Collaboration: Intersections, Negotiations, Mediations in the Worlds

Transcription

Collaboration: Intersections, Negotiations,
Mediations in the Worlds of Dance |
Collaboration : intersections, négociations,
médiations dans les mondes de la danse
Canadian Society for Dance Studies Conference |
Colloque de la société Canadienne d’études en danse
Montréal, QC
May 31 to June 3, 2012 | du 31 mai au 3 juin 2012
Welcome Delegates to the Canadian Society for Dance Studies’ conference:
“Collaboration: Intersections, Negotiations, Mediations in the Worlds of Dance”
The next three and a half days will be filled with inspiration and debate. Please enjoy the conference and the
opportunity to network with the growing number of colleagues in the field of dance studies in Canada. In addition,
please take advantage of all Montreal has to offer. The Society is proud to partner with the Festival TransAmériques
and the Université du Québec à Montréal on this conference.
Organizing this conference has been a collaborative act. Three dedicated Society members have collaborated as
Conference Curators. I am grateful for the hard work and dedication of Dena Davida, Philip Szporer and Melissa
Templeton. They have made this vibrant conference a reality.
As the second Director of the Society, I would like to thank our founder, Amy Bowring, for her guidance in preparing
this conference. She was always available to me for help and reassurance. I would also like to thank my stalwart
Board of Directors for their support and generosity. I am proud to say this is the Society’s eighth conference and the
first to offer simultaneous interpretation.
Finally, I would like to thank the Dance Section of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Department of Canadian
Heritage for their support. |
Bienvenue délégués, au colloque de la Société canadienne d’études en danse : « Collaboration :
intersections, négociations, médiations dans les mondes de la danse »
Les trois prochains jours seront remplis d’inspiration et de débats. Je vous invite à profiter du colloque, et de
l’occasion de rencontrer le nombre grandissant de collègues chercheurs en danse au Canada. En plus, prenez
avantage de la richesse qu’offre la ville de Montréal. C’est avec fierté que la SCED s’associe au Festival
TransAmériques et à l’Université du Québec à Montréal pour vous présenter cet événement.
L’organisation du colloque est un acte de collaboration : trois membres ont travaillé ensemble au commissariat. Je
tiens à remercier Dena Davida, Philips Szporer et Melissa Templeton pour leur travail assidu. Ils ont donné corps à
cette rencontre.
En tant que deuxième directrice de la SCED, je dois remercier la fondatrice Amy Bowring pour ses conseils lors de la
préparation du colloque; sa disponibilité et sa confiance m’ont été précieuses. Merci aussi au fidèle conseil
d’administration pour leur soutien et leur générosité. Sa me fait plaisir de souligner que c’est la huitième édition du
colloque et la première à offrir l’interprétation simultanée.
Finalement, merci au Service de la danse du Conseil des Arts du Canada et au Ministère du Patrimoine canadien
pour leur appui.
Kate Cornell
Director | Directrice
Welcome to this enriching meeting of minds. The Canadian Society for Dance Studies annual conferences
provide a place for critical thinking and academic investigation into the field of dance and movement arts
and associated fields of creative inquiry.
The curatorial team has been shaping the identity of this year’s conference, “Collaboration: Intersections,
Negotiations, Mediations in the Worlds of Dance”, as a time to immerse ourselves in social, cultural and media ideas.
At this year’s three-day event, we anticipate that the focus on collaboration will elicit new methods of research and
offer a forum for lessons learned, plus provide for exchanges between consummate artists, academics, curators, and
create a dynamic archive of current artistic process, informed by post-millennial phenomena and collectivism.
Collaboration is no easy art. And in the spirit that most art is the result of collaboration, and perhaps compromise, we
have assembled people whose dedication to the process and persistent questioning of the form inspires. At the heart
of our gathering is the firm belief in the generation of ideas without criticism or censoring.
Not incidentally, this meeting is further embedded with the possibility to interrogate and experience, in a
comprehensive fashion, the fundamental physical power of dance as a means to foster inclusion and our individual
and social well-being.
Have a good conference. |
Bienvenue à cette rencontre enrichissante de beaux esprits. Le colloque annuel de la Société canadienne
d’études en danse propose un lieu pour la pensée critique et la recherche académique en danse, en art du
mouvement et dans les champs associés d’exploration créative.
En tant qu’équipe de commissaires, nous avons construit l’identité du colloque « Collaboration : intersections,
négociations, médiations dans les mondes de la danse » en étant un moment pour plonger dans des réflexions
sociales, culturelles et médiatiques. Au cours des trois journées de l’événement, nous prévoyons que la collaboration
mise en vedette donnera corps à de nouvelles méthodes de recherche et offrira un forum pour le partage de
connaissances pratiques. La rencontre cultivera des échanges dynamiques entre artistes, chercheurs et
commissaires passionnés, et créera une archive dynamique des processus artistiques actuels influencés par les
phénomènes et le collectivisme post-millénaires.
L’art de collaboration est loin d’être simple. Étant donné que la majorité de la création artistique est issue de la
collaboration et peut-être du compromis, nous avons réuni des personnes qui nous inspirent par leur dévouement au
processus et au questionnement de la forme. Au cœur de notre rassemblement, il y a la ferme conviction que la
génération d’idée se doit d’être libre de critique et de censure.
De plus, notre rencontre abonde en occasions pour questionner et faire l’expérience – exhaustivement – de la
puissance physique fondamentale de la danse comme moyen d’alimenter l’inclusion et le bien-être individuel et
social. Ce n’est pas le fruit du hasard.
Bon colloque.
Dena Davida, Philip Szporer, Melissa Templeton
Curators | Commissaires
Collaboration: Intersections, Negotiations, Mediations in the Worlds of Dance |
Collaboration : intersections, négociations, médiations dans les mondes
de la danse
Canadian Society for Dance Studies Conference in Montréal |
Colloque de la Société Canadienne d’études en danse à Montréal
May 31 to June 3, 2012 | du 31 mai au 3 juin 2012
Schedule | Horaire
Thursday, May 31 | le jeudi 31 mai
FTA day at the | journée FTA à l’Agora Hydro-Québec du Cœur des sciences de l’UQÀM
175, ave. Président-Kennedy
9:00-5:00
9 h à 17 h
Registration Table Open | Heures d’ouverture de la table d’inscription
9:15-9:45
9 h 15 à 9 h 45
Opening Remarks | Mot d’accueil
Kate Cornell, Director; Sylvie Fortin, professeure UQAM; La vice-rectrice aux Affaires publiques et
aux relations gouvernementales et internationales, Mme. Chantal Bouvier
9:45-10:45
Keynote Address | Discours-programme
9 h 45 à 10 h 45 MJ Thompson and Louise Lecavalier
10:45-11:00 | 10 h 45 à 11 h
11:00-12:30
11 h à 12 h 30
Panel | Séance 1 – Dance Dramaturgies | Dramaturgies de la danse
Chair | Animatrice: Elizabeth Langley
“External Criticism in the Choreographic Process: an experiential and philosophical perspective”
Karen Duplisea and Jeff Stickney
“Collaboration as Practice: developing a methodology – a continuum between the Dancer/Creator
and his or her assistant/dramaturge – otherwise known as: ‘The Long and Winding Road’”
Thea Patterson and Peter Trosztmer
12:30-1:30 | 12 h 30 à 13 h 30
1:30-2:45
13 h 30 à
14 h 45
Health break | Pause santé
Lunch break | Pause dîner
Round Table | Table ronde 1 – “International Collaborations: Why?”
Chair | Animatrice: Maxine Heppner
with/avec Marie Josée Chartier, Sashar Zarif and/et Mariko Tanabe
2:45-3:30
Health break and book launch for Fields in Motion |
14 h 45 à 15 h 30
Pause santé et lancement du livre Fields in Motion
3:30-5:00
15 h 30 à 17 h
Panel | Séance 2 (Curated by the FTA | Organisée par le FTA)
Chair | Animatrice: Karine Denault
Isabelle van Grimde and her collaborators, Monique Régimbald-Zeiber and Cristian Berco |
Isabelle van Grimde et ses collaborateurs, Monique Régimbald-Zeiber et Cristian Berco
Friday, June 1 | Le vendredi 1 juin
UQAM Dance Pavilion | Pavillon de la danse de l’UQÀM
840, rue Cherrier
8:00-4:00
8 h à 16 h
Registration table open | Heures d’ouverture de la table d’inscription
8:00-9:00 | 8 h à 9 h
9:00-10:30
9 h à 10 h 30
Early morning networking with coffee |
Résautage matinale avec café
Panel | Séance 3 – Pedagogies | Pédagogies (K-R380)
Chair | Animatrice: kg guttman
“Negotiation, Alliance and Interchange: A Formula for Training Dance Artists”
Vicki St. Denys, Karen Duplisea and Nadia Potts
“Intergenerational Dance: Changing Perceptions of Older Adults through Collaborations with
Student Teachers”
Mary Jane Warner
« Danse, enseignement et technologies; une proposition éducative à explorer »
Nicole Turcotte et Normand Marcy
Workshop | Atelier 1 (K-3220)
"Workshop on exploration of meaning-making by the audience"
Nika Stein
10:30-10:45 | 10 h 30 à 10 h 45
10:45-12:15
10 h 45 à
12 h 15
Panel | Séance 4 – Histories | Histoires (K-R380)
Chair | Animatrice: Virginia Preston
“Silent Partners: The Word, the Dancer and the Prophet Unearthing Esoterism, Yoga Modern
Dance, 1880-1919”
Priya Thomas
“A Different ‘Special Relationship’: Martha Graham and the British Cultural Luminaries John
Gielgud, E.M. Forster and Henry Moore”
Camelia Lenart
“Social Dance as a Collaborative Enactment of Early Montreal Society”
Karen Millyard
« La critique, facteur de développement d’une démarche artistique »
Marie Beaulieu
Panel | Séance 5 – Diasporic trajectories | Trajectoires diasporiques (K-3105)
Chair | Animatrice: Kaija Pepper
“Making (jazz) music and dance come alive for students and for audiences in 2012 and beyond:
One musician, one dancer, presenting, in collaboration; jazz is not dead an aural/corporeal
snapshot of 2012”
Michèle Moss and Tyler Hornby
“The living history of Ethel Bruneau”
Lys Stevens and Ethel Bruneau
12:15-1:30 | 12 h 15 à 13 h 30
Lunch break | Pause dîner
1:30-3:00
13 h 30 à 15 h
Panel | Séance 6 – Creative Processes 1 | Processus de création 1 (K-R380)
Chair | Animatrice: Kristin Harris Walsh
“The White Spider: A Case Study in Collaboration”
Cheryl Prophet
“Dance Laboratory: A Collaborative Choreography Case in Higher Education”
Maria João Alves
“(Pre-?) Relations and Collaborations in Solo Dance Practice”
Megan Andrews
Panel | Séance 7 – Inscribing Dance | Inscrire la danse (K-3105)
Chair | Animateur: Philip Szporer
“Internet, Intermedia and Consensual Collaboration: Blogging Choreography by the Post Natyam
Collective”
Sandra Chatterjee and Cynthia Lee
“On Projecting and Projecting On”
Erin McCurdy and Dave Colangelo
“Pigeon: Choreography from Unsent Letters and the Status of the Document in Relation to Dance”
Jenn Cole
3:00-3:15 | 15 h à 15 h 15
3:15-4 :45
15 h 15 à
16 h 45
Panel | Séance 8 – Social Dimensions | Dimensions sociales (K-R380)
Chair | Animatrice: Dena Davida
“Do-it-yourself: the meaning of collaboration in dance training subsidies and employment in
Canada”
Mary-Elizabeth Luka
« Danser pour dire, danser pour faire: L’utilisation de la danse dans les projets de développement
soutenable »
Marc Pronovost
“Hybrid events, curatorship and collaboration”
Andrew Tay and Sasha Kleinplatz
Round Table | Table ronde 2 (K-3105)
Chair | Animatrice: Norma Sue Fisher-Stitt
“Moving from the Transactional to the Transformative: Explorations of Dance in/and Education”
Tanya Berg, Catherine Limbertie, Priya Thomas and/et Heather Young
4:45-6:00
16 h 45 à 18 h
Round Table | Table ronde 3 (K-R380)
« Le fantasme de la collaboration »
La 2e Porte à Gauche – Rachel Billet, Elodie Lombardo, Jessie Mill et Katya Montaignac
5:00-7:00
17 h à 19 h
Book Launch/Lancement de livre (K-1150)
Renegade Bodies: Canadian Dance in the 1970s
Editors/Rédactrices: Allana C. Lindgren and/et Kaija Pepper
Dance Collection Danse Press/Presses
Saturday June 2 | Le samedi 2 juin
840, rue Cherrier
9:00 – 5:00
9 h à 17 h
Registration table open | Heures d’ouverture de la table d’inscription
8:45-10:45
Workshop | Atelier 2 (K-3220)
8 h 45 à 10 h 45 “Moving Inward/Moving Outward | A Yoga and Writing Workshop”
Terrill Maguire and Carol Anderson
Workshop | Atelier 3 – Crash & Create Workshop (K4110)
Mary Fogarty and Luca “Lazylegz” Patuelli
10:45-11:00 | 10 h 45 à 11 h
11:00-12:30
11 h à 12 h 30
Health Break | Pause santé
Panel | Séance 10 – Philosophical Inclinations | Inclinations philosophiques (K-R380)
Chair | Animatrice: TBA
“The Missing Link Project: Un trou dans le telos”
Silvy Panet-Raymond
« Quand l’ ‘altérité artistique’ collabore avec la danse »
Marie Mougeolle
« Triangulation de la relation interprète-chorégraphe-œuvre : une collaboration dynamique »
Johanna Bienaise
Chair | Animateur: Shawn Newman
“Jazzing Culture”
Ethel Bruneau, Michèle Moss, Vicki St. Denys, Lys Stevens, Melissa Templeton and Eva von
Gencsy
12:30-12:45 | 12 h 30 à 12 h 45
12:45-2:45 | 12 h 45 à 14 h 45
2:45-3:00 | 2 h 45-15 h
3:00-4:30
15 h à 16 h 30
Travel Break | Pause pour le déplacement
Tribute Lunch | Dîner d’honneur
3535, rue St-Denis
Travel Break | Pause pour le déplacement
“Confessions Session: A Working Session on Collaboration”
Samantha Mehra, Seika Boye, Carolyne Clare
Panel | Séance 11 – Creative Processes | Processus créatifs 2 (K-R380)
Chair | Animatrice: Michèle Moss
“Works Cited: on citing sources, neurocognition, and the impossibility of originality”
Amelia Ehrhardt
“How an artist’s imagination mediates the creative process”
Gauri Vanarase
« Collabor(el)ation: chorégraphe, interprètes »
Florence Figols
4:30-6 :00
16 h 30 à 18 h
Panel | Séance 12 – Cross Borders | Traverse les frontières (K-R380)
Chair | Animatrice: Sara Porter
“Collaborations and Liminality: Seeking Engagements with Intercultural Ways of Knowing”
Margaret Manson and Lata Pada
“Firedance: Sharing a flame between Flamenco and Kathak”
Catalina Fellay-Dunbar
“If I Stop to Dance, I Die”
Miriana Lausic
Round Table | Table Ronde 6 (K-3105)
Chair | Animatrice: Helen Simard
“Round Table Discussion on Breaking: the Inner Workings of Crew Politics”
Alien Ness, Mama Zulu and/et Tyquan of the Mighty Zulu Kings
Sunday June 3 | Le dimanche 3 juin
840, rue Cherrier
9:00-10:30
9 h à 10 h 30
Awards and Mentor Breakfast | Déjeuner pour la remise des prix et le mentorat (K-R380)
10:30-11:30
10 h 30 à
11 h 30
Graduate Student Working Group (bilingual) (K-3105)
Groupe de travail pour étudiant(e)s du 2e et 3e cycle (bilingue)
Carolyne Clare, Melissa Templeton
Film showing | Présentation du film (K-R380)
“Ati-atihan Lives"
Patrick Alcedo
11:30-11:45
11 h 30 à
11 h 45
AGM of the Canadian Society for Dance Studies |
Assemblé générale de la Société canadienne d’études en danse (K-R380)
Biographies and Abstracts
Keynote Address | Discours-programme
MJ Thompson and Louise Lecavalier
Born in Montreal, Louise Lecavalier joined La La La Human Steps in 1981 dancing in Oranges and went on to
perform in every one of the company’s productions until Salt in 1999. The company’s symbol and luminary for nearly
two decades, giving her heart and soul to her art, Louise embodied dance on the outer edge with passion and
unrestrained generosity, dazzling audiences everywhere. She also participated in all the major collaborations of La La
La Human Steps, including the David Bowie Sound and Vision tour in 1990, The Yellow Shark concert by Frank
Zappa and the Ensemble Modern of Germany in autumn 1992, and Michael Apted’s film Inspirations, in 1996. In May
1999, she received the Jean A. Chalmers National Award, Canada’s most distinguished dance prize, and in February
2003, she received a Career Grant from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec. In December 2008, Louise
Lecavalier was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in recognition of her illustrious contribution to contemporary
dance. In June 2011, she was named “Dance Personality of the Year 2010-2011” by the French Critics’ Union in
Paris. In November 2011, she became the very first winner of the Prix de la danse de Montréal.
