World Dance Alliance Global Summit
Dancing from the Grassroots
Memorial University St. John's, Newfoundland July 23 - 28, 2017 LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
St. John’s Campus
We would like to respectfully acknowledge the territory in which we gather, as the ancestral homelands of the Beothuk and the island of Newfoundland as the ancestral homelands of the Mi’kmaq and Beothuk. We would also like to recognize the Inuit of Nunatsiavut and NunatuKavut and the Innu of Nitassinan, and their ancestors, as the original people of Labrador. We strive for respectful partnerships with all the peoples of this province as we search for collective healing and true reconciliation and honour this beautiful land together.
2 Message from WDA Secretary General
Greetings and salutations to everyone.
It gives me great pleasure and honor to say a few words on this auspicious occasion as we celebrate the 2017 World Dance Alliance Global Summit at the School of Music at Memorial University, St. John’s, Newfoundland from the 23rd to the 28th July, 2017.
Our previous Global Summit was held from 6th to 11th July, 2014 co-hosted by World Dance Alliance and Centre National de Danse Contemporaine (CNDC) in Angers, France. Attended by more than 190 participants representing 31 countries, consisting of 12 countries from Asia Pacific, 6 countries from the Americas and 13 countries from Europe, the 2014 WDA Global Summit saw a fairly large number of European participants, which lead to the reformation of World Dance Alliance Europe. It is wonderful that the 2017 Global Summit will once again bring all the regional WDAs together, embracing old and new members within the 4 main WDA Networks consisting of the Research and Documentation Network, Creation and Presentation Network, Education and Training Network (as a World Alliance for Arts Education partner), and Support and Development Network.
The 2017 World Dance Alliance Global Summit (WDAGS) brings together WDA Americas, WDA Asia Pacific and WDA Europe into one big family advocating for an independent, non-profit non- political and non-religious organization with a primary focus to leverage and empower dance to all levels of society. The 2017 WDAGS’ theme on Dancing from the Grassroots aptly demonstrates World Dance Alliance’s recognition to promote, develop and encourage mutual understanding of all forms of dance in the way grassroots dancing counters, resists, supports and negotiate social changes diachronically (history) and synchronically (present) through the principles and practices of inclusivity, social networking, health and wellbeing, and intergenerational community building. The 2017 WDAGS will not only facilitate communication and exchange among dance individuals, institutions and organizations interested in dance but it would also provide a forum for discussion on matters relating to dance that would also encourage and stimulate creativity and push boundaries by exploring new ideas amongst participants.
Once again, I welcome all of you to the 2017 World Dance Alliance Global Summit and wish you all the best as you engage and explore the many ways dance informs both present and future.
Professor Dr Mohd Anis Md Nor Secretary General World Dance Alliance
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Message from WDAA President
Welcome to the 2017 Global Summit “Dancing from the Grassroots,” from July 23rd to 28th, hosted by WDA-Americas and the School of Music, Memorial University in collaboration with DanceNL, Neighbourhood Dance Works and Toronto Heritage Dance. In keeping with the grassroots theme, planning and running the Summit has been a cooperative effort with many people pitching in to help with creative and practical suggestions and sheer hard work.
Foremost are the other co-convenors, Krisitin Harris Walsh, situated in St. John’s at Memorial University, and Evadne Kelly, writer and researcher, located in Toronto where I also live. The three of us were in frequent contact, tossing ideas about, consulting with the St. John’s dance community, problem solving, and making decisions. These two dancer/scholars are amazing at getting things done, ironing out major wrinkles with seeming ease. Committee chairs Linda Caldwell, Ann Kipling Brown, Melissa Sanderson and Falon Baltzel organized their teams of reviewers and kept everything on track reviewing proposals, sending acceptances and replying to numerous inquiries.
Both Memorial’s School of Music and Faculty of Medicine were incredibly generous in providing space and assistance in an era when most universities are charging for the use of every dance studio and lecture hall to make ends meet. The St. John’s community was enthusiastic from the beginning, offering assistance and putting us in contact with the right people. Our theme was suggested by Newfoundlander and DanceNL President, Candice Pike, soon after we made initial contact with the local dance community. Originally, our main theatre LSPU Hall was reserved by another organization, but Calla Lachance, from Neighbourhood Dance Works, instantly reserved the space for us when it suddenly became available.
There have been disappointments along the way. Unfortunately government funding did not materialize so we have worked with a shoestring budget, appropriate given our grassroots theme. A number of people from nearly every country withdrew, because they could not get funding, even from countries that have traditionally brought large contingents. Obtaining a visa has become increasingly difficult for many. Going back to the grassroots has given us a new perspective on what is important.
