DanceHouse Reveals 2023/24 Season of Transformative Work

DanceHouse announced its 2023/24 season of bold and transformative works from around the globe -  on Vancouver stages from July 2023 through April 2024. Seven esteemed companies and choreographers offer distinct and fearless worldviews, deconstructing and reinventing dance norms across multiple genres to explore urgent and timely themes of connection and community. Single tickets are now on sale.
 

“Dance has the power to deeply impact and alter our perspectives,” says Jim Smith, Artistic and Executive Director of DanceHouse. “We’re honoured to bring Vancouver audiences the fierce intelligence and visionary storytelling found in the extraordinary works of our 2023/24 season. From the gritty to ethereal, cacophonous to quiet, each performance will revive and reset our notions of home, of belonging, coupled with our relationships with ourselves, with each other, and with the natural world.”

Five companies make their DanceHouse debuts this season, including the long-anticipated presentation of Compañía Rocío Molina’s masterwork, Fallen from Heaven (Caída del Cielo). Described as the ‘enfant terrible’ of Flamenco, Spain’s Molina is feted for reinventing this classical form with anarchic punk energy and avant-garde theatricality. Svāhā! Toronto's Nova Dance exalts the human spirit in a striking revelry of rites and rituals. Australia’s ground-breaking Gravity and Other Myths offers a visceral yet sublime spectacle of the corporeal glory of bodies in The Mirror, a raw and physical new work infused with elements of circus, cabaret, and a touch of kink.

The tone shifts to playful but quiet magnificence in Vástádus eana - The answer is land by Indigenous choreographer Elle Sofe Sara of Norway. Inspired by the relationship between the Sámi people and their ancestral homeland, Sara fashions a vital message about the foundational attachment arising from community and culture in her powerful exploration of kinship, continuity, and reclamation. The quest for home is central to X (Dix) by Toronto’s Côté Danse. Drawing inspiration from the mythic story of Odysseus, renowned choreographer Guillaume Côté employs archetypal storytelling ideas, from the hero’s journey into the unknown, to the role of home, to create new narratives of leaving and returning in a work of singular beauty.
 

Returning DanceHouse audience favourites include a world premiere from Vancouver’s Kidd Pivot. In their third collaboration,  Kidd Pivot’s Artistic Director and choreographer Crystal Pite and Electric Company Theatre Co-Founder Jonathon Young upend the conventions of dance and theatre, creating a pan-disciplinary fission. New York City’s Dorrance Dance brings the season to a thunderous close with SOUNDspace, putting the vocabulary of tap fully on display in a rousing celebration of the future and legacy of this beloved Black American art form.
 

The 2023/24 DanceHouse Season includes:
 

Svāhā! - Nova Dance (Toronto)

Co-presented with Indian Summer Festival and SFU Woodward’s Cultural Programs

July 14 & 15, 2023 | Vancouver Playhouse 

A shimmering, whirling ode to the rites and rituals of women, the BC premiere of Nova Bhattacharya’s latest work Svāhā! celebrates the cathartic power of performance to unite people in laughter, beauty and shared joy. Inspired by acts of women building community through acts of celebration, mourning, and worship, Nova Dance uses the universal language of movement as a reminder of our collective existence and a return to wholeness and abundance.
 

Fallen from Heaven (Caída del Cielo) - Compañía Rocío Molina (Spain)

Co-presented with SFU Woodward’s Cultural Programs and Vancouver International Flamenco Festival

September 27-30, 2023 | Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre, Goldcorp Centre for the Arts

In her long-anticipated DanceHouse debut the ‘enfant terrible’ of Flamenco, Rocío Molina brings her masterwork Fallen from Heaven (Caída del Cielo) to Vancouver for its Canadian premiere. Since bursting onto the international stage, Molina has revolutionized Flamenco and galvanized audiences. Powered by avant-garde theatricality, peerless technique, and a gonzo sense of humour, Molina summons the deepest stuff of life — blood and earth, ferocity and fragility — demanding audiences bear witness to her acts of radical creation.
 

New Work - Kidd Pivot (Vancouver)

Created by Crystal Pite and Jonathon Young

October 25-28, 2023 | Vancouver Playhouse

[October 25 Preview, World Premiere on October 26]

From the team that brought DanceHouse audiences the ground-breaking, award-winning productions of Betroffenheit and Revisor, comes the world premiere of Kidd Pivot’s latest offering: a dance theatre hybrid that continues the company’s signature wit, irreverence, and wild invention. Eight magnificent performers assemble to explore the human need to congregate and belong. In a gathering place that doubles as community hall and mythic realm, we witness the joys and dangers of devoted like-mindedness and the pain of exile.
 

The Mirror - Gravity and Other Myths (Australia)

Co-presented with The Cultch

January 25-27, 2024 | Vancouver Playhouse

The corporeal glory of bodies, full of sweat, heat and power, forms the meat of The Mirror, the newest work from Gravity and Other Myths. In this North American premiere and inaugural presentation with DanceHouse, the Australian company more than lives up to its title, suspending the laws of physics in order to generate a new kind of dance, infused with elements of circus, cabaret, and a light spanking of kink.
 

Vástádus eana - The answer is land - Elle Sofe Sara (Norway)

Co-presented with Dancers of Damelahamid

February 23 & 24, 2024 | Vancouver Playhouse

For centuries, the Sámi people ranged in territory that stretched from Norway to Russia, until policies of enforced assimilation stripped them of their traditional culture. The path back to a place of pride and identity has come through art. A fundamental act of shepherding as well as a manifestation of care and connection, Vástádus eana - The answer is land makes its BC premiere and offers a return to dignity, healing, and ultimately the possibility of a new relationship with the natural world.
 

X (Dix) - Côté Danse (Toronto) 

March 22 & 23, 2024 | Vancouver Playhouse

Taking inspiration from Homer’s mythic poem Odysseus, five dancers delve deeply into the idea of an inner compass, not only as a means of navigation, but also as a tool of connection to the elemental forces of the earth. In this first appearance with DanceHouse, Côté Danse’s mythic new work X (Dix) makes its BC premiere with remarkable use of the foundational materials of storytelling, employing archetypal ideas, from the hero’s journey into the unknown, to the role of home, and the challenges of leaving and returning.
 

SOUNDspace - Dorrance Dance (US)

Co-presented with Vancouver Tap Dance Society

April 19 & 20, 2024 | Vancouver Playhouse

Summoning thunder and lightning through the soles of their feet, New York City’s Dorrance Dance returns to DanceHouse to honour the past and the future of tap in the Canadian premiere of SOUNDspace. From the glissando slide of socks to the almighty roar of heels, the virtuoso display of articulate feet and full-body percussion gives rise to a wall of sound as the performers unite, building a syncopated conflagration that will burn down the house.

To post a comment, you must register and login.