Louise occasionally gives workshops and master classes in Canada and in Europe, while mounting creation
projects both as an independent dancer and for her production company, Fou glorieux, a flexible working structure
founded in 2006. The double program made up of Children and A Few Minutes of Lock will be presented in Canada,
the United States and Europe until the end of 2012. www.louiselecavalier.com |
Née à Montréal, Louise Lecavalier s’associe à La La La Human Steps au début des années 1980 et a fait partie
de toutes les distributions de la compagnie depuis Oranges en 1981 jusqu’à Salt en 1999. Elle a également
participé aux collaborations d’envergure marquantes de la trajectoire de La La La Human Steps, notamment le
spectacle Sound and Vision de David Bowie en 1990, le concert The Yellow Shark de Frank Zappa et de
l’Ensemble Modern d’Allemagne à l’automne 1992 et le film Inspirations du réalisateur Michael Apted. Icône de la
compagnie pendant près de deux décennies, investie corps et âme dans son art, elle a incarné avec passion une
danse extrême, bouleversant les publics de partout. En mai 1999, elle remporte le prix national de danse Jean A.
Chalmers, la plus haute distinction en danse au Canada. En février 2003, elle reçoit une bourse de carrière du
Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec. En décembre 2008, elle est nommée officier de l’Ordre du Canada. En
juin 2011, elle est nommée « Personnalité chorégraphique de l’année 2010-2011 » par le Syndicat professionnel
français de la critique, à Paris. En novembre 2011, elle est la toute première lauréate des Prix de la danse de
Montréal.
Louise Lecavalier se consacre à des projets de création comme danseuse indépendante ou sous la bannière
de sa compagnie, Fou glorieux, une structure de travail flexible formée en 2006. Le programme Children et A Few
Minutes of Lock sera diffusé au Canada, aux États-Unis et en Europe jusqu’à la fin de 2012.
www.louiselecavalier.com
MJ Thompson is a writer and teacher working on dance, performance and visual art. Her articles have appeared in
The Drama Review, Theatre Journal, Women and Performance, Dance Magazine, The Dance Current, Dance Ink,
Dance Connection, The Brooklyn Rail, Canadian Art and Border Crossings. She earned her Ph.D. in Performance
Studies (Tisch/NYU, 2009), where her dissertation, "Impure Moves: Everyday Movement in 20th Century American
Choreography," was recipient of the Cynthia Jean Cohen Bull Memorial Award for Academic Excellence. In 2010/11,
she was a Lilliane Robinson Scholar at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute at Concordia University in Montreal. She
teaches in the department of Fine Arts at Concordia University. She is currently working on an experimental
biography of the dancer Louise Lecavalier.
MJ Thompson est une écrivaine et professeure qui travaille en danse, en performance et en art visuel. Ses articles
sont publiés dans The Drama Review, Theatre Journal, Women and Performance, Dance Magazine, The Dance
Current, Dance Ink, Dance Connection, The Brooklyn Rail, Canadian Art et Border Crossings. Elle détient un
doctorat en études des arts vivants (Tisch/NYU, 2009) où sa dissertation « Impure Moves: Everyday Movement in
20th Century American Choreography » (Mouvements impurs : gestuelle quotidienne dans la chorégraphie
américaine du 20e siècle) a reçu le prix Cynthia Jean Cohen Bull Memorial pour l’excellence académique. En 2010 –
2011, elle était boursière Lilliane Robinson à l’Institut Simone de Beauvoir de l’Université Concordia. Elle enseigne à
la Faculté des beaux-arts de cette même université, et travaille présentementsur une biographie expérimentale de la
danseuse Louise Lecavalier.
“External Criticism in the Choreographic Process: an experiential and philosophical perspective”
Karen Duplisea and Jeff Stickney
Inviting outside eyes into one's choreography involves some degree of collaboration, ranging from "cleaning" minor
transitions to correcting staging or substantially reorienting the artistic direction of the piece. Drawing on Turner's
social drama theory, this opening to external criticism can be seen as a breach in the creative process: a liminal
(threshold) moment where the work is "betwixt and between" dynamic possibilities. Negotiating recommended
changes creates a schism: a crisis stage where the choreographer must choose the degree of co-creation.
The epistemological question arises as to how the choreographer knows he/she can trust, qualify or dismiss the
aesthetic judgement of the authorized critic. How collaborators mediate the critical and dynamic situation, leading to
re-aggregation or unity of the work, can be viewed through the philosophical perspective of Heidegger's
phenomenological hermeneutics and Wittgenstein's concept of the background for aesthetic judgement. Both of
these contextualist, post-foundational philosophies point to common language and training – providing an ability to
read complex circumstances and movement sequences – as the tenuous ground for "expert" judgement. Seen as a
dialogical process, the meaning of the dance does not rest in the head of its creator alone, but is mediated
somewhere between author, dancers, audience and critic.
Professor Karen Duplisea, Co-director, Dance Program, Ryerson University Theatre School. Karen was formerly a
principal dancer with Toronto Dance Theatre, and has appeared with Desrosiers Dance Theatre. She has guest
taught across Canada, and for five years taught and choreographed in the Dance Training Program at the Banff
Centre for the Arts in Alberta.
Dr. Jeff Stickney, Lecturer, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. Jeff has several peer
reviewed papers/chapters in the field of philosophy of education, mostly on Wittgenstein and Foucault, and is
principal author of a new high school philosophy text (McGraw-Hill Ryerson).
“Collaboration as Practice: developing a methodology – a continuum between the Dancer/Creator and his or
her assistant/dramaturge – otherwise known as: ‘The Long and Winding Road’”
Thea Patterson and Peter Trosztmer
As practitioners it could be said that we create the parameters of the collaborative relationship as we go, a kind of
trial and error experiential process that often relies heavily on instinct and intuition, and which invariably follows a
curvaceous path dictated by the needs and idiosyncrasies of the emerging work. Once immersed in this intricate
back and forth, the shared experience and fluidity of the collaboration intrinsically blurs the sense of “I” for the more
inclusive “we”. At times analogous to jumping on a roller coaster and buckling in for the ride, one is often tossed
about by the multitude levels of awareness at play. Our intent in this presentation is to look into that wellspring of
folded and interlaced information in an attempt to map out and identify some small part of what our actual practice
entails. How are decisions made and concrete progress achieved? How important is conflict? How important is
consensus? Who has the final say? What do we do … really when there are no maps and no rules and when the
nature of creation is invariably, at times, a long and winding road?
Originally from B.C. but now based in Montreal, Concordia alumni Thea Patterson, works on a variety of projects as
a choreographer, performer, director, and collaborator with a group of peers that include: Peter Trosztmer, Katie
Ward, Audrée Juteau, Michel Lemieux, Victor Pilon, David Pressault, Bill Coleman, Erin Flynn, Wants and Needs
Dance, Marie Béland, and Andrew Turner. She is a member of the artist group “The Choreographers” whose
mandate is to create collaborative works of dance theatre, as well as to support the individual works of each of the
members.
Peter Trosztmer has choreographed and performed work that has been seen around the world. He has a B.A. in
Classics, studied at the Concordia University Contemporary Dance Department and at the School of the Toronto
Dance Theatre. He has collaborated with many Canadian, and international choreographers and directors including:
Martin F Bélanger, Margie Gillis, Carré Des Lombes, Compagnie Flak, James Kudelka, Marie Chouinard, Catherine
Tardif, Jacob Wren, Louise Bédard, Lois Brown, and Montreal Danse. Peter now pursues his own work, and projects
that inspires him including his new solo performance/installation “Eesti” Myths and Machines and his work with the
Montreal collective “The Choreographers”.
“International Collaborations: Why?”
Maxine Heppner, Marie-Josée Chartier, Sashar Zarif
International collaborations : why? This panel and discussion proposes to examine questions often asked by the
general public who may see international work as a luxury. Why not stay home? How is working with people outside
of Canada different from working across cultures or genres in Canada? How does content differ by working in foreign
contexts? Who gains and How do they gain from this interaction re: the creative artists involved, the communities that
host them, the foreign audience, the Canadian audience? How does new inter-medial and online work and
performance change the process and presentation of long-distance collaboration? Panelists will be dance artists
whose careers have been shaped by their different directions in international work: long relationships, residencies,
fast-turn-around projects; purely professional or interacting directly with communities.
Maxine Heppner, has created, performed and taught dance and intermedial performance at home and
internationally since the 1970s with extended residencies in professional companies, festivals, academia, urban
streets and rural villages at home, in the contemporary arts of East Asia, the USA, Australia and in Europe. She is
known for her bold performance, intimate chamber concerts and big-vision projects. Honours include “Krima!” in
Toronto’s top 10 dance shows of 2009, three Toronto Dora Mavor Moore awards for co-creations, an International
Puppetry Association Award for In Xanadu (Shadowland productions: co-creation), commissions for European Cities
of Culture, and Olympic Arts festivals and artist-in-residence at University of Toronto. Maxine established “Across
Oceans” projects in 1986 to facilitate platforms for investigations in collaborative art-making including the three-year
international AtHome project, the bi-annual Choreographic Marathon training and 7 Days for Creation. She is invited
worldwide as a mentor and to teach integrated movement-voice technique, and her performance & creation method
based on neurological patterning, impulse and cycles.
A multi-faceted artist and award winning creator and performer, Marie-Josée Chartier moves easily between the
worlds of dance, music, opera and multi-media in the roles of choreographer, performer, director, vocalist or teacher.
In 2003, she founded Chartier Danse to support her creative endeavors and to engage in large-scale collaborations.
Her choreographic repertoire has been presented in dance series and festivals in Canada, Europe and Latin America
and her international career includes company touring, co-productions, and teaching in professional and community
settings. She has received Dora Mavor Moore Awards in Choreography, Performance and Production as well as the
K.M. Hunter Award for Dance. Ms. Chartier divides her time between Toronto and Montreal where she collaborates
regularly with music ensembles, dance and opera companies. www.chartierdanse.com
Sashar Zarif is a multi-disciplinary performing artist, educator, and researcher whose artistic practice invites a
convergence of creative and cultural perspectives. His interests are identity, globalization, and cross-cultural
collaborations. His practice is steeped in the artistry and history of traditional, ritualistic, and contemporary dance and
music of the Near Eastern and Central Asian regions. He has toured across Americas, Europe, North Africa, Central
and Western Asia, and Middle East, promoting cultural dialogue through intensive fieldworks, residencies,
performances, and creative collaborations. He is the recipient of numerous national and international awards for his
collaborations with outstanding Canadian artists along with international icons such as Alim Quasimov (a collaborator
on Yo-Yo MA’s Silk Road Project), and universities and arts institutions across continents. Zarif is a research
associate at York Centre for Asian Studies, faculty at York University Dance Department and on the board of
directors of Dance Ontario and World Dance Alliance – Americas.