So welcome everyone to Newfoundland and Labrador. Newfoundland is a place of great humour, warm welcomes, and of course strong communities of music and dance. Newfoundlanders have a delightful sense of humour and they will have you laughing the moment you get in a taxi at the airport. They will welcome you into their community and they may even invite you to kiss the cod and become an honorary Newfoundlander! St. John’s is a small but vibrant city rich in culture and traditions. It boasts the most easterly point in North America at nearby Cape Spear. The downtown is home to Water Street, the oldest street in North America, and the downtown core is filled with world class restaurants, craft and fashion stores, close to its busy commercial port. It has a rich music scene that runs into the early hours. So come to meet colleagues with shared interests and enjoy the legendary hospitality of Newfoundlanders. But don’t forget your raincoat!
Mary Jane Warner President World Dance Alliance-Americas
4 TABLE OF CONTENTS
3 Welcome to the Global Summit
7 Schedule: Week at a Glance
17 Meetings, Performances and Other Events
21 Scholarly Presentations
43 Workshops
53 Summary of Health Series Activities
54 Networks
55 Choreographic Laboratories
57 Site-Specific Performances
59 Pop-Up Performances, July 24-28
60 Performances at Cook Recital Hall and LSPU Hall
74 Biographies
95 Kitchen Party at The Ship Pub
96 World Dance Alliance Structure
97 Acknowledgments
99 Map of St. John’s Campus
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6
SCHEDULE
“WEEK AT-A-GLANCE”
WORLD DANCE ALLIANCE GLOBAL SUMMIT
MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY OF NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR
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SUNDAY, JULY 23 Registration and Reception, Atrium, Faculty of Medicine, from 5:00-7:00 pm
MONDAY, JULY 24 MON. JULY MU 2025 MU 2017 DANCE STUDIO SUNCOR COOK 24 RECITAL RECITAL HALL HALL 8:30 - 9:00 8:30 - Coffee available; 8:30-11:00 8:00-9:00 am - - Registration in the Music Building Choreolab orientation near MU 2025 meeting 9:00 - 10:00 Opening Ceremony 10:00 - 10:45 Interactive Community Dance
10:45 - 11:30 11:00 – 12:30 Health Series Roundtable Workshop Indigenous Perspectives Investigating and on Dance, the Arts and Reactivating Movement from Wellbeing the Inside: Every Body’s Jenelle Duval, Journey Rebecca Sharr, Hannah Park Carolyn Sturge Sparks, Eastern Owl
Moderator: Evadne Kelly
11:30 - 12:30 Prepaid box lunches available outside MU 2025 LUNCH BREAK 12:30 - 1:30 Keynote Address
Time and the Body: Where Music and Dance Meet—
8 12:30 - 1:30 Keynote Address
Time and the Body: Where Music and Dance Meet— Sometimes Beverley Diamond
Introduction: Mary Jane Warner
1:30 - 3:00 Scholarly Papers Scholarly Papers Workshop Workshop Health Series Workshop Grassroots Dance and Guangchangwu: A Study in Ballet Technique - An Contemporary Dance Manifestations of Power: A Case Sustainable Community introduction to Comparative Technique – Falling, Dance, Primitive Study of Toronto Caravan 1968- Dance Practices in Public Styles in Western Ballet Flying and Spiraling Reflexes, Neuro- 2002 Spaces Traditions: Russian, Italian, Bala Sarasvati plasticity, Creative Catherine Limbertie Zihao Li Danish, British, and American Process and Health Lisa Fusillo Lee Saunders, Louise Ageism and the Mature Moyes Ballet Folklorico: Choreographing Dancer “The Society of the Spectacle” in Sonya York-Pryce Mexican-American Dance
Andrea Lujan Moderator: Ilana Goldman
Moderator: Mary Jane Warner
3:00 - 3:30 BREAK
3:30 - 5:00 Workshop
Sean-Nós Dancing: A Grassroots Tradition for Americas Region Meeting Dancers of all Ages, Sizes, and Skill Levels Mary Beth Taylor OFF CAMPUS: LSPU HALL – EVENING OF ATLANTIC CANADA DANCE, 8:00-9:30 PM
