Project 3/2/1 April 5, 2011

Artistic Director Michael Trent today announced an exciting new collaborative world premiere to be presented as part of Dancemakers’ Home Season. This year’s Home Season show, which runs from April 6 to 17, 2011, is titled Project 3/2/1 and features three new works in a shared evening – a trio from Antonija Livingstone (Québec), a duet from Martin Bélanger (Québec) and a solo from Ame Henderson (Ontario).

“This project is first and foremost about engaging with three distinct and powerful contemporary choreographic voices” Trent explains. “No strangers to the company and Toronto, Livingstone, Bélanger and Henderson have either been presented by us or have made work on the company in recent times.”

In envisioning this project, Trent was thinking about the role of the repertoire in Dancemakers’ 36-year history. Implicit in the repertoire idea is the supremacy of the dance over the individuals performing it; the work remains but dancers move into and out of it through time. On the other hand, much of contemporary practice comes from an intimate and collaborative relationship between the creator and the performer, which forms the very basis of the dance.

In order to marry these contrasting ideas, Trent asked each choreographer to create a work that would be performed by every member of the company (the five resident company dancers Rob Abubo, Lori Duncan, Kate Holden, Alanna Kraaijeveld and Steeve Paquet and Artistic Director Trent). In a six-show run, each of the six dancers performs the solo once, the duet twice (once in each role) and the trio three times (also once in each role).

This bold – and perhaps slightly crazy – proposal for a shared evening of dance ensures that no two shows will be the same.

In the trio Cultural Administration (based on the 2009 work Culture & Administration) Livingstone creates a bizarre love triangle. In this ambiguous object, the performers are asked to reevaluate, disassemble, redistribute, and disorganize it together. With the alternating cast, each performance of the work will allow a new meaning for the choreography to appear in the present moment.

In Bélanger’s Mythical Twins, the choreographer tackles his fascination with twinhood: the play between the same and the distinct, the mirror and the other and the destabilizing concept of self and identity. He calls the work Mythical because he sees the performers as strangely non-human, angel or insect-like. Bélanger says “I like the idea of an alchemical symbolic algorithmic dance.”

In creating the solo, Henderson and the performers struggle with the common and profound difficultly of truly knowing another person. In posing the question “how can six people make a solo together?” they encounter and inhabit each other’s choices and bodies in order to create something no single person could have produced alone.

Dancemakers continues to challenge and advance the idea of a contemporary repertoire company making bold new dances for the 21st century. This world premiere will be presented from April 6 to 17, 2011, with a preview performance on April 5th, at the Centre for Creation.

Tickets for the Project 3/2/1 go on sale on March 1st; visit dancemakers.org for more information. Affordable ticket packages will be made available to encourage multiple viewings.

Project 3/2/1 is produced with the support of the James Lahey Studio.

Details:
Length of performance - 60 minutes (approximately)

Choreographers: Martin Bélanger, Ame Henderson and Antonija Livingstone
Created with and performed by: Rob Abubo, Lori Duncan, Kate Holden, Alanna Kraaijeveld, Steeve Paquet and Michael Trent
Costume Designer: Tanya White
Lighting Designer: Simon Rossiter
Associate Director: Bonnie Kim
Dramaturge: Jacob Zimmer
Stage Manager: Gillian Lewis

Where: Dancemakers Centre for Creation, 55 Mill Street, Building 58, The Cannery
Performances in Studio 313, Box Office Lounge in Studio 314

When:
April 6 - 17, 2011, preview April 5, 2011
Tuesday through Saturday at 8pm, Sunday at 4pm
Tickets*:
Single tickets: Adults $25, Students/Arts Workers/CADA $18, Package prices: Four adult tickets for $80 and four student/arts worker/CADA tickets for $60.
Call/Click: 416.367.1800 or [email protected]; dancemakers.org

*Single tickets go on sale on March 1, 2011