Isabelle van Grimde and her collaborators | Isabelle van Grimde et ses collaborateurs l'artiste Monique
Régimbald Zeiber et l'historien Cristian Berco
Chair | Animatrice: Karine Denault
Choreographer Isabelle Van Grimde, visual artist Monique Régimbald-Zeiber and historian Cristian Berco will share
their collaborative experience at the heart of the exhibit-choreography Le corps en question(s) presented at the FTA.
Isabelle Van Grimde will discuss how her theoretical research on the body’s perception has influenced
movement vocabulary in her creations, and how she articulates this research in the work Le corps en question(s).
This project pools together very diverse knowledge and expertise. As exhibit curator, Isabelle Van Grimde has
instigated interdisciplinary artistic collaborations as well as research partnerships with other disciplines, such as
history, art history, stem cell research and genetics, among others. The choreographer will talk about the impact of
these collaborations on dance and choreography. In the company of her guests, she will explain what such
exchanges can bring to scientists and artists working in different fields.
It is noteworthy that Le corps en question(s) has impacted areas other than artistic creation, namely through
interdisciplinary meetings and symposia. As such, this talk will also broach the following question: what can dance
artists contribute to contemporary multidisciplinary reflections on the body and, in particular, to ideas about how
people conceptualize their bodies today? |
La chorégraphe Isabelle Van Grimde, l’artiste visuelle Monique Régimbald-Zeiber et l’historien Cristian Berco
partageront avec le public l’expérience de collaboration qui est au cœur de la création-exposition Le corps en
question(s) présentée au programme du FTA.
Parlant de ses recherches théoriques sur la perception du corps, la chorégraphe Isabelle Van Grimde montrera
comment elles ont influencé la gestuelle de ses œuvres et comment elles s’articulent aujourd’hui dans la créationexposition Le corps en question(s). Ce projet est le résultat d’une mise en commun de savoirs et de savoir-faire très
divers. Pour le réaliser, Isabelle Van Grimde, commissaire d’exposition pour l’occasion, a misé sur des collaborations
artistiques interdisciplinaires mais aussi sur des partenariats de recherche avec d’autres disciplines, telles l’histoire,
l’histoire de l’art, la recherche en cellules souches, la génétique etc. La chorégraphe abordera la question de l’impact
de ces collaborations sur la danse et le travail chorégraphique. En compagnie de ses invités, elle montrera ce que
ces collaborations peuvent apporter aux artistes d’autres disciplines et aux scientifiques.
À noter que Le corps en question(s) a des retombées au-delà du milieu de l’art, notamment par l’entremise de
rencontres et symposiums interdisciplinaires. C’est pourquoi cette conférence abordera aussi les questions
suivantes : quel peut être l’apport d’artistes de la danse à une réflexion contemporaine pluridisciplinaire sur le corps
et plus particulièrement sur la façon dont les gens conceptualisent leur corps aujourd’hui?
Surtout connue pour la richesse du dialogue qu’elle entretient entre danse et musique, la Belgo-québécoise Isabelle
Van Grimde est avant tout une passionnée du corps. Concentrée à en sonder les mystères depuis 1987, elle intitule
ses œuvres de jeunesse Au sommet de tes côtes, Par la peau du cœur ou À l’échelle humaine. En 1992, elle baptise
sa compagnie Van Grimde Corps Secrets et elle entame, en 2004, une série de grandes entrevues sur le corps qui
influenceront sa gestuelle et donneront naissance à la création-exposition Le corps en question(s). La volonté de
multiplier les perceptions possibles du corps qui fonde cette nouvelle œuvre compte parmi les éléments au cœur de
la démarche artistique de la chorégraphe et s’est déjà exprimée dans des pièces telles que Trois vues d’un secret,
Les chemins de traverse I et Vortex. Parallèlement, son désir d’ouvrir les champs de perception pour ses créations
se traduit dans le choix de les présenter selon le principe de l’œuvre ouverte depuis 2005 et dans des collaborations
interdisciplinaires: avec des créateurs d’autres disciplines artistiques dans Perspectives Montréal (FTA, 2009) ; avec
les milieux scientifiques dans Duo pour un violoncelle et un danseur et Les gestes, où des instruments de musique
numériques deviennent des extensions du corps.
Dr Cristian Berco est professeur associé au Département d’histoire de l’Université Bishop. Il est titulaire de la
Chaire de recherche sur les différences sociales et culturelles et il coordonne le groupe de recherche Crossing
Borders. Il a publié abondamment sur les questions du genre, de la sexualité et de la maladie au début de l’ère
moderne en Espagne. Sa recherche actuelle, soutenue par le Conseil de Recherche en Sciences Humaines du
Canada, porte sur les questions du corps, du genre et de l’ethnicité à l’époque de l’Inquisition espagnole.
L’artiste Monique Régimbald-Zeiber vit et travaille à Montréal où, depuis 1992, elle est professeure à l’École des
arts visuels et médiatiques de l’UQÀM. Elle a, depuis plus de vingt ans, développé une démarche qui considère la
condition féminine en interrogeant le rôle de la peinture dans la construction du regard et de l’histoire. C’est par là
que la question du corps s’est imposée à travers la représentation de la peau à la fois métaphore et surface idéale
d’un ultime registre de vie. Ses œuvres font partie de différentes collections dont celles du Musée national des
beaux-arts du Québec, du Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal et de la Galerie de l’Université du Québec à
Montréal. Elles ont été exposées au Québec, au Canada et en Europe. Sa dernière exposition individuelle intitulée
Éclats de Rome a été présentée en décembre 2009 à la Galerie La Nube di Oort à Rome. Les quatre Grandes
Nudités seront présentées dans l’exposition Femmes artistes. L’éclatement des frontières, 1965-2000 | Œuvres de la
collection du Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, à Québec en juin 2010.
“Negotiation, Alliance and Interchange: A Formula for Training Dance Artists”
Karen Duplisea, Nadia Potts and Vicki St. Denys
The purpose of this study is to look at how a seeming disaccord, and the asymmetry of three artistic voices with
diverse backgrounds and disparate ideologies, can ultimately lead to successful collaboration in the management
and direction of a post secondary, conservatory-style dance program. The three co-authors of this paper are all
performance based, scholarly practitioners who have had extensive professional careers. They are the foundation
and the fulltime faculty of the Dance Program at Ryerson University.
The aspects explored in this experiential-based paper are: the dynamics in the interaction of three artist
instructors, each from a different generation and context of exposure; how spatial proximity can prompt spontaneous
observation of other dance forms and begin to elicit dialogue; and how the vested interest in a rigorous standard of
training and dance education can influence the negotiation and pursuance of a common goal. An unexpected
outcome of this synthesis is the unified resolve to retain more traditional training modes despite current trends, which
appear to renounce this approach. This paper explores the balance of success and the complexities of this twentyone year collaboration.
Karen Duplisea is Co-Director of the Theatre School Dance Program at Ryerson University, where she teaches
Modern technique and Improvisation/Composition classes. A former professional dancer and independent
choreographer, she has spent much of the past 28 years training dancers. Teaching experience includes the Karen
Jamieson Dance Company in Vancouver, Dancers Studio West in Calgary, York University, the Dance Training
Program at the Banff Centre for the Arts, and the Professional Training Program, the School of the Toronto Dance
Theatre. Her research interest is in liminality and the arts. She holds an M.A. and B.F.A. in Dance from York
University.
As a former principal dancer with the National Ballet of Canada for twenty years, Nadia Potts toured extensively
throughout Canada, the U.S. and Europe and was partnered by many of the most renowned dancers of her time
including Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rudolf Nureyev. After retiring from the stage in 1986, Potts launched into a fulltime
teaching career. She is currently a professor with the Dance Program at Ryerson University and was director of the
program from 1989-2010. Potts is also the author of Betty Oliphant: The Artistry of Teaching published by Dance
Collection Danse in 2007.
Vicki St.Denys is one of Canada’s leaders in the field of jazz dance and has toured internationally as a performer,
teacher and choreographer. Her research, choreography and teaching are centerd on the evolution of jazz dance, its
roots and influences and its relationship to jazz music. In addition to being the Co-Director of the Dance Program at
Ryerson University and the jazz instructor, Vicki has choreographed for television, film, video, theatre and opera.
From 2000-2007, she was jazz pedagogue and choreographer for the Dance Program at The Banff Centre for the
Arts. Vicki holds an M.A. in dance.
“Intergenerational Dance: Changing Perceptions of Older Adults through Collaboration with Student
Teachers”
Mary Jane Warner
In Canada, dance activities are often delivered to a young population, but there are limited opportunities for older
adults to participate in dance classes and for new instructors to experience the differences in working with older
people. This paper reports on the initial findings from a pilot program, funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health to
provide dance instruction in community centers for older adults.
The research concentrates on the benefits to both dance majors participating as instructors and to the older
adults who receive weekly instruction. The research uses qualitative methods (questionnaires, interviews,
observation) to determine the benefits. The research also examines the value to the students who are participating in
the project.
Initial findings indicate that the older adults are experiencing weight loss, lower blood pressure, greater flexibility
and less depression. The student teachers are developing increased sensitivity to individuals, greater versatility in
designing classes, increased flexibility in modifying a class in progress, and the ability to adapt core movement
concepts to offer instruction to a diverse population even within one class. Both parties have experienced positive
outcomes from this collaboration. The paper makes initial recommendations for those interested in working with older
adults.
Mary Jane Warner is a professor of Dance at York University. She teaches courses in education, movement
analysis, history, and reconstruction. A specialist in Canadian dance, she published Toronto Dance Teachers: 18251925, and, with Selma Odom, Canadian Dance: Visions and Stories. Her current research focuses on documenting
the work of several Canadian choreographers through video and notation. In September 2011, she produced the
debut of Toronto Heritage Dance, a company that showcases historic contemporary dance. She is currently the
recipient with April Nakaima of a Healthy Communities Fund grant for a two-year project titled “Dance Activities for
Older Adults.”
« Danse, enseignement et technologies; une proposition éducative à explorer »
Normand Marcy et Nicole Turcotte
Les artistes ont investit le terrain de l’école depuis déjà longtemps. Qu’ils y entrent par la porte d’un programme
officiel comme celui de La culture à l’école ou par l’initiative d’un enseignant, ils y font vivre des expériences
artistiques et esthétiques qui souvent sortent du cadre habituel de l’enseignement des arts. Ces expériences sont
l’occasion de mener une collaboration significative autant pour l’artiste que pour l’enseignant, tout comme elles
offrent une opportunité pour les enfants de questionner leurs représentations de l’art, de la danse à l’école ou de la
danse tout court. L’intégration des technologies dans le cadre de l'enseignement de la danse à l'école soulève des
questions intéressantes quant aux liens que ce carrefour entre arts, enseignement et technologies permet d'établir.
Notamment, les liens existant entre gestes et outils au quotidien; surtout dans la mesure où ces outils seront de plus
en plus reliés aux NTIC. Ces technologies sont déjà, par définition, des outils de médiation. L’artiste qui investit le
milieu scolaire devient également une interface entre la classe et le monde. À ce carrefour de rencontres provoquées
par la proposition artistique, de nouvelles « connexions » et avenues s’ouvrent alors sur la pédagogie, la création, la
performance et la collaboration.
Normand Marcy est artiste en danse, chercheur et infochorégraphe. Il travaille à l’intégration des interfaces
numériques, dans sa pratique et en pédagogie, comme support à la création, à l’enseignement et à l’interprétation du
mouvement dansé. Il collabore avec des équipes de recherche à l'UQÀM et au LARTech (Laboratoire de recherchecréation en technochorégraphie).
Nicole Turcotte est nouvellement professeure invitée en études des pratiques pédagogiques au Département de
danse de l’UQÀM. Auparavant, elle a travaillé pour le Ministère de l’Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport notamment à
l’écriture des programmes de danse puis comme coordonnatrice de dossiers culturels. Son secteur de recherche
porte sur les liens qui unissent le milieu culturel et le milieu scolaire. Très active dans le secteur de l'enseignement
de la danse en milieu scolaire, elle crée en 2010, la première association québécoise des enseignants de la danse à
l’école, l’AQEDÉ.
“Workshop on exploration of meaning-making by the audience”
Nika Stein
Participants of this workshop will be asked to collaborate to explore the multiplicity of meanings which are created
through a work of dance based on anonymous questionnaires filled out by audience members at the performance of
the work. The work in question is my current artistic collaboration with a group of ethnically diverse women as
community dancers and a musician. Together we are exploring myths, rituals and symbolic representations
concerning water from different cultures, as well as every collaborator’s personal associations with water.
Contemporary aesthetician Isobel Armstrong proposes a discourse for developing a democratic aesthetic based
on the components of aesthetic life which are common to everyone such as playing, dreaming, thinking and feeling. I
would like to apply this discourse to the exploration of meaning-making by the audience. The research accomplished
in designing and exploring audience questionnaires is related to phenomenological framework. The
phenomenological experience is the dance performance. It is not however expected that it would be possible to
reduce the audience response to a universal essence, but rather, that the multitude of the emotional and intellectual
responses elicited by a performance characterize the phenomenon of performance.
Whether acting as choreographer, performer, artistic director, teacher or facilitator, Nika Stein seeks empowerment
of individuals and communities through dance-related activities. She holds a BFA in dance from Concordia and an
MFA in dance from Texas Woman’s University. Her first choreographic works were presented at studio 303,
Montreal: La Danse du Ventre in vernissage-danse series and Incantation to life in Edgy Women. Next came solo
Choreography which leads to satisfaction, a site-specific work Accumulation…, it takes time, and an interdisciplinary
collaborative project Daughters. Currently, she is working on a dance project funded by CCA in the category artists
and community collaborations.
“Performing Modern Religion: Esotericism and Le Sacre du printemps, (1913)”
Priya Thomas
In 1988, dance studies scholar Judith Lynne Hanna was invited to present a paper at the annual conference of the
American Academy of Religion. Hanna’s paper entitled “The Representation and the Reality of Religion in Dance”,
deployed Mircea Eliade’s analysis of the sacred in modern art. Hanna, quoting from Eliade, asserted that the sacred
in modern art was “unrecognizable…camouflaged in forms, purposes and meanings …” In hindsight, Eliade’s
analysis, and Hanna’s decision to include it, were prescient: the proliferation of research on esotericism and modern
religion in the past two decades suggests that the narrative of secularism in modern performance was a historical
misnomer. This paper considers existing evidence that esotericism exerted a powerful shaping influence on the
narrative design of the original 1913 Ballets Russes production of Le Sacre du printemps. In particular, it seeks to reevaluate Sacre in socio-religious context, and aims to contribute to the vital interdisciplinary discussion between
religious studies and dance generated by Hanna and others in the 1980s. Through a qualitative analysis based in
archival materials on esotericism and Sacre, the study argues that silent collaborations between dance and modern
forms of religion in the late nineteenth century produced a prophetic sensibility of dance as the new epistemology.
