It’s been a challenging year for the PuSh Festival as it grapples with organizational and leadership changes in the midst of a pandemic. But as one of Vancouver’s diverse, interdisciplinary winter arts staples, the festival is forging ahead this year with a reduced program focused on partner presentations.
Read more: PuSh Festival forges ahead with partner presentations including ancient forest experience
What happens when you take a series of stage directions and expand their meaning, interpret them in different ways, and translate that meaning into movement? In Body and Soul, Crystal Pite does just that, expanding meaning through movement and exploring the connection between words and movement as much as between bodies and souls.
Read more: Crystal Pite connects body and soul at the Paris Opera Ballet
A group of Canadian dance presenters has come together in response to COVID-19 to form Digidance, a new initiative that will present Canadian dance on the virtual stage. As presenters that often work together to build Canadian tours for both Canadian and international dance companies, DanceHouse (Vancouver), Harbourfront Centre (Toronto), the National Arts Centre (Ottawa), and Danse Danse (Montreal) are joining forces to ensure that Canadian dance remains strong and continues to reach audiences during the pandemic. As an embodied medium of expression that relies on live performance, dance has suffered a great deal due to the pandemic hindering our ability to gather.
Read more: Digidance launches with Canadian premiere of Crystal Pite’s Body and Soul
Revisor | Kidd Pivot | DanceHouse | Vancouver Playhouse | February 20 – 23, 2019 | Canadian tour: Ottawa, Feb 27 – March 2, NAC Theatre; Toronto, March 7 – 10, 13 – 16, Canadian Stage; Montreal, April 3 – 6, Dance Danse
There are many standout lines in Revisor, Crystal Pite and Jonathon Young’s innovative dance-theatre hybrid, but the one that has stuck with me is also an apt summation of its theme: “I’m here to move a comma.”
In this tale of mistaken identity, corruption, and abuse of power based on Nikolai Gogol’s The Inspector General (Revizor in the original Russian), a commoner is mistaken as the “Revisor” (Tiffany Tregarthen) who has been sent “from head office” to investigate a political leader.
Read more: Revisor explores the relationship between movement and meaning
With a whole month of programming and 45 performances, including 17 free shows and 23 free dance classes, the 19th edition of the Vancouver International Dance Festival brings local, national, and international dance to the stage throughout March. The amount of free programming is impressive, and this year’s focus on Indigenous artists will offer audiences diverse perspectives and varied choreographic and storytelling styles.
Read more: Indigenous voices will be the focus at the 19th Vancouver International Dance Festival
1+1+1 | Turning Point Ensemble | Online premiere | January 23, 2021
The Turning Point Ensemble’s 1+1+1 film project grew out of their desire to create unique new musical works in our COVID context, and it has provided an opportunity for the TPE musicians to forge new collaborations with composers, dancers, filmmakers, and visual artists. The series will include 15 short films — the first three, all directed by Sean Patrick Shaul, premiered online before a live talkback with the artists, and the next film will be shot in early February, with more details on further film screenings to come.
