Rubberbandance Group
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Michael Slobodiam RUBBERBANDance Group Co-Artistic Directors Victor Quijada & Anne Plamondon Gravity of Center Choreographer Victor Quijada Music Jasper Gahunia Lighting Design and Technical Director Yan Lee Chan Costume Design Julie Charland Dancers Elon Höglund, Emmanuelle Lê Phan, Daniel Mayo, Anne Plamondon, Victor Quijada Sound Director Éric Tremblay Thursday, January 19, 2012 @ 7:30 PM Friday, January 20, 2012 @ 8 PM* Saturday, January 21, 2012 @ 2 PM Saturday, January 21, 2012 @ 8 PM *Join us after the program on Friday, January 26th for an INSIGHTS event featuring a bilingual talk back with the artists. There is no intermission. Program and artists are subject to change. 26 Notes on the Program GRAVITY OF CENTER Length: 75 minutes Born of a collection of images, notes and questions that have been gestating for several months, Gravity of Center brings back all of RUBBERBANDance Group’s (RBDG) enthusiasm and intensity to the stage. Victor Quijada’s pursuit of movement – acceleration, exaggeration, syncopated rhythms and physical prowess – is the central theme of this ninth production. Inspired by social issues stemming from the contrast between abundance and scarcity; driven by the idea that art can propel the spectator into the action; and interested in upending narrative structures, Victor Quijada threw himself into an exploration of movement that yet again blurs the boundaries between urban, contemporary and classical dance. This raw material was then handed over to RBDG’s cherished artistic collaborators. With his illusionistic lighting, Yan Lee Chan created an otherworldly universe inspired by the work of Dalí. The sound is supplied in turn by Jasper Gahunia, aka DJ Lil’ Jaz, whose compositions have long been a sonic ornament to the aesthetic that has made RBDG’s reputation. The Quijada-Gahunia team intends to push this new musical genre even further, incorporating percussion instruments. “As resident dance artists of the Cinquième Salle of Place des Arts de Montréal (PDA), we have benefitted from the unlimited use of rehearsal studios and have created various outreach activities. Since 2007, we have received co-production support for three full-length works, including communication and technical assistance and in-theatre creation time. This privilege has fostered focus and experimentation, and has stimulated monumental development for RBDG. Our gratitude is beyond words. We would like to express our profound appreciation to the Place des Arts team; in particular to Michel Gagnon for his unconditional trust and support, and to Sophie Labelle for her tireless energy, ideas, and friendship. The presentation of Gravity of Center concludes our four-year residency and collaboration with PDA. We are thrilled to be able to share this work with you. We would like to thank our partners in the creation of Gravity of Center: Société de la Place Des Arts de Montréal, Circuit-Est, and Festival International DansEncore. RBDG would also like to thank Benoit Labbé, Jo Leslie, Pierre Lapointe, Yso, Susan Gaudreau, and le Gîte 9 et demi. RUBBERBANDance Group acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec, and the Conseil des Arts de Montréal.” - Victor Quijada DANCE CELEBRATION 11/12 Season 27 About the Artists THE DANCERS Victor Quijada (Choreographer, Co-Artistic Director, Dancer) Born in Los Angeles, Victor Quijada, from a young age, deeply influenced by hip hop culture. As a teenager, his introduction to formal dance and theatre at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts seemed to expand the possibilities and potential of the hip hop art form. Over the next ten years, Quijada began to re-imagine, deconstruct and apply choreographic principles to the hip hop ideology of his youth. Experiences that most influenced and re-shaped him included becoming a protégé of postmodern dance pioneer Rudy Perez, premiering six Twyla Tharp creations as a member of THARP!, performing with Eliot Feld’s company Ballet Tech and as a demi-soloist, performing with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal for two years. By age 26, Quijada had gained a rare perspective on a wide spectrum of dance, possessing knowledge and experience that spanned from the street corner to the concert hall. Molding diverse artistic influences into a signature choreographic style, Quijada formed RUBBERBANDance Group in 2002. His work, which examines human relationships through a seamless marriage of classical, contemporary and urban aesthetics, is performed internationally. Since 2007, Quijada is Artist in Residence at Cinquième Salle / Place des Arts de Montréal. Winner of a 2010 Princess Grace Awards Choreographic Fellowship, the 2009 OQAJ/RIDEAU Prize, the Bonnie Bird North American Award and the Peter Darrell Choreography Award (UK), Quijada has created work for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Atlanta Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Ballet Met, Jeune Ballet du Québec, Peter Boal & Company (NYC), Transitions Dance Company (London), Chamber