Priya Thomas is a doctoral candidate at York University researching the history of modernism, dance and yoga.
Trained for 21 years in Bharatanatyam, her teacher was the primary pupil of Balasaraswati. She holds a BA in
Religious Studies from McGill University and an MA in Dance from York. A certified yoga instructor, she founded the
online journal, Shivers Up the Spine: The Yoga Examiner in 2010, and contributed a chapter to Fields in Motion:
Ethnography in the Fields of Dance (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2011). She is currently writing an entry on yoga
for the Routledge Encylopedia of Modernism.
“A Different ‘Special Relationship’: Martha Graham and the British Cultural Luminaries John Gielgud, E.M.
Forster and Henry Moore”
Camelia Lenart
My paper challenges the idea that during her first European tours Martha Graham was an unknown artist to her
audience and its intellectual circles, thus denied artistic appreciation and perceived as a loner from a foreign culture.
My work demonstrates that the first intersection between Graham and the European audience is a more nuanced
and rich story, that Graham had a special relationship with three British cultural luminaries since the forties which
developed during the fifties, and continued in time and space until the end of their lives.
Demonstrating that the American-British dialogue between dance, acting, writing, and sculpture was not a coincidence, but a major cultural development, my paper analyzes why and how this artistic friendship and collaboration
happened. It also shows that it played the role of a bridge in the internationalization of Graham’s art, fully accepted by
Europeans during the sixties. Related to the complicated context of the cultural diplomacy of the very sensitive Cold
War years – with their restructuring of the dynamics of power, including in the cultural field – is the story and history
of a special borderless artistic kinship, linked to the unlimited boundaries of the human spirit and body.
Camelia Lenart is a doctoral candidate at the State University of New York at Albany. Her doctoral dissertation
focuses on Martha Graham’s European tours during the fifties and the sixties, a part of the dancer’s life and career
very little explored, and on the intricate way the European audience responded to the complexity of her art and
persona. Ms. Lenart presented extensively in national and international conferences, and her work was published in
the USA, Canada, United Kingdom, and Romania. She is also the recipient of various awards, including a Mellon
Fellowship from the Institute of Historical Research in London.
“Social Dance as a Collaborative Enactment of Early Montreal Society”
Karen Millyard
In late Georgian Canada, Country Dancing, and its French cousin the cotillon (a “collaboration” between the 17thcentury English square and French tastes), were the most popular forms of dance. Collaborative by their very nature,
they rely on each to perform his or her part; the figures fit together like the works of a clock, and without each dancer
in place, the patterns and stories of the dance cannot be fulfilled. This collaborative quality is reflected in the MS book
of Caroline Frobisher, a young Montreal girl taking music lessons in the 1790s. The daughter of a Scottish Protestant
father and a French Catholic mother, she grew up bilingual, and married a man of a similar background (the heir to
James McGill). Her music book, into which she transcribed songs, tunes and country-dance instructions, reflects the
multicultural textures of her time and place: among its wide range is English Country Dances, strathspeys and French
songs. Through a discussion of this manuscript, Frances Brooke’s History of Emily Montague, period newspapers,
paintings and other sources, I will demonstrate that country dance is inherently collaborative in nature and that
Canada’s early identity as reflected in Montreal society exhibits similarly entwined cultural threads.
Karen Millyard, an MA in Dance Studies at York University, is a dance historian specializing in the social dance of
the 18th and early 19th centuries. With musicologist and then-Dance GPD Dorothy de Val, Millyard created the
conference English Country Dancing: Rooted in the Past, Dancing into the Future, held at York University in 2010.
Also a practitioner, she is the director of Jane Austen Dancing, 1812 Dance and Danceweavers, organizations she
founded to bring the dances of the past to participants of today. She will present her paper on hegemony in 18thcentury social dance at the SDHS conference in June 2012.
« La critique, facteur de développement d’une démarche artistique »
Marie Beaulieu
La compagnie des Grands ballets canadiens est la plus ancienne compagnie de danse professionnelle au Québec
dont les activités se sont prolongées au-delà de 50 ans. Sa naissance, son développement et sa survie sont
attribuables à un grand nombre de facteurs environnementaux externes et internes. Les critiques des journaux
montréalais, anglophones et francophones, ont été au nombre des facteurs externes déterminants à plusieurs
égards : dans l’élaboration du répertoire, dans l’initiation de projets de création, et ils ont souvent dénoncé les
politiques gouvernementales associées à son fonctionnement durant les premiers vingt ans de son existence. Bref,
une collaboration tacite et continue a permis à la compagnie de mieux assurer des assises solides institutionnelles
dans le panorama culturel et social du Québec des années soixante et soixante-dix. Les critiques, par le biais de
leurs différentes chroniques et articles, ont contribué largement à construire l’image de la compagnie durant une
première époque de développement (1957-1977). Nous proposons de présenter la dynamique complexe et
fructueuse de cette époque en analysant quatre points essentiels des articles: leur composition, les sujets abordés,
leur évolution dans le temps et leur implication pour le développement d’un répertoire original. En analysant la
démarche journalistique, en recomposant les liens entre les intervenants de la compagnie et les critiques de danse,
nous serons à même de comprendre une dynamique fondée sur une collaboration dont la finalité a été d’assurer
l’existence à long terme d’une institution artistique importante au Québec.
Marie Beaulieu est diplômée aux niveaux avancés du Royal Academy of Dancing et de l’Imperial Society of
Teachers of Dancing dans les disciplines de danse contemporaine et des Danses Nationales. Danseuse
professionnelle pour la compagnie Entre-Six, elle a été répétitrice et assistante à la direction artistique aux Ballets de
Montréal Eddy Toussaint et directrice des Ballets de l’Opéra de Nice. Elle a obtenu son doctorat avec mention
d’honneur en 2008 à l’Université de Montréal en histoire de la danse. Elle est professeure au Département de danse
de l’UQÀM depuis août 1998. Elle y a dirigé le programme de premier cycle de danse de 1998 à 2002 et le
Département de août 2006 à mai 2010. À titre d’historienne, elle a participé à plusieurs émissions de télévision à
contenu éducatif pour mieux diffuser, comprendre et populariser la danse.
“Making (jazz) music and dance come alive for students and for audiences in 2012 and beyond: One
musician, one dancer, presenting, in collaboration; jazz is not dead an aural/corporeal snap-shot of 2012”
Tyler Hornby and Michèle Moss
The process of collaboration between music and dancer/choreographer can be surprising –surprisingly easy with an
outcome that is original and profitable to both artists. The working process requires attention to the knowledge base
of both artists’ form. This informative piece is essential, building knowledge of each other’s idiom, each other’s basic
language. This essential element will allow each project to flow with greater ease and thus improve the outcomes. To
find new and creative approaches it may be necessary to employ unconventional means but it may also require a
back-to-basics or ‘straight-up’ approach informed by a basic education in form/function relative to music and dance
while attending to the idiosyncratic ways of each artist. Communication and specificity of language is vital.
These two presenters are scholars and jazz artist-collaborators. They have a long history together and indeed
the jazz idiom itself has a time-honoured tradition of collaboration; call and response as well as improvisation are at
the centre of the form. In a music-based/rhythm-generated approach to jazz dance the informed language and
working method also requires groundbreaking approaches mixed with historical conventions. The resulting
specialized language references historical approaches and yet is solidly contemporary – moving the form boldly
forward in both educational and performative modes.
Tyler Hornby has performed at festivals, clubs and concerts in North America, South America and Europe, and has
appeared on more than 30 recordings. His first solo album, a critically acclaimed exploration of post bop released in
2005 called Shadows of a Brighter Day, was selected for a National Jazz Compilation called Dig Your Roots. In 2009,
Tyler was nominated for the Galaxie Rising Star Award. His newest record, A Road to Remember was nominated for
a 2011 WCMA for Best Jazz Recording of the Year and received a Downbeat Magazine review.
Michèle Moss is a choreographer, dancer and educator. She is currently a tenured Assistant Professor in the
Department of Dance at the University of Calgary. She is a co-founder of Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, a professional
concert dance company celebrating 28 years in 2012. She continues to find great pleasure in exploring the nature of
jazz from its roots to its innovative futures. She presents her research both textually and in concert. She enjoys a
diverse career in dance from choreographic commissions to teaching and conducting ethnographic research in such
far-flung locales as Italy, Poland, NYC, Cuba and Guinée, West Africa.
“The living history of Ethel Bruneau”
Ethel Bruneau and Lys Stevens
This co-presentation will attempt to reveal the collaborative process of oral history research. Ethel Bruneau is a
hidden gem in Canada’s jazz story, neglected in dance research because tap dance was until recently not
considered serious art, and neglected in jazz history because of the predominant focus on the male jazz
instrumentalist. Montreal during the jazz era was a hub of activity and a meeting ground for countless Black American
artists, who made Montreal a stop on their performance circuit, and sometimes stayed to make a home. Ethel
Bruneau was busy during Montreal’s cabaret scene in the 1950s, performing as a tap dancer, an Afro-Cuban dancer,
a singer and an MC in countless nightclubs of the time including the Montmartre, Chez Paris and Rockhead’s
Paradise. Sine the 1960s Ethel has taught generations of students – at 75 years old, she teaches still. A natural
story-teller, her ability to share her experiences is a large part of what inspires her students: to dance, as well as to
do their own research, to understand the larger picture of how tap dance fits into North American history.
Harlem native Ethel Bruneau began her career at age nine dancing in Atlantic City as part of an act called The
Melody Twins with her cousin Poppy. In 1953, in her teens, Ethel auditioned for Cab Calloway's chorus line, and was
hired as the soubrette. Travelling with the orchestra to Montreal, Ethel fell in love with the city and it's nightlife. She
quickly became a staple on the club circuit as a tap and Afro-Cuban dance soloist and MC. She began teaching
dance in the sixties and continues to teach at the Ethel Bruneau Dance School in Dorval.
Lys Stevens is a dance writer and arts administrator based in Montreal. Her Masters in dance studies from UQAM
focused on b-boying in its vernacular and performing arts contexts. She programs dance events at Studio 303, where
she also authored their guidebook to dance production for emerging choreographers, now an online resource. She is
a guest writer at The Dance Current. She sits on the National Council of the Canadian Dance Assembly and on
various other boards.
“Choreography of Meaning as Collaboration in William Forsythe’s Tight Roaring Circle”
Jane Frances Dunlop
This paper will examine audience participation in William Forsythe’s choreographic objects by considering how he
deploys ‘choreography’ to provoke new engagements with dance. Addressing the changing definitions of
‘choreography’, and their varying political significance(s) in dance criticism (Susan Leigh Foster 2011, Andre
Lepecki, 2004, Randy Martin 1998), I argue that dance gains political and choreographic importance in its physical
and spectatorial relationship with audiences and artists. I propose that a ‘choreography’ that implicates audiences
and artist can enable the collaborative dissensus in the construction of meaning and, thus create new, consciously
collaborative, modes of spectatorship. I wonder how choreographic objects, echoing Umberto Eco’s notion of ‘open
works’, complicate an official ‘knowledge’ of performance through the necessity of multiple physical and mental
collaborations. I argue that this calls into question the roles of ‘spectator’, ‘performer’ and ‘maker’. I draw on current
scholarship on participation in cultural studies and dance criticism to map the intersections of these topics. Through
the blatantly participatory choreography of Forsythe’s choreographic objects, I aim to explore new ways for thinking
about how ‘choreography’ implicates the corporeal and the collective in creating knowledge.
Jane Frances Dunlop recently completed her MA in Theatre & Performance at Queen Mary, University of London.
Her dissertation focused on the work of William Forsythe and new modes of spectatorial understanding. Her interest
in spectatorial engagement inspires her current research, which explores the intersections of cultural geography’s
new mobilities paradigm and international dance. She also works collaboratively on performance projects that
investigate how bodies can articulate theoretical material.
“The White Spider: A Case Study in Collaboration”
Cheryl Prophet
My presentation will examine collaboration during the process and performance of a contemporary dance work. The
White Spider was created by an interdisciplinary team and directed by choreographer Jennifer Mascall. The
collaborators included a set designer, video artist, composer, costume designer, and the dancers.
The paper will focus on the contributions of the artists, especially the set designer, whose sculptural installation
was integral to the work, and the dancers who performed as a team to negotiate the physical risks associated with
navigating a large dynamic structure.
I will argue that the success of the White Spider can be attributed to the collaboration of all the artists involved.
Their ability to creatively cooperate led to a richly multilayered, and unified work. Issues of equality and hierarchy,
and negotiation and compromise in collaboration and the effect on the creative process and the completed work will
also be addressed. I will also discuss the specifics of collaboration among the dancers, and the ways that it affected
the creative process and the performance of the piece.
Cheryl Prophet has been involved in the professional dance community in Canada since the mid-seventies; since
1989 she has been a member of the dance faculty of the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser
University. She performed with Le Groupe de la Place Royale, Fortier Danse Creation and Fondation Jean-Pierre
Perrault and was active in the independent dance scene in Montreal, Ottawa and Vancouver as a dancer and
choreographer. Professional teaching highlights include the 2009 Guangdong International Dance Festival in China,
and from 2008-2010, serving as an advisor and faculty member of the Vancouver-based Laban/Bartenieff and
Somatic Studies International program.
“Internet, Intermedia and Consensual Collaboration: Blogging Choreography by the Post Natyam Collective”
Sandra Chatterjee and Cynthia Lee
The Post Natyam Collective is a web-based coalition of artists developing critical and creative approaches to South
Asian dance. Their internet-based collaborative process and intermedia choreographies traverse multiple time-zones,
disciplines, and geo-cultural contexts, translating South Asian aesthetic tradition for a technological age.