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TUESDAY, JULY 25 TUES. JULY MU 2025 MU 2017 DANCE SUNCOR COOK MEDICINE 25 STUDIO RECITAL RECITAL 1M1O2 HALL HALL 8:30 - 9:00 8:30 - Coffee available; 8:30-11:00 - 8-10 am – Registration in the Music Building Choreolab space near MU 2025 in case of rain 9:00 - 10:30 Scholarly Papers Scholarly Papers Workshop Workshop Technical 8-10 am – Urban Spaces, Domesticity and the Speaking of the Grassroots: Ballet for All - A Finding Rehearsals Choreolab space Performance of the Everyday Representing Oriental Dance Grassroots Class in Sensation and in case of rain Alexandra Kolb Movement in North American Ballet Technique Self in a English Lisa Fusillo Technique Twilight: Connecting with Place Ainsley Hawthorn Practice through an Intergenerational Dance Shannon and Music Community Project Mockli Cheryl Stock Finding Flows in Frictions: “Slow” Fire Dancing, Resistance and Community- Contemporary Dance Production: Building in the Tourism Molding a New Performance Model Industry in Southern Thailand to Reflect our Changing World Tiffany Pollock Bala Sarasvati
Moderator: Moderator: Linda Caldwell Lynn Matluck Brooks
10:30 - 11:00 Coffee available outside MU 2025 BREAK 11:00 - 12:30 Pecha Kucha Scholarly Papers Workshop Workshop Health Series Technical Workshop Sustaining Creativity and Bold Moves: Liberation from Rehearsals Minimizing the Hierarchy within Imagination through Music and Unleashing the Perfect Body: Grassroots One’s Dance-Making Process Dance in the Home and Contemporary Improvisation, Approach for Jessica Murphy Primary School Environments: Dancer’s Movement Modern Dance, Dance Instructors
A Grassroots Movement Potential and to Address the A Sociological Study of the “Dance Rosemary Bennett Peter Gn Gymnastics Needs of Elderly Player”: Balancing Dance Practice Judy Yiu Participants with Work Schedules # I am Always a Dancer April Nakaima Kahoru Saruta Dick
Sean-nós Dancing: A Grassroots
Tradition for Dancers of all Ages, Creative Movement and Sizes, and Skill Levels Grassroots Dance: Cultivating Mary Beth Taylor
10 21st Century Creative, Democratic Bodies Rebecca Gose
Narrative in Dance: Creating a Moderator: Space for Untold, Unvoiced Stories Catherine Limbertie Cylene Walker-Willis
Moderator: Linda Caldwell
12:30 - 1:30 Prepaid box lunches available Early Career Researchers LUNCH BREAK outside MU 2025 Music Seminar Room
1:30 - 3:00 Scholarly Papers Scholarly Papers Workshop Workshop Workshop
Street, Ballroom, Church, and ”Something out of Nothing”: Dance of Maugham: Inner and Outer Technical Making Dances: Stage: The Body in Motion in Early The transformative power of Creating Living Space: Somatic Rehearsals Listening and Philadelphia Scottish Ceilidh dance for first- Steps out of Ancient Improvisation Voicing in Dance Lynn Matluck Brooks timers, fraidy cats, and the Traces of Sufi- Tina Kambour Making Moments footwork-challenged. Shamanic Julie Mulvihill Dancing the Unspeakable: Pat Beaven Performance trio of Lynchtown and Rooms as dance, music, and Grassroots "Actions" Dance to the Future: poetry/story telling Lisa Fusillo Strategies for Sustainability of Sashar Zarif Newfoundland Set Dance – Moderator: Preliminary Findings Lucinda Coleman Jane Rutherford
Moderator: Bala Sarasvati
3:00 - 3:30 BREAK
3:30 - 5:00 Scholarly Papers Roundtable Health Series Workshop INTERNATIONAL Australian Ballet and its Audiences, Grassroots Organizing in the PERFORMANCE 1940s-1960s Academy and Local Adapting Dance – PROGRAM A Anja Ali-Haapala Community Ideas for Teaching Amy Bowring, Lois Brown, Dancers with The Survey of the Social Impacts of Sara Coffin, Kristin Harris Mobility Challenges Dance Organizations in Canada. Walsh, Candice Pike, Katie Prowse Caroline Lussier, Jacinthe Colleen Quigley Soulliere Moderator: Moderator: Evadne Kelly Cheryl Stock
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OFF CAMPUS: LSPU HALL – A NIGHT OF INTERNATIONAL DANCE SERIES A, 8:00-9:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 26 WED. JULY MU 2025 MU 2017 DANCE SUNCOR COOK MEDICINE MACPHERSON 26 STUDIO RECITAL RECITAL 1M1O1 QUAD HALL HALL 8:30 - 9:00 8:30 - Coffee available; 8:30-11:00 - 8-10 am – Registration in the Choreolab space in Music Building near case of rain MU 2025 9:00 - 11:00 Health Series 8-10 am – Panel Choreolab space in case of rain Arts and Health in the Digital Academy, Part 1 Concert and Natalie Beausoleil, Megan Morrison, Annual Leah Lewis, Heather General McLeod, Xuemei Li, Meeting Abena Boachie