Dance Project and notably, Self Observation Without Judgement for Scottish Dance Theatre, which won the 2004 National Dance Award for Best Modern Repertory. Fascinated by dance on film, Quijada choreographed the Alexandre Desilets music videoLa Garde and will co-create a film adaptation of Gravity of Center with director Thibaut Duverneix. A finalist in the 2004 American Choreography Awards for the short film adaptation ofHasta La Próxima, a Choreography Media Honors Awardee for the sequence he staged in the K-OS music video Man I Used to Be (2005 Much Music Video Award for Best Rap Video), Quijada has also directed two short films of his own, Secret Service (2007) and Small Explosions That Are Yours to Keep (2006 – under the mentorship of Juno award-winning director Micah Meisner). Also with Meisner, Quijada collaborated as a dramaturge on the award winning Red Shoes (2009). He has collaborated with director René-Pierre Bélanger on both the 2006 Radio-Canada production of La Symphonie éclatée, featuring Kent Nagano conducting the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, and on the Gemini Award nominated Canada Day 2004 broadcast for CBC television. Anne Plamondon (Co-Artistic Director and Dancer) Anne Plamondon has worked alongside choreographer Victor Quijada since 2002. In 2007, they were appointed Resident Artists at Cinquième Salle of Place des Arts de Montréal through the 2010-2011 season. After her classical training at the National Ballet School of Canada, the Banff Centre for the Arts and L’École supérieure de danse du Québec, Plamondon joined Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in 1994. From 1995 to 2000, she danced with the Nederlands Dans Theater 2 and the Gulbenkian Ballet (Portugal). She has performed and created roles in the works of numerous choreographers including Jirí Kylián, Ohad Naharin, Paul Lightfoot, Angelin Preljocaj, Johan Inger, Stijn Celis and Itzik Galili. Since her return to Montréal, she has collaborated with choreographers Estelle Clareton, Jean Grand-Maître, 28 About the Artists James Kudelka, Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie and especially with Crystal Pite’s Kidd Pivot in the creation of Lost Action (2006), Fault and A Picture of You Falling (2008). Plamondon’s interest in dance on film has brought her many opportunities to explore this medium. With the support of Bravo!FACT, she recently starred in Red Shoes, a short film from Juno award-winning director Micah Meisner. Daniel Mayo (Dancer) Born and raised in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Daniel Mayo began dancing at the age of five. He trained at various dance studios in South Carolina before receiving a BFA in dance from The Juilliard School. While at Juilliard, Mayo worked directly with choreographers such as Aszure Barton, Eliot Feld and Susan Marshall. He also performed works by Jirí Kylian, William Forsythe and Paul Taylor. Upon graduation, he joined the Atlanta Ballet in Atlanta, Georgia where he danced for three seasons. While in Atlanta he performed works by Lauri Stallings, Twyla Tharp, Darrell Grand Moultrie, Matt Kent and Bennyroyce Royon. He first worked with Victor Quijada in early 2010 during the creation ofImpending Savour Assessment, a world premiere for the Atlanta Ballet. He then joined RUBBERBANDance Group and has performed in Loan Sharking and other RBDG works. Elon Höglund (Dancer) Elon Höglund grew up in a family of visual artists but always loved to dance and move. A self-taught dancer from Sweden with a strong training in martial arts, he has trained, competed, taught and performed in styles such as Tae Kwon Do, Capoeira and Kung Fu. In 1996, he won two gold medals in the Swedish Kung Fu championships. Hip hop and dance have been a part of his life for as long as he can remember, but his professional career started in 2000 with the Royal Dramatic Theatre of Sweden. A hip hop and contemporary dancer, an acrobat and a b-boy, his talent was featured on TV in Sweden, Norway, South Korea and in the US on “The Jay Leno Show.” After years of freelancing in Europe, he was hired by Cirque Du Soleil for the creation of Love, the Beatles Show in which he performed a contemporary dance solo. Höglund then performed for Cirque Eloize’s ID. He has worked with choreographers such as Dave St-Pierre, Daniel Ezralow and Mourad Merzouki, and is now working with RBDG for its newest creation, Gravity of Center. Emmanuelle Lê Phan (Dancer) For years, Ottawa-born Emmanuelle Lê Phan has used her knowledge of street dances such as breaking, house, popping, new jack swing and locking, to explore a special fusion style of contemporary hip hop. Since 1999, through her aliases of b-girl Cleopatra and Manoodles, she competed and danced in music videos internationally, giving her extensive experience in b-girling. Lê Phan studied contemporary dance and obtained her BFA in 2003 at Concordia University, after which she co-founded Solid State Breakdance Collective. She danced for RUBBERBANDance Group from 2003 to 2005, as part of many creations such as Slicing Static and Reflections of Movement Particles.