Post Natyam’s process is centralized on a public blog. Within the collective, members follow an “open-source”
philosophy, inviting each other to “borrow, steal, appropriate, [and] translate” each other’s ideas through “creative
recycling and reusing.” Contesting ideas of single authorship and fixed choreography, their creative policy is a
contemporary re-framing of Indian classical dance’s oral tradition, where artistic transformation occurs because
individuals extend and modify passed-down materials. Yet the online, public, and non-hierarchical nature of their
process also contradicts India's traditional practices of transferring knowledge.
The contemporary South Asian dance-work produced through this process is mediatized, with video, text, sound
design, and art-books as important as live dance. Layering multimedia with the flesh-and-blood performing body,
their intermedia choreography blurs the virtual and the live: a technological reconfiguration of natya, a Sanskrit word
referring to the inseparable conjunction of drama, dance, and music in Indian performance tradition.
Dr. Sandra Chatterjee holds a PhD in Culture & Performance from UCLA, where she also taught as a visiting
scholar. She completed a diploma in “Kultur und Organisation” from Institut für Kulturkonzepte at the University of
Vienna. She is currently a postdoctoral research assistant at the Department of Art, Music, Dance
Studies, University of Salzburg. She is a co-founder of the Post Natyam Collective, a transnational network of
choreographers/scholars, working in body based performance, video, and scholarship. www.sandrachatterjee.net
Cynthia Ling Lee (MFA, UCLA) instigates thoughtful, friction-filled dialogues between American postmodern dance
and North Indian classical kathak. Her intercultural, interdisciplinary choreography and writing has been presented at
venues such as Dance Theater Workshop (New York), REDCAT (Los Angeles), Taman Ismail Marzuki (Jakarta),
Kuandu Arts Festival (Taipei), and Chandra-Mandapa: Spaces (Chennai). A member of the Post Natyam Collective,
Cynthia received a 2002-3 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, a 2006 APPEX Fellowship, and a 2010 Taipei Artist
Village residency. Influential teachers include Simone Forti, Eiko & Koma, Judy Mitoma, Bandana Sen, Kumudini
Lakhia, Anjani Ambegaokar, and the contact improvisation community. www.cynthialinglee.com
“On Projecting and Projecting On”
Dave Colangelo and Erin McCurdy
On March 5, 2011 a projector, a dancer, a window was performed at the *Hotshot Gallery in Toronto, Ontario. A
collaborative work between a dance artist and a visual artist, the performance consisted of a three-and-a-half minute
improvised solo, during which the dancer, dressed in white, was transformed into a screen through the artist’s
projection of edited, found footage upon her moving body. The performance was seen by the artists as a fragment of
a larger program of inquiry. This co-presentation examines the rehearsal process and performance from both
perspectives, focusing on the negotiation of power that arose from an engagement with the intermediary technology
of the projector. Editing software, video playback, and projection played a significant role in this collaboration and
served as tools for cooperative creation in preparation for the performance. This presentation critically examines the
politics and poetics of collaboration in the combined fields of dance and new media and explores the possibilities and
limitations of combining dance and projection.
Dave Colangelo holds an MA in Cultural Studies from Goldsmiths College, University of London. He is presently
enrolled in the Communication and Culture PhD program at York and Ryerson Universities in Toronto, where he is
studying expanded cinema, screen-based art, and the impact of digital media on art, design, and scholarship. His
work has been presented at various group shows including Nuit Blanche in Toronto and he has written for various
publications including C Magazine. Dave is also a founding member of N/A, an art and design collective dedicated to
project and event-based cross-pollination.
Erin McCurdy is enrolled in the Communication and Culture program at Ryerson and York Universities where she is
currently studying the aesthetics of dance and media. As a practicing dance artist and choreographer, Erin has
contributed to numerous festivals including the Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival, the Toronto International
Dance Festival, and the Fringe Festival of Independent Dance Artists. Her dance-based video art has been screened
at the Continental Drift International Short Film Festival, and most recently as part of the Lighthouse Series presented
by the Loop Collective. Erin holds an MA in Communication and Culture and a BFA in Dance.
“Pigeon: Choreography from Unsent Letters and the Status of the Document in Relation to Dance”
Jenn Cole
André Lepecki, in Choreography as Apparatus of Capture, makes a complicated distinction between choreography
and dance, comparing choreography to a tyranny of forms, arguing against “subordinating dance to signification”.
After reading Lepecki’s work, I decided to make a movement piece that subverted the idea of choreography as
tyranny, by relying on the input of others for its material, and by making its material the problems of signification. I
was interested in the relationship between using my body to signify, simultaneously commenting on the failures of
signification.
In Pigeon, I collected and choreographed from letters written by colleagues that they wrote to others, but could
not send. In this paper, I describe my practice of choreographing as a body-writing that relies on curiosity and leaps
of faith rather than tyranny. Since Pigeon depended on documents marked as unstable by their authors,
choreography’s roots, in this case, are marked by collaboration with inarticulate forms. The creation of Pigeon
through collaboration destabilises the binary Lepecki marks between dance and choreography. It also disrupts the
binary between dance and writing that is so often posed in dance theory and performance studies.
Jenn Cole is a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Study of Drama, Theatre and Performance.
She is also a visual artist and contemporary dancer. She revels in collaborative work, especially with musicians new
to dance. Her academic interests lie in inarticulacy, the force stammering, babbling and crying out, as well as 19th
Century cultural history. Also of interest to her is waiting indefinitely for anything at all to arrive.
“Do-it-yourself: the meaning of collaboration in dance training subsidies and employment in Canada”
Mary-Elizabeth Luka
Research conducted for the Canadian Dance Assembly (CDA) in 2010 about training subsidies for dance artists
demonstrates that most artists are expected to actively collaborate in their own training and employment, operating
through a series of networks requiring extensive travel (Luka/CDA, forthcoming). This approach positions the dance
community simultaneously as a creative industry and a social-cultural enterprise with value-based aspirations.
Underlying such creative practices is a global construction of culture focused on collaboration as economic efficiency.
This resonates with the concept of “networked individualism” Angela McRobbie (1999) and Gina Neff (2005)
introduced through discussions of fashion, music and media industries. Workers move between key centres of
production, receiving low pay for piecework requiring highly specialized creative skills. In the CDA research,
groupings of professionals and organizations are entangled in such relationships as “cultural intermediaries” (a
concept introduced by Pierre Bordieu and widely taken up by the cultural industry), including presenters,
choreographers, collectives, associations and dance entrepreneurs. Many are active in facilitating the dance
community’s access to employment or training subsidies. This paper probes how unequally resourced groups in the
field of dance actively partner in negotiating the distribution of limited resources in service to creativity, industry and
culture.
Mary Elizabeth Luka is a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholar and doctoral candidate (ABD) in Communication Studies
at Concordia University, where she is probing the meaning of “creative citizenship.” Her scholarly research focuses
on the creative industries, particularly the intriguing dynamics generated at the intersection of the arts, broadcasting
and digital production. She is an award-winning documentary producer/director for television and the internet, and
has helped to develop programs, projects and a great deal of talent related to her fields of interests. Most recently, as
a consultant in the cultural non-profit sector, she has worked with several Canadian dance organizations.
« Danser pour dire, danser pour faire: L’utilisation de la danse dans les projets de développement
soutenable »
Marc Pronovost
Plusieurs artistes en appellent à la fin de l’ère de « l’art pour l’art » et font l’éloge de l’art tourné vers les individus, à
la base de la société. Dans cette conférence-atelier, je propose d’explorer le monde de « l’art social », c’est-à-dire
l’impact de projets artistiques sur des objectifs de développement social. Loin des projets classiques de lutte contre
la pauvreté, les projets d’art social en danse sont orientés vers le renforcement de capacités afin que les individus
acquièrent une voix, renforcent leurs compétences personnelles et réussissent à (ré)organiser la vie en communauté
afin de devenir des acteurs proactifs et crédibles dans le développement soutenable de leur société. L’artistedanseur-chorégraphe devient alors un intervenant et un collaborateur important auprès de ces individus en leur
faisant vivre, à travers la pratique de son art, un nouveau type d’engagement social. Je ferai un survol des initiatives
passées et actuelles, présenterai l’impact qu’elles ont eu sur les participants et leur(s) communauté(s), et j’aborderai
des pistes de solution à observer ou à développer dans la construction des projets d’art social en danse.
Consultant en art social, Marc Pronovost détient un Master en études du développement de l’Institut de hautes
études internationales et du développement de Genève, Suisse. Danseur et professeur de danse, son désir de
partager sa passion l’a guidé hors des studios – à la rencontre des citoyens. C’est à travers cette passion qu’il a
développé un intérêt académique pour les questions d’impact et d’innovation en développement social. Il a
notamment travaillé avec de jeunes réfugiés auprès de la Croix Rouge. Marc a aussi créé un événement-spectacle
axé sur l’art social qu’il présentera à Montréal pour sa 3e édition en 2012-2013.
“Hybrid events, curatorship and collaboration”
Sasha Kleinplatz and Andrew Tay
Contemporary dance today is a marginalized art form. The experience of seeing a traditional dance show created by
a singular choreographer over the length of an evening is often seen as a daunting task which can be sterile and
confusing to the average public.
Challenging this notion is Wants&Needs Danse: a collaborative, curatorial dance organization from Montreal,
Que. Their organization collaborates with dance artists, non-dance artists and incorporates influences from outside of
the dance world. By hybridizing the dance show experience they have been successful at creating a new breed of
underground dance events in unconventional venues.
These events set up a chain of multi-layered collaborations between curators, audience members, and artists.
The public is never treated as a passive observer and is implicated in the success of these events by participating in
the structuring of the space, the work, and by their relationship to the performers.
The active nature of the Wants&Needs events creates a social dialogue among artists, performers, and the
public. The events themselves become a breeding ground for future collaborations among many factions of the
dance, theatre, music, art, and performance communities.
Sasha Kleinplatz is a contemporary dance choreographer living and working in Montreal. As a graduate of the
Concordia University Dance Program, she began creating work in 2002. Since then she has developed and
choreographed a total of 15 works involving some 40 interpreters and other artistic collaborators. Along with her
partner Andrew Tay, Sasha created the Montreal choreographic events Piss in the Pool, Short&Sweet and Involved.
These shows have featured the work of over 70 choreographers and performance artists in the last 7 years. She will
debut her new full length choreography Chorus II at the Montreal, Arts Interculturels in March 2013.
Andrew Tay is an independent choreographer based in Montreal and co-artistic director of Wants&Needs danse with
choreographer Sasha Kleinplatz. Together they produce the wildly popular dance events Piss in the Pool,
Short&Sweet and Involved, all of which take place in non-traditional performance venues throughout the city. Andrew
has participated in residencies at Studio 303, the O Vertigo Centre for Research and Creation, and the 3rd floor
residency at Usine C (Montreal). He was recently awarded the DanceWEB Scholarship which will take him to Vienna
to train and network at the ImPulsTanz festival in Summer 2012.
“Moving from the Transactional to the Transformative: Explorations of Dance in/and Education
Norma Sue Fisher-Stitt, Tanya Berg, Catherine Limbertie, Priya Thomas and Heather Young
The panel members, all graduate students, will examine theoretical paradigms that can be applied to dance
education, and present various perspectives on the current state of dance in/and education in Canada. The research
methodologies and theoretical lenses employed will include critical pedagogy, ethnography, auto ethnography,
feminism, and qualitative analysis. Each of the four panel members will contribute her own perspective to the
conversation of how dance education is or is not providing, or how it can provide, a transformative experience to
teachers and students in a range of settings.
All of us, whether in our roles as teachers or as students, likely can identify moments of ecstasy as well as times
of despair in our dance pasts. How successful are we, as teachers, in creating dance environments in which the
ordinary transforms into the extraordinary? What obstacles do we face, and what types of intersections, negotiations
and mediations are recommended or required in order to expand the understanding of dance and its potential
amongst generalist K-8 teachers, studio teachers, boards of education, and the general public?
Each panelist will bring her own dance background and education to the discussion; their breadth of experiences
encompass classical, traditional and popular dance forms from Europe and south Asia, as well as instruction in the
conservatory setting, private dance studios, community venues, and K-12 education.
Norma Sue Fisher-Stitt is the Director for the MA Dance and PhD Dance Studies programs at York University,
where she is an Associate Professor in the Department of Dance. Dr. Fisher-Stitt is the author of The Ballet Class: A
History of Canada’s National Ballet School and she has presented papers at conferences hosted by the Society of
Dance History Scholars, the Canadian Society for Dance Studies, the European Association of Dance Historians,
and the Canadian Association for Theatre Research. Her areas of teaching and research include dance history, the
evolution of ballet technique, and dance education/pedagogy.
Tanya Berg is a graduate of Canada’s National Ballet School Teacher Training Program and her degrees include a
Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Arts from York University. Tanya teaches dance in the Faculty of Kinesiology and
Physical Education at the University of Toronto, and she is pursuing her PhD in Dance Studies at York University.
Her primary research interests are the expansion and evolution of traditional ballet pedagogy, as well as fostering
positive student experiences within a studio environment via teacher education.
Catherine Limbertie is a student in the PhD Dance Studies program at York University. Catherine is an educator,
dancer, arts administrator and scholar whose interests lie in examining the role of dance in Canadian history with a
particular emphasis on dance communities in Ontario.
Priya Thomas is a doctoral candidate in the Dance Studies Program at York University, where she is researching
the history of modernism, dance and yoga. Trained for 21 years in Bharatanatyam, her teacher was the primary pupil
of Balasaraswati. She holds a BA in Religious Studies from McGill University and an MA in Dance from York. A
certified yoga instructor, she founded the online journal, Shivers Up the Spine: The Yoga Examiner in 2010, and
contributed a chapter to Fields in Motion: Ethnography in the Fields of Dance (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2011).
She is currently writing an entry on yoga for the Routledge Encylopedia of Modernism.
Heather Young is a performer, teacher, and doctoral student in the Dance Studies Program at York University. She
holds an honours BFA in Dance from York University, and an MA in Choreography from the University of Leeds.
