world premiere of Janus is a god.

WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET (WYSIWYG)

Saturday, August 17 at 2pm / Sunday, August 18 at 2pm

Allison Elizabeth Burns (Ottawa): The Key to Time Travel

Toronto Premiere

The Key to Time Travel is a theatrical duet inspired by the groove, strength, and shape of breakdance. It treads the brilliant borderland between reality and magic, as the dancers travel through time by dropping memory markers/keys in specific moments in the past, present, and future.

Molly Johnson (Toronto): dance dance

World Premiere

Co-artistic director of hub14 and Dora Award-winning artist Molly Johnson presents an unsculpted performance made for the audience via shifting situations and music. The dance eschews form, but at its core is a presentation of human overtures and gestures.

Kolarova Danse (Montreal): Stream of Light / Capricho Arabe

Toronto Premiere

Award-winning Czech Republic artist Eva Kolarova studied at the National Dance Conservatory in the Czech Republic, the Béjart Ballet Lausanne in Switzerland, and the Hoschule für Kunst und Musik in Germany. The solo ballet, Stream of Light, is a reminder of our insignificance in the face of greatness.

Seeking Bridge (Toronto): Face to Face

World Premiere

The new dance collective Seeking Bridge presents an early excerpt of a larger dance-based project exploring the physical and sociological concept of the "face." In traditional Chinese society, the face is seen as one's social currency. How does this fit into the identity of contemporary Chinese Canadians?

Kylie Thompson Dance (Toronto): Oh, Yes

World Premiere

Choreographer Kylie Thompson looks to her personal experiences with hip hop, and the movement and cultural profiles accompanying it. Performed by five dancers, it is unequal parts groovy, sentimental, absurd, and physically driven.

In addition to its Mainstage and WYSIWYG programs, d:mic/fac curates interdisciplinary art exhibitions in the lobby of the Betty Oliphant Theatre and The Blake House throughout the run of the festival from August 14-18, 2019. This year will include:

? Interactive installations, photography, performances, and more by Susie Burpee and Linnea Swan, Irvin Chow, Luke Garwood, Sonia Gemmiti, Marie Lambin-Gagnon, and Lindsay Zier-Vogel.

? A special exhibition titled Wish you were here, in which past and current d:mic/fac artists will mail postcards to the festival describing the current project they are working on. Festival attendees are encouraged to write personal messages to the artists.

? A Dancefilm series co-curated by writer and filmmaker Kathleen Smith and Festival Director Yvonne Ng.

? Screening of Louise Lecavalier - In Motion on Wednesday, August 14 at 6:30pm, followed by a post-show chat at 8pm with Louise Lecavalier moderated by Kathleen Smith. Seats must be reserved online at dancemadeincanada.ca; tickets are Pay-What-You-Wish.

About dance: made in canada (dancemadeincanada.ca)

dance: made in canada / fait au canada (d:mic/fac) is a biennial repertory festival with a vision of presenting works by Canadian choreographers who possess unique artistic visions and come from all cultural backgrounds. The festival provides a platform for experimentation and collaboration with other arts disciplines, cross-pollinating artists both geographically and experientially. d:mic/fac was created in 2001 in response to the growing need to support mid-market independent dance artists. Performances were held at the old Dancemakers' Studio from 2001-2004, then at the Winchester Street Theatre from 2004-2008. In 2009, the Betty Oliphant Theatre became our home and was the same year the festival was voted Top Best Dance Series by NOW Magazine. In 2011, d:mic/fac evolved into a repertory festival format.

dance: made in canada Festival 2019

Dates: August 14-18, 2019

Venues: Betty Oliphant Theatre

404 Jarvis St

Toronto, ON M4Y 2G6

- AND -

The Blake House

449 Jarvis St

Toronto, ON M4Y 2G8

Ticket Prices: Single Tickets: From $19

All Access Pass: $65

*One ticket to each of the four festival performances (Mainstage and WYSIWYG)

Flex Pass: $75

*Four tickets to any combination of performances

Screening of Louise Lecavalier - In Motion: Pay-What-You-Wish

*Please reserve seats in advance at dancemadeincanada.ca

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