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2009 International Dance Day and DanceDemoCamp comments by Freya!

Posted June 9, 2009
Filed under: Blogroll | Tags: DanceDemoCamp

Hi Julie Lebel,

Je m’excuse du retard; j’espere que ce sera toujours utile.

We were able to catch a glimpse of Karen Jamieson choreographing an intense piece with three dancers. Two moved mechanically, intent on their jagged, artificial, routine movements through life, without any sense of their own feelings or those around them. A third moved through their indifference, exploding with the need to feel and communicate that the others deny him.

Then the Dance Demo Camp of Julie Lebel and Miriam Calvin really gave us an insight into the dance community, and an exciting sense of the possibilities there for our own participation as an audience. Both pieces seemed to benefit from the fact that only two hours had been spent in preparation, as there was a fresh sense of communication between the dancers, which invited the audience to approach the pieces actively, not passively, as part of the work in progress. The first piece wove several threads together:

brief verbal interchange which was casual and friendly in character; precise, repetitive gestures which were mimicked between the dancers; and the choreography of movement which introduced a natural rhythm of coming and going into the scenes. During question period the audience admitted having felt (and succumbed!) to the urge to mimic the infectious gestures, shrugging a shoulder here, scraping a foot there, drawn into the mood of intimacy which evokes such mirroring gestures. The second piece was composed of stark, imposing body lines, body-sculptures which did not seem to lay claim to any emotion, and consequently broke any story-line one might attempt to construe. We learned in question period that this was a barely choreographed sequence of poses mirroring photos of dance which had been selected for this purpose. The photos elected for the dance were a result of both deliberate choice and arbitrary selection. The choreographer’s intention was to introduce further scope into this selection process by creating a kind of chain-mail of dance photos, which would be taken up by the next set of dancers across Canada.

Julie, a bientot, j’espere bien!

Freya

Then the Dance Demo Camp of Julie Lebel and Miriam Colvin really gave us an insight into the dance community, and an exciting sense of the possibilities there for our own participation as an audience. Both pieces seemed to benefit from the fact that only two hours had been spent in preparation, as there was a fresh sense of communication between the dancers, which invited the audience to approach the pieces actively, not passively, as part of the work in progress. The first piece wove several threads together: brief verbal interchange which was casual and friendly in character; precise, repetitive gestures which were mimicked between the dancers; and the choreography of movement which introduced a natural rhythm of coming and going into the scenes. During question period the audience admitted having felt (and succumbed!) to the urge to mimic the infectious gestures, shrugging a shoulder here, scraping a foot there, drawn into the mood of intimacy which evokes such mirroring gestures. The second piece was composed of stark, imposing body lines, body-sculptures which did not seem to lay claim to any emotion, and consequently broke any story-line one might attempt to construe. We learned in question period that this was a barely choreographed sequence of poses mirroring photos of dance which had been selected for this purpose. The photos elected for the dance were a result of both deliberate choice and arbitrary selection. The choreographer’s intention was to introduce further scope into this selection process by creating a kind of chain-mail of dance photos, which would be taken up by the next set of dancers across Canada.

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