Heather has trained and performed in Toronto, New York and the UK. In 2006 she was chosen to participate in The
Juilliard School’s prestigious internship program, where she worked in the dance department as the assistant
production coordinator. Her current research explores kinesthetic memory, oral history and alternative approaches to
dance documentation.
« Le fantasme de la création »
Rachel Billet, Elodie Lombardo, Jessie Mill et Katya Montaignac
La 2e Porte à Gauche développe à travers ses projets de création hétéroclites et inédits (Blind Date ; 7½ à part. ; 9½
à part. ; 4quART ; Danse à 10…) une expertise avérée dans la pratique de la collaboration artistique. Ces
productions ont ainsi permis d'expérimenter différentes approches de l’aspect collaboratif à travers des procédés
actuels tels que la mise en commun, le partage des données et la communication en réseau. Ces nouveaux
paramètres de création transforment l’écosystème du milieu dans son ensemble, qu’il s’agisse de production, de
financement ou de promotion.
Les artistes-collaborateurs développent ainsi leurs singularités esthétiques comme une somme d’individualités
et d’intersubjectivités qui influencent et orientent la création. En effet, au contact de l’autre, chaque créateur
questionne ses propres procédés créatifs. Travailler en collaboration c’est accepter d’aller ailleurs.
Cependant, au-delà d’inviter les artistes à collaborer ensemble, La 2e Porte à Gauche les amène également à
repenser leur relation au public. Intégrer le public dans l’œuvre incite alors à envisager l’acte de création en fonction
d’une variable inconnue. Ce paramètre engage les artistes à concevoir des dispositifs ouverts qui confient au
spectateur un certain pouvoir d’intervention. L’œuvre devient ainsi un terrain de jeu commun auquel le public est
invité à collaborer à travers le partage d’une expérience.
Impliquée dans le milieu de la danse contemporaine, Rachel Billet navigue entre la performance, la musique et les
arts visuels. Lors d’un Master à l’Université de Lyon 2, elle étudie la construction des espaces de diffusion en danse.
Depuis 2007, elle a travaillé en France avec la Compagnie Käfig, la Biennale de la Danse de Lyon, la Compagnie
Hallet Eghayan, et à Montréal auprès des artistes Normand Marcy, Milan Gervais, Eryn Dace Trudell, de
l'Association de Contact Improvisation et de Tangente. Membre de La 2e Porte à Gauche depuis 2010, Rachel Billet
est également adjointe à l'administration pour la revue esse arts + opinions.
D'origine Française, installée au Québec depuis 1999, Élodie Lombardo complète en avril 2003 une formation en
danse à l’UQAM, où elle suit un double profil en interprétation et création. Véritable touche-à-tout, elle s'est formée
parallèlement en clown et en théâtre par le biais d'ateliers et de stages. Sa démarche créative est motivée par la
rencontre de genres disciplinaires différents. Danse, théâtralité et musique sont travaillées de façon symbiotique. En
2004, elle monte avec sa soeur jumelle leur propre compagnie sous l'appellation des Sœurs Schmutt. Élodie signe
aussi avec sa soeur des spectacles de rue ou danse, théâtre et musique envahissent pavés et trottoirs et participe à
de nombreuses collaborations artistiques (notamment avec la Fanfare Pourpour, Productions SuperMusique et La 2e
Porte à Gauche).
En tant que conseillère aux projets internationaux au Centre des auteurs dramatiques (CEAD), Jessie Mill est
responsable des résidences d’auteurs, des processus de traduction (notamment en tandem) et de la circulation des
textes à l’étranger. Dans le cadre de l’événement Dramaturgies en dialogue, elle a initié la série des Rencontres
hasardeuses pour décloisonner, approfondir et élargir l’espace du dialogue. À l'occasion, elle enseigne aussi à
l’École supérieure de théâtre de l’Université du Québec à Montréal. Avec sa complice, la dramaturge Mélanie
Dumont, elle y proposait l’an dernier un cours-atelier sur l’accompagnement des processus de création ouvert,
autour des notions de dialogue, de collaboration, d'amitié, de communauté et de subjectivité, cherchant à développer
des outils et ressources pour favoriser la circulation des idées et ouvrir le sens aux possibles. Comme dramaturge,
elle accompagne des productions théâtrales et des créations indisciplinées.
Depuis 1995, Katya Montaignac initie et participe à de nombreux projets de danse à Paris avec la compagnie La
Gorgone, puis à Montréal, notamment avec La 2e Porte à Gauche dont elle est membre depuis 2006. Elle écrit
depuis 1998 sur la danse pour différentes revues, particulièrement pour la revue JEU depuis 2004. Après une
formation au département de danse de l’Université de Paris 8, elle poursuit présentement une recherche en doctorat
et enseigne l'esthétique contemporaine de la danse à l'UQÀM. Elle œuvre en tant que dramaturge auprès de
plusieurs chorégraphes montréalais (Frédérick Gravel, Marie Béland, Milan Gervais, Isabel Mohn).
“Dance Laboratory: A Collaborative Choreography Case in Higher Education”
Maria João Alves
At Technical University of Lisbon we have a curricular unit, Dance Laboratory II. Dance students can take dance
classes regarding improvisation and composition skills that follow the Mason and Dalman’s concept of collaborative
choreography. Using closed and open spaces, conventional and non-conventional spaces for the practice of dance,
and according to an interdisciplinary concept, the students organized in groups are invited to design, learn and
perform a dance work and present it into a public audience developing the interactive characteristic processesvariation, selection, complexity, organization and memorization – defined by Mason and Dalman (2009). Exploring
the idea of similarity between dance choreography and a creative system and creative reciprocity between
choreographer and dancers as an essential component of composition (Fournier, 2004), the students try to develop
and implement the two functions of choreographer and performer to create a group work centered in this process of
negotiation between the movements proposed by the group, the way that dancers interact socially and share
perceptions, and the intents of the choreographer's group before the site-specific space. We propose, therefore, to
expose the degree of congruence between the intentionality individual and group, reported by students, and the
characteristics of choreographic composition product.
Maria João Alves is an auxiliary professor of dance at the Faculty of Human Kinetics, Technical University of Lisbon.
With a Master in Performing Arts-Dance and a Ph.D. in Human Kinetics - Dance (Teaching and Learning
Methodologies), she teaches technique of theatrical dance, technique of social dance (international dances),
didactics of dance and dance laboratory. At present, she is adjunct coordinator of the undergraduate dance
course at the FMH – UTL.
“(Pre-?) Relations and Collaborations in Solo Dance Practice”
P. Megan Andrews
If collaboration is the “action of working with someone to produce something”, then collaboration presumes
relationship. What is relationship? How do we prepare ourselves for relationship? Are we always already in
relationship? With what/who may we enter or deepen relationship? How do we engage within relationship?
In my experience, certain kinds of dancing practice/performance have the capacity to unfold these questions.
Mining experiential writings completed during my four-month practice of Deborah Hay’s solo At Once in Fall 2009,
this paper aims to reveal some of the somatic phenomena that arguably ground our relationality as human beings.
The fact that I am discussing a solo practice may seem antithetical to concepts of relationality and collaboration;
however, in my experience, embedded within this solo practice are inherent (pre-?) relations and collaborations,
including “auto-relationality”, environmental relationality, and interpreter-choreographer collaborations via the score
and the structure of the practice.
Philosopher Luce Irigaray’s writings about language, relationality and embodied presence provide fertile
theoretical ground for my thinking. I also draw on the work of Julia Kristeva, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and others to
develop my argument, which situates this performance practice as against the instrumental/technological order of our
contemporary world.
P. Megan Andrews is a dance artist, teacher and freelance writer/editor originally from Vancouver. In 1998, she
initiated the Canadian dance magazine, The Dance Current, was Publisher and Founding Editor through June 2011
and continues as Interim Publisher. Megan has taught and guest lectured in studio and seminar courses at York
University’s dance department and other institutions, and her writing has appeared in many publications. Megan is a
Certified Laban Movement Analyst and a PhD candidate (ABD) in Communication and Culture at York University.
Her dissertation examines and theorizes the embodied somato-sensory experience through her practice and
performance of Deborah Hay’s dance solo At Once.
“Moving Inward/Moving Outward – A Yoga and Writing Workshop”
Carol Anderson and Terrill Maguire
As practices, yoga and writing offer opportunities and tools to dive into inner experience. During this workshop,
guided movement and writing will offer ways of moving toward expressing embodied knowledge and wisdom.
Participants of all levels are welcome – whether new to yoga and/or writing, exploring, or currently practicing.
Yoga practice: Yoga, with its use of breath, and integration of body, heart, mind and spirit, can allow us to open
into states of receptivity to the creative “muse” - or even memory. The workshop will include two thirty-minute yoga
sessions, led by Terrill Maguire, starting with a gentle flow class, and concluding with a calming, restorative session –
suitable for all levels; the practices will be presented to allow each individual to work at their own level and pace.
Writing practice: The body and mind store memories, dreams, impressions. Writing practice will be led by Carol
Anderson. Keeping pen to paper, and using prompts as catalysts for several “writes” of varying lengths during a onehour session, participants will begin to dive into a flow of images, stories and recollections that can tap reservoirs of
sense and memory. Participants are invited to read and share their writing, supporting active listening.
Comfortable clothes that allow for movement should be worn. Socks will be appropriate for part of the session; and bare
feet are best for yoga movement. A yoga mat, towel or blanket would also be useful. A notebook and pen are essential.
Carol Anderson has enjoyed a diverse career as a dancer, choreographer, director, teacher and writer. She started
her performing career with Judy Jarvis’ first company, and was a founding member of Toronto’s Dancemakers. Since
1988, she has authored a growing body of writing on Canadian dance. An Associate Professor of Dance at York
University, she teaches in the studio and in the classroom. Her background includes study of major modern styles –
Graham, Cunningham and Limón, as well as ballet, t’ai chi, yoga, Pilates and GYROKINESIS®. She is a devotee of
writing as a mode of exploring personal creativity and expression.
Terrill Maguire is a Toronto-based dancer, choreographer, teacher, artistic director. She currently teaches part-time
in the Dance Department of York University. She has initiated and directed the Inde Festivals of New Dance and
Music, done extensive Artists-in-Schools residencies all over Ontario, produced community arts events, and received
choreography commissions and awards; among other things. She has been inspired over the span of her career by
collaborations with artists in other disciplines and cultures, such as the “Pulse” project, an interdisciplinary
partnership with Blackfoot/Blood native Troy Emery Twigg, developed at the Banff Centre for the Arts, and
subsequently presented in Paris, France; and Toronto. She is a long-time practitioner and teacher of yoga, and is
currently an Ontario Arts Council Chalmers Arts Fellow, pursuing research in the area of Celtic sacred traditions,
among other projects.
Crash & Create Workshop
Mary Fogarty and Luca “Lazylegz” Patuelli
“Crash & Create” is a concept coined by Montreal’s own b-boy Dingo that captures the essence of improvisational
innovation in the art of breaking. Breaking is a dance style built on risk-taking in performance. This affords a lot of
possibilities for creating movements out of the “crashes” or the unpredictable moments that emerge in live
performance. We will relate this breaking concept to broader physical practices, exploring the spontaneous,
aesthetically pleasing (fresh!) movements that can emerge from the glitches, accidents and unpredictability of
everyday life. This workshop/presentation is a collaboration that explores the intersections between the specialties of
the workshop presenters, including the following related themes:
o
o
o
“ILL-Abilities™” in urban dance practices: ILL-Abilities = the opposite of Disability, the idea allowing for the
adaptation of power, strength, & creativity that transcends ones limitations.
Dance and the ageing body
Crash & create concepts
Dr. Mary Fogarty is an Assistant Professor at York University who researched international b-boy/b-girl competitive
practices for her PhD. This presentation will address her forthcoming book chapter, "Each one teach one: b-boying
and ageing" in Ageing and Youth Cultures: Music, Style and Identity (Berg 2012), edited by Andy Bennett and Paul
Hodkinson.
Luca "Lazylegz" Patuelli is a sought after motivational speaker and internationally recognized b-boy. His group, ILLAbilities™, is headlining Breakin' Convention, the largest international hip hop theatre festival, at Sadler's Wells,
London, England in May 2012.
“The Missing Link Project: Un trou dans le telos”
Silvy Panet-Raymond
Présentation du projet pluridisciplinaire ‘The Missing Link’, réalisé au printemps 2011 avec des artistes résidant à
Berlin. Conçu comme un modèle de transmission entre artistes pour faire évoluer autrement des propositions
originales en empruntant des pistes parfois surprenantes. Comme le disait si bien Marshall McLuhan : « The missing
link provided far more interest than all the chains and explanations of being ». La brèche dans la chaîne d’évolution
fait en sorte que l’origine/l’original puisse devenir autre chose que son aboutissement annoncé (le telos de la
philosophie d’Aristote).
Objectifs du projet :
· Élargir les pratiques relationnelles
· Proposer des dramaturgies d’inclusion alternatives
· Questionner les modèles d’interaction, d’échange, de collaboration
· Redéfinir les rapports entre l’origine et la finalité d’une oeuvre
Artiste interdisciplinaire en danse, vidéo, performance. Co-fondatrice de Tangente, Silvy Panet-Raymond a
présenté son travail en Europe et au Mexique, a effectué des recherches en Asie, a dirigé des ateliers de création
avec des artistes en danse, en théâtre et en performance en Russie, en Pologne, en Hollande et en Croatie. Elle
enseigne la chorégraphie et le processus créatif au département de danse contemporaine de l’Université Concordia,
et est à tour de rôle directrice du programme. Elle est mentor auprès de nombreux chorégraphes montréalais(e) et
présidente du CA de l’AMETAC, association de métissage artistique et culturel.
« Quand l’ ‘altérité artistique’ collabore avec la danse »
Marie Mougeolle
Quand la danse travaille avec... Collabore...
Certaines créations voient les médiums collaborer, travailler ensemble à la construction de l’œuvre, à tel point
qu’on dénote souvent une certaine difficulté à nommer, à situer, voire à penser ces pratiques aux interstices.
Il s’agit ici de s’intéresser aux pratiques chorégraphiques dites interdisciplinaires. S’intéresser au sens
étymologique d’ « être entre ». Car selon Patrice Loubier (dans Lesage, 2008), « la création […] se déploie plutôt à
partir d'un espace qui se situe entre les disciplines plutôt qu'à l'intérieur d'elles » (p. 19).
Nous proposons d’envisager l’interdisciplinarité du point de vue de l’altérité, plus précisément de l’ « altérité
artistique », plutôt que de celui des disciplines (Lesage, 2008, p.13). On interroge ainsi les territoires et les porosités
de leurs frontières, la création d’espaces au sein même de lapoésie de l’œuvre.
Quand des espaces se créent dans l’antre entre deux choses, entre l’hôte et l’étranger, entre l’autre et le même,
entre un territoire et un autre, comment penser ces espaces de l’entre qui deviennent ceux de l’avec ? Qu’est-ce qui
se noue quand l’altérité devient « altérité partagée », « béance sur l’autre » (Ouellet, 2007, p. 19) ?
Marie Mougeolle, étudiante à la maîtrise en danse à l’UQÀM depuis l’automne 2010, a débuté son parcours
universitaire en France par une licence en histoire de l’art et archéologie à l’université Rennes II. Venir étudier à
Montréal et entreprendre une démarche de maîtrise était pour elle l’occasion de renouveler sa pratique en danse et
de confronter ses réflexions à une autre culture. Ses recherches portent sur les pratiques dites interdisciplinaires, cet
art aux interstices, qu’elle tente de penser en-dehors de la discipline. Il s’agit de rapprocher la pratique des discours
qui la décrivent, de repenser les dynamiques de l’inter.
« Triangulation de la relation interprète-chorégraphe-œuvre : une collaboration dynamique »
Johanna Bienaise
La réalité d’un danseur contemporain est multiple. Il est amené à s’adapter à chaque projet chorégraphique auquel il
participe et à y investir à chaque fois de nouveaux états de corps. Cette adaptation, comprise comme un processus
d’échange et de rééquilibrage permanent entre le danseur et son environnement, pose ainsi la question
fondamentale de sa collaboration avec le chorégraphe : Comment le danseur et le chorégraphe travaillent-ils
ensemble afin de faire advenir de nouveaux champs gestuels ? Une recherche-création menée dans le cadre du
Doctorat en Études et Pratiques des arts à l’UQÀM nous a conduits à envisager cette collaboration inséparable d’un
troisième pôle d’échange : l’oeuvre même. L’interprète ne cherche alors pas à se transformer pour correspondre à un
idéal de corps, mais il est investi dans un projet de création qui fait sens pour lui, auquel il peut adhérer. Dans notre
communication, nous avancerons l’idée que le pouvoir d’agir de l’interprète peut se déployer pleinement quand il est
réalisé dans cette relation triangulaire dynamique. Nous nous appuierons pour cela sur les théories en psychologie
du travail qui ont su démontrer comment le pouvoir d’agir et l’efficience de l’activité est indissociable de la création de
sens pour l’individu.
Après avoir reçu sa formation d’interprète en France, Johanna Bienaise s’installe à Montréal en août 2002. Elle y
rejoint la compagnie FLAK de José Navas de 2002 à 2004, puis danse pour des chorégraphes et metteurs en scène
indépendants dont, entre autres, Tracy McNeil, Erin Flynn, Anne-Sophie Rouleau, Kelly Keenan ou encore George
Stamos. De 2006 à 2007, Johanna collabore au projet de recherche-création de l'Abécédaire du corps dansant,
dirigé par Andrée Martin et s’investit comme membre de la 2e Porte à Gauche de 2006 à 2009. Johanna poursuit
actuellement un doctorat en Études et Pratiques des Arts.
“Jazzing Culture”
Shawn Newman, Ethel Bruneau, Michèle Moss, Vicki St. Denys, Lys Stevens, Melissa Templeton,
Eva von Gencsy
This roundtable discussion will generate dialogue about jazz dance and its place in, and impact on, Canadian society
and culture. This six person panel will be a collaboration between scholars, practitioners, and educators who engage
with jazz dance in many varied forms. Each presenter will introduce his or her area of research and/or practice which
will then lead into a panel discussion followed by an open discourse with attendees. The dialogue initiated by the
panelists will position jazz dance as a diverse art form that reflects the cultural mosaic of Canada and its roots,
history, and lineage, yet also as an art form that struggles against three interlocking systems of oppression: race,
gender, and class. Jazzing Culture/Culturing Jazz will open discussion to the audience to encourage not only
collaboration between the panelists, but also with and between attendees to broaden and strengthen the Canadian
jazz community.
Described as “… [one] of Toronto’s finest dancers” (Paula Citron, Toronto Life), Shawn Newman has performed for
some of Canada’s leading choreographic minds including Matjash Mrozewski and Heidi Strauss. He is a part-time
faculty member at York University and a Toronto-based dancer and choreographer and has worked in both the
artistic and commercial realms. He is Artistic Director of T’art Dances who premiered their first work in Shanghai,
China in 2006. He holds an MA from York and a BFA from Ryerson.
Harlem native Ethel Bruneau began her career at age nine dancing in Atlantic City as part of an act called The
Melody Twins with her cousin Poppy. In 1953, in her teens, Ethel auditioned for Cab Calloway's chorus line, and was
hired as the soubrette. Travelling with the orchestra to Montreal, Ethel fell in love with the city and it's nightlife. She
quickly became a staple on the club circuit as a tap and Afro-Cuban dance soloist and MC. She began teaching
dance in the sixties and continues to teach at the Ethel Bruneau Dance School in Dorval.
Michèle Moss is a choreographer, dancer and educator. She is currently a tenured Assistant Professor in the
Department of Dance at the University of Calgary. She is a co-founder of Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, a professional
concert dance company celebrating 28 years in 2012. She continues to find great pleasure in exploring the nature of
jazz from its roots to its innovative futures. She presents her research both textually and in concert. She enjoys a
diverse career in dance from choreographic commissions to teaching and conducting ethnographic research in such
far-flung locales as Italy, Poland, NYC, Cuba and Guinée, West Africa.
Vicki St. Denys is one of Canada’s leaders in the field of jazz dance and has toured internationally as a performer,
teacher and choreographer. Her research, choreography and teaching are centred on the evolution of jazz dance, its
roots and influences and its relationship to jazz music. In addition to being the Co-Director of the Dance Program at
Ryerson University and the jazz instructor, Vicki has choreographed for television, film, video, theatre and opera.
From 2000-2007 she was jazz pedagogue and choreographer for the Dance Program at The Banff Centre for the
Arts. Vicki holds an M.A. in dance.
Lys Stevens is a dance writer and arts administrator based in Montreal. Her Masters in dance studies from UQAM
focused on b-boying in its vernacular and performing arts contexts. She programs dance events at Studio 303, where
she also authored their guidebook to dance production for emerging choreographers, now an online resource. She is
a guest writer at The Dance Current. She sits on the National Council of the Canadian Dance Assembly and on
various other boards.
Melissa Templeton is a PhD candidate at the University of California Riverside. Her research examines African
Diaspora dance practices in Montreal in relation to Québec identity and Canadian multicultural policies. Templeton is
the recipient of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Fellowship.
After a successful career as principal dancer with the “Royal Winnipeg Ballet” and “Les Grands Ballets Canadiens,”
Eva von Gencsy moved on to study jazz with the great masters in New York made possible through a grant from the
Canada Council of Arts. Von Gencsy later combined both the classical and jazz techniques, thus creating a style of
her own. Von Gencsy co-founded the company and school “Les Ballets Jazz” de Montréal. As a choreographer, Von
Gencsy’s work has been featured on television for Radio-Canada, and has won prizes in Europe. After eight years as
artistic director, she began her career as a renowned guest-teacher giving master classes worldwide. Today, Von
Gencsy is dancing her way as a Hope & Cope volunteer at Jewish Memorial Hospital in Montreal.
“Confessions Session: A Working Session on Collaboration”
Seika Boye, Carolyne Clare, Samantha Mehra
Witness ten artists and scholars from across Canada confess to their successful (or disastrous) collaborative dance
projects via a series of personal vignettes. The lighthearted stories that these practitioners share will help reveal and
reinforce the various ways in which Canadian dancers connect across generations and areas of specialization.
Seika Boye has performed and presented her choreography across Canada, worked as a writer and editor for The
Dance Current and Dance Collection Danse Archives and Publisher (DCD), and taught lecture and studio courses at
York University (BFA/1999, MA/2006). Her research interests include Canadian dance history and 20th century and
contemporary performance. Seika is pursuing her PhD at the Drama Centre, University of Toronto and is a 2011/12
Ontario Graduate Scholarship recipient.
Carolyne Clare is currently an archival assistant at Dance Collection Danse and has a Masters in Museum Studies
from the University of Toronto. Her experience performing amongst the Banff Center’s mountains and Bread and
Puppet’s forests grounds her continued dedication to the performing arts.
Samantha Mehra is a dancer, writer and emerging dance scholar and historian. She is pursuing a PhD in Dance
History and Heritage Studies at York University. She works in Development at Dance Collection Danse and her
writing has appeared in DCD Magazine, The Canadian Encyclopedia Online, and in Oxford University's Forum for
Modern Language Studies.
“Works Cited: on citing sources, neurocognition, and the impossibility of originality”
Amelia Ehrhardt
This paper suggests an impossibility of “unique” movement vocabulary and asks whether citing sources as a
choreographer should be a viable option. While “quoting” or referencing are common in divers artistic practices,
dance arguably lacks a citation format.
Recent discoveries in neurology suggest that “academic honesty” in dance-making is impossible. The
Neurocognition of Dance describes our current understanding of movement formation as based in Basic Action
Concepts (BACs), the “building blocks” of movement. These BACs are used to create movements towards a goal
posture and are stored in long-term memory. Furthermore, the function of mirror neurons, active in the brain while
watching and performing movement, suggests a cognitive similarity between the two acts. This proposal asks: if
movement perception and performance are identical, and performed movement is stored in long-term memory, then
are the movements we see also stored in long-term memory and included in our movement repertoire? Concomitant
to this paper is the creation of a solo asking the same question using a practice-based methodology. I am interested
in the implications this carries for creation, and whether it is possible to create “original” dance given this necessarily
collaborative learning process in which every act of dance is dependent on others.
Amelia Ehrhardt is an independent contemporary dance artist. She holds a diploma in dance performance from
George Brown College and an Honours BA in Dance Studies from York University. Her practice as a dancer and
choreographer blends her academic study with a practice-based methodology and has seen her work presented in a
number of interdisciplinary venues, as well as multiple opportunities lecturing and writing on contemporary dance
practices in predominantly visual-arts institutions.
“How an artist’s imagination mediates the creative process”
Gauri Vanarase
This research investigates how an artist's imagination mediates the creative process within the cultural influences
that inform it. In doing so, it hopes to point to the agency of the artist in determining the nature of the creative works.
It attempts to underline the mediating role of the artist’s imagination in negotiating the aesthetic and the socio-cultural
determinants of creative works.
Based primarily in Dance Studies, this research will draw upon the scholarship in the areas of philosophy of art,
phenomenology, psychology and other creativity studies. This research, conducted by the author who is a dance
practitioner and a scholar, looks at the creation and presentation of two dance works as its “laboratory work”. The first
of these is choreographed and danced by the author whereas the second is choreographed by another professional
choreographer for the author. Thus, this work puts the author in the roles of both, the choreographer and the dancer,
enabling her to analyze these works from a phenomenological perspective. The insights gained from such a
perspective are then utilized to underline the mediating function of the choreographer’s imagination as mentioned
above. Thus, the research looks at the nature of collaboration/interaction between the artist and the environment,
between the artistic practices and scholarly activities, and between different theoretical frameworks and
methodologies.
Gauri Vanarase is currently pursuing a PhD in Canada’s first doctoral program in Dance Studies at York University.
After pursuing her training in Kathak to a professional level while growing up in India, her interest in modern dance
led her to getting her MA in Theatre and Dance from the University of New Mexico, USA. Her BA is in Psychology.
She is also a graduate of The School of Toronto Dance Theatre. She has appeared as a dancer and choreographer
in India, UK, USA and Canada. She has presented her research at the International conference of Indian Society for
Theatre Research and the Translation Studies Conference at the Glendon campus, York University.
« Collabor(el)ation: chorégraphe, interprètes »
Florence Figols
Collaborer c’est être en relation. Être en relation c’est accepter d’être affecté autant qu’on affecte. Dans ce sens, tout
acte de composition chorégraphique est un acte relationnel, un acte d’échange entre la vision-projet du chorégraphe
et sa manifestation sur le corps des interprètes. Tous les moyens, scénarios ou stratégies, que j’utilise sont des
approches de composition qui sont à la fois sous influence de ma thématique et sous influence de mes collaborateurs. Cette présentation est le fruit de plusieurs rencontres « post-création » avec les interprètes Maria Kefirova et
Maya Ostrofsky ; ensemble nous re-visitons les dynamiques relationnelles qui ont marqué les répétitions de mute /
sense veu / en silence, où mes origines politiques, du fascisme à l’anarchie, ont façonné à la fois contenu et
processus de création. La perspective multiple d’une expérience nous fera découvrir d’autres strates
collabor(el)atives et viendra du même coup affecter le contenu de cette communication. Comment les interprètes ont
vécu mes approches et jusqu’où aller avec elles? Quels sont les moments de résistance ? Quelle est la part des
mots et des non-dits ? Docile ou indiscipliné ? Quel est le rôle de l’écoute et de l’égo ? Quel aspect politique est
inhérent au relationnel ?
Chorégraphe-indépendante, chercheure et enseignante, Florence Figols s'intéresse à la sensorialité du corps
dansant, à la présence scénique et au processus de création chorégraphique. Ses œuvres sont présentées dans
plusieurs festivals notamment à Montréal, Ontario, New-York et Madrid. Sa pièce mute/sense veu/en silence créée à
Tangente a reçu la mention Best Choreography 2006 (Hour's Best). Plus récemment, elle a créée l’installation
chorégraphique Transparent Shift #1 ainsi que la vidéo-danse reverse memory. Elle participe aux colloques
Explorations in Sensory Anthropology (2010), et Danse et musique: dialogues en mouvement (2011). Détentrice
d’une maîtrise en danse (UQÀM, 2000), Florence est chargée de cours au département de danse contemporaine de
l’Université Concordia.
“Collaborations and Liminality: Seeking Engagements with Intercultural Ways of Knowing”
Margaret Manson and Lata Pada
This paper draws on a recent collaboration among dancers and teachers engaged in an interdisciplinary research
project that examines the contingent nature of intercultural ways of knowing, and their influences on intercultural
performance practices and pedagogies. The research context is a series of dance workshops for middle school
teachers, lead by two dance artists whose choreographic work and dance practices are shaped by the aesthetics and
historicity of creation and performance. Our study focuses on ways in which the perceptual and performative nature
of dance/movement makes more visible the points of intersection that mark emergent intercultural knowledges in
diasporic communities. As teachers and dancers participating in this project pursued their explorations through
classical South Asian and Caribbean Indigenous dance forms, their performative approaches to identifying and recontextualizing relevant personal and professional experiences resulted in a range of emergent insights. Our
presentation traces the processes of performance and liminal perceptions that emerged from the workshops, and
discusses their specific contributions to ongoing arts-based collaborative processes that inform and sustain
intercultural performance practices and pedagogies.
Margaret Manson, PhD, is a Research Associate in the York Centre for Education and Community and teaches in
the Consecutive Fine Arts Program of the Faculty of Education, York University. Her research interests include
interdisciplinary studies of intercultural arts practices in diasporic communities and community-based practices of
teaching and learning.
Lata Pada is Artistic Director of SAMPRADAYA Dance Creations, Canada’s award-winning professional South Asian
dance company recognized for its distinctive choreography. Lata holds a Masters in Dance from York University
where she also serves as Adjunct Professor. Lata was conferred the Order of Canada in January 2009.
“Firedance: Sharing a flame between Flamenco and Kathak”
Catalina Fellay-Dunbar
With Toronto positioned as a multicultural center on the global stage, it is necessary to consider the embodiment of
multi-layered identities through dance in the city. Increasingly, dance forms with cultural origins outside the Western
traditions of ballet and modern have been finding strong roots in Toronto. In 1996 an important collaborative
partnership began between Esmeralda Enrique of the Esmeralda Enrique Spanish Dance Company (EESDC) and
Kathak dancer Joanna DeSouza of M-Do and the Toronto Tabla Ensemble. The project, entitled Firedance, launched
a series of works increasing awareness of flamenco and Spanish dance forms beyond the established audience
base, expanding primarily into the South Asian communities of the greater Toronto area. This paper focuses on the
impact of collaborations between Esmeralda Enrique and Joanna DeSouza (formerly Joanna Das) on the flamenco
dance community of Toronto from 1995 to 2005. The concerns raised through the study of these collaborations
extend over several issues including self-identification through culture-specific dances, public interest in an “authentic
experience,” and the role of government funding in the facilitation of experimentation between forms. Through new
funding opportunities, Enrique and DeSouza were able to collaboratively create innovative and experimental works,
thus exploring new embodiments of traditional expressions.
Catalina Fellay-Dunbar is a Toronto based dance professional and academic. Her dance experience, although
varied, has long been focused on Flamenco and Classical Spanish dance. Catalina’s academic interests prompted
the pursuit of a BFA and an MA in Dance Studies at York University, an MA from the Drama Centre at the University
of Toronto, and Certification in Movement Analysis from the Laban Institute for Movement Studies. She is presently
pursuing a PhD in Dance Studies at York University with research interests that lie in the intersection between
Canadian cultural policy and dance forms outside of the ballet and modern dance traditions.
“If I Stop to Dance, I Die”
Miriana Lausic
Borrowing the famous words of Carmen Amaya, “If I Stop to Dance, I Die” this research is a historic and ethnographic
study of Eros in Amaya’s flamenco performance. It uses a cross disciplinary collaboration to examine Eros within the
context of southern Spanish culture from two primary perspectives; it portrays Eros as enlightenment and transcendence of the performer, and as the sensual energy generated in the space around the performer. As such, it draws
upon literature, social psychology, performance studies, and visual arts –all of which are in constant dialogue with the
primary discipline of dance. In this multitextual work, movement is the primary text.
Eros in Amaya’s flamenco embodies themes such as: Federico Garcia Lorca’s duende theory,
Csikszentmihalyi’s flow theory, and the art of bullfighting. Hence, this research unfolds the universal themes of
transcendence, life, and death which are inscribed in the culture of southern Spain.
Amaya is a figure of great importance to gender studies, as a woman who defies convention as a dancer but
also as an artistic director of a flamenco company that receives international recognition. As an individual, she is a
significant ambassador of flamenco and Spanish culture to the international community.
Miriana Lausic is pursuing a PhD in Dance Studies at York University as a recipient of the Ontario Trillium
Scholarship. Previously she earned an MFA in Choreography from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro
and a degree in History from the Pontificia Universidad Catolica, Santiago de Chile. Her choreographies were
presented at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Wolf Trap, the Lincoln Theatre, and Carter Barron
Amphitheatre in Washington, DC, and she received two awards for choreography at Youth America Grand Prix
semifinals. Miriana speaks Spanish, Croatian and English.
“Round Table Discussion on Breaking: the Inner Workings of Crew Politics”
Chair | Helen Simard
Breaking (also known as "b-boying" or "breakdancing") is the solo, improvisational dance form associated to hip-hop
culture. Around the world, groups of b-boys and b-girls pull together to form "crews": these like-minded dancers work
together to improve their skills, enter battles, and create performances. But despite the global popularity of breaking
and hip-hop culture, very little is known about the inner workings of crew politics outside the breaking community.
How does a crew form? How are members chosen? What rules govern member conduct and how are those rules reenforced? How is hierarchy and distribution of power negotiated between members? And what effects (if any) do
race, class, nationality, gender, religion, or language have on crew interactions? In a first attempt to address these
and other questions, Helen "Cheeco" Simard invites Alien Ness, Mama Zulu, and Tyquan of the Mighty Zulu Kings
(NYC) to discuss how a crew with a large and international membership can work together and come to collective
agreements. In the spirit of creating an open dialogue and to illustrate the multiplicity of perspectives on this subject,
members of the Montreal breaking community will also be invited to add to the discussion, and to share their
thoughts on the issues of crew dynamics.
Helen "Cheeco" Simard is a Montreal based b-girl, choreographer, and dance researcher. She started
breaking since 1998, and, as a founding member of the all female Dysfunkshn Crew, has participated in bboy/b-girl competitions across North America. Since 2000, Helen has choreographed and danced for Solid
State Breakdance Collective, with whom she has collaborated to create nine choreographies that have been
performed hundreds of times throughout Canada and Europe. A graduate from Concordia University’s dance
department (2000), Helen is currently pursuing a Master's in dance at UQÀM; her research interests include media
representations of breaking, and the construction of personal identity in street dance culture.
Graduate Student Working Group (bilingual)
Groupe de travail pour étudiant(e)s du 2e et 3e cycle (bilingue)
Carolyne Clare, Melissa Templeton
The aim of this working session is to encourage collaboration amongst graduate students pursuing dance studies in
both English and French. Prior to the conference, each participating student will be paired with a partner and the
partners will exchange some of their research. The participants will be asked to briefly introduce their partner’s
research at the conference. The session will cultivate the sharing of theoretical ideas, methodologies and fresh
insights across linguistic divides.
Film showing | Présentation du film: “Ati-atihan Lives”
Patrick Alcedo
Without fail, residents of Kalibo, the capital town of the province of Aklan in the central Philippines, celebrate with
their visitors and guests the Ati-atihan festival every third week of January to honor both the indigenous Atis and
Santo Niño, the Holy Child Jesus. Here Aklanon Patrick Alcedo brings together lives of four participants – disparate
in the everyday but interlocked during the Ati-atihan through streetdancing and their understandings of dance as
prayer and an embodiment of cultural identity.
During performance the businessman Henry Villanueva becomes Michael Jackson, the retired ballet teacher
Augusto Diangson cross dresses in the image of a Folies Bergère chorus girl, and the "balikbayan" (Filipino returnee)
Cecile Motus transforms herself as a Hmong dancer. Such are their ways of expressing their Roman Catholic faith
and gratitude to Santo Niño for the many blessings they have received. In contrast is Imelda Chavez, an indigenous
Ati who is a Protestant and therefore is not a devotee of Santo Niño. Participating with other Atis, and accompanied
by her daughter, she streetdances for the first time to remind the public that the Ati-atihan festival is also about them.
"Ati-atihan Lives" offers a complex and moving picture of a community’s religious beliefs that though different
from each other are similarly linked by power, politics, and the enduring cultural influence of the West. Partnered by
these participants, it illustrates what it means to practice those faiths in relation to others, especially those who are
still socially marginalized.
Born and raised in the Philippines, Patrick Alcedo is Assistant Professor in the Department of Dance at York
University, Toronto. He is the writer, director, and producer of “Ati-atihan: Mother Of Philippine Festivals”
(InTensions), “Panaad: A Promise To The Santo Niño (Ateneo Press), and “Boxing To Be The Next Pacquiao” (New
York Times). A former Rockefeller Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., he currently holds
"Canada's Social Science Humanities Research Council Creation Grant." For excellence in teaching at York
University, he is the 2010-11 recipient of the Faculty of Fine Arts Teaching Award.
Conference Organizers
Director, Kate Cornell
Kate Cornell, PhD, is a writer, teacher, and the Director of the Canadian Society for Dance Studies. Her research on
Canadian dance has been published widely in magazines, journals, and anthologies. Her doctoral dissertation in
Cultural Studies (2008) was titled “The State of Canadian Dance and Dancing with the State from 1967 to 1983.”
Cornell’s research interests include the role of artistic practice in culture, the impact of Canadian cultural policy on the
arts community, and the development of arts education in Canada. She co-wrote the only book that chronicles the
history of Toronto Dance Theatre (1998), one of Canada’s most significant modern dance companies. Cornell has
also worked extensively in the Canadian performing arts sector as an arts administrator and archivist. As a specialist
in arts education, Cornell has shared her passion with thousands of students across Canada in Learning Through the
Arts, Prologue to the Performing Arts, and the National Ballet of Canada’s education programs. She has taught
numerous undergraduate courses at York University, Ryerson University, and Charles Sturt University. Cornell was
recently elected to the Board of Directors of the Society of Dance History Scholars.
Curator, Dena Davida
Dena Davida has practiced contemporary dance for 40 years as a performer, teacher, researcher and curator. A
Californian who immigrated to Montréal in 1977, she participated in the "second generation" of contact improvisers (a
postmodern dance form), and taught Nikolais dance technique and Laban-based creative movement for children.
She co-founded and remains the co-artistic director of Montréal’s Tangente dance performance space. She was also
co-founder of the Festival international de nouvelle danse de Montréal. She taught dance improvisation and
composition, Laban Movement Analysis, dance aesthetics and anthropology as a chargée de cours at the Université
du Québec à Montréal for 25 years. Her essays and research articles have been published in numerous magazines
and journals. In her twenties she completed a B.A. in theatre with a dance minor at the University of California at
Riverside and Irvine, in her thirties an M.A. in Movement Studies from Wesleyan University. At age 57, she
completed the doctoral programme Programme d'études et pratiques des arts at UQÀM with an ethnographic study
of meaning in “contemporary dance events” (a case study of O Vertigo Danse’s choreographic project Luna). Her
recent publications: a chapter on Montréal university dance programmes in Renegade Bodies: Canadian Dance in
the 1970s, and an international anthology on artistic dance ethnography, for which she was editor, with 28 dancerresearchers: Fields in Motion: Ethnography in the worlds of dance.
Curator, Philip Szporer
Philip Szporer has been immersed in the Canadian dance world for the past 30 years. Currently, he teaches in the
Contemporary Dance department at Concordia University and is a Scholar-in-Residence at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance
Festival in Massachusetts. In 1999, he was awarded a Pew Fellowship (National Dance/Media Project), at the
University of California, Los Angeles. And in 2010 he was the recipient of the Jacqueline Lemieux Prize awarded by
the Canada Council of the Arts.
In 2001, Philip along with Marlene Millar co-founded the arts film production company Mouvement Perpétuel.
Together they have co-directed and produced many documentaries and short dance films to great acclaim. Their
work is seen widely at festivals worldwide and at major events such as the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter
Games, the 2010 Shanghai Expo, and a UNESCO tour of Latin America.
They recently completed Lost Action: Trace, a stereoscopic (3D) live action/animated dance film created in
collaboration with choreographer Crystal Pite, and produced by the National Film Board of Canada. A site-specific
short dance-film entitled “Dafeena”, featuring the choreography of Natasha Bakht, is now in production. Philip is also
involved in a 3D interdisciplinary media project with the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance at UCLA and
UC Santa Cruz.
Philip’s activities as a broadcast journalist have included stints at CBC Radio, as a dance columnist for RadioCanada’s radio arts magazine Aux arts, etc., and correspondent for The World (BBC/WGBH-Boston). His dance
writings have been published in Hour, The Dance Current, and Tanz, among others. Philip has also worked as a
choreographic facilitator, has given writing workshops and has lectured across North America and Europe.
Curator, Melissa Templeton
Melissa Templeton is a Ph.D. candidate in critical dance studies at the University of California, Riverside. She
received her BFA in dance from York University (magna cum laude), and her BA in western culture and society with a
minor in music from Concordia University (with great distinction). After working with several choreographers in
Toronto and Montreal, Templeton moved to Riverside where she continued to perform while pursuing her academic
interests in dance. Templeton currently resides in Montreal where she is conducting her fieldwork and finishing her
dissertation. Her research examines Canadian multicultural policies in relation to Québécois identity, racial
construction, and African diaspora dance practices. Templeton has presented her research at conferences in
Riverside, Los Angeles, Toronto, Ottawa and Surrey (England) and is the recipient of a Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council doctoral fellowship.
Acknowledgements

Collaboration: Intersections, Negotiations, Mediations in the Worlds

Transcription

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