11:00 - 11:30 Prepaid box lunches LUNCH BREAK available outside MU 2025 11:30 - 1:30 Performances by:
Inside space for Corie Harnett, site-specific dance Louise Moyes, in case of rain Rebecca Pappas, AGA Collaborative
1:30 - 3:00 Scholarly Papers Scholarly Paper Workshop Workshop Health Series Panel Youthopia: Dance Rasa: The Social Limitless Stories: Expanded Ballet and Young People Ecology of Arts in Indo-contemporary Arts and Health Sarah Knox in the Lion City Assam. A Case Dance for Social in the Academy, Peter Gn study of Ojapali Change Part 2 and Sattriya Ashima Suri Amy Sheppard, Traditions Bahar Combating Anwesa Mahanta Haghighat, Radicalization Natalie through Grassroots #BlackLivesMatter Beausoleil Performative : Social Change Practices, including through Krump Dance Deanne Kearney 12 Lubna Marium
Democratic Values Moderator: in Dance Education Barbara Snook for the Developmentally 3:00 - 3:30 BREAK Workshop
3:30 - 5:00 Ballet with a Creation and Contemporary Presentation Twist: Contemporizing a Network Classical Meeting Vocabulary Melonie Buchanan Murray
OFF CAMPUS: LSPU HALL- TORONTO HERITAGE DANCE & SASHAR ZARIF DANCE THEATRE, 8:00-9:30 PM
THURSDAY, JULY 27 THURS. JULY MU 2025 MU 2017 DANCE SUNCOR COOK MEDICINE 27 STUDIO RECITAL RECITAL 1M1O1 HALL HALL 8:30 - 9:00 8:30 - Coffee available; 8-10 am –Choreolab 8:30-11:00 - Registration space in case of rain in the Music Building near MU 2025 9:00 - 10:30 Workshop 8-10 am –Choreolab Technical Research and Martial Dance space in case of rain
13 Documentation Shiu-Chin Yu Rehearsals Network Meeting
10:30 - 11:00 Coffee available outside BREAK MU 2025 11:00 - 12:30 Performative Scholarly Papers Workshop Health Series Panel Technical Dancing Documents Unprofessional Choreography: Newfoundland Set Rehearsals Colleen Quigley The Dancing Underclass in Dances Community Two Case Studies Exploring Jane Rutherford Engaged Dance, Emerging from the Work of Choreographers Health, Healing, Grassroots: The Lucy Suggate and Vanessa Wellbeing Development of the Grasse, both based in the Lee Saunders, Cuban National Ballet north of England, April Nakaima, School Beth Cassani Katie Prowse, Eliecer Perez Leyva, Louise Moyes Mary Jane Warner An Intercultural Dialogue in
Indian Dance History: Uday Shankar and Alice Boner Moderator: Urmimala Sarkar Munsi Tanya Evidente Moderator: Jessica Murphy
12:30 - 1:30 Prepaid box lunches LUNCH BREAK available outside MU 2025 1:30 - 3:00 Scholarly Papers Scholarly Papers Workshop Workshop
Technical The impact of Title IX on Insights into the coeurPulse Approach Sacromonte, through the olive Rehearsals Dance in Higher Cuban Ballet Candice Pike groves come gypsies bronze Education: A case study Technique and dreamy!” of the dance program of Eliecer Perez Miriana Lausic Arratia the University of Leyva
Wisconsin-Madison
Hiroki Koba
Embodied Indigeneity: Dance Education in Translating Tradition for the Grassroots Dancing Philippine Contemporary Ann Kipling Brown, Dance Stage Susan Koff Regina Bautista
Primary and Secondary:
The Accessibility of Arts An Observation of a Student’s Integration Experience of a Yosakoi Brittany Harker Martin, Dance: An Example of the Barbara Snook Grassroots in Japan
Yuko Hatano Moderator:
14 Cylene Walker Willis Moderator: Cheryl Stock
3:00 - 3:30 BREAK
3:30 - 5:00 INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE PROGRAM B
OFF CAMPUS: LSPU HALL – A NIGHT OF INTERNATIONAL DANCE SERIES B, 8:00 – 9:30 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 28 FRI. JULY MU 2025 MU 2017 DANCE STUDIO SUNCOR COOK RECITAL 28 RECITAL HALL HALL 8:30 - 9:00 8:30 - Coffee available; 8:30- 8-10 am –Choreolab space 11:00 - Registration in the Music in case of rain Building near MU 2025
9:00 - 10:30 Scholarly Papers Workshop 8-10 am –Choreolab space Remnants of Us: Collective Exploring the Dramaturgy in case of rain
15 Dance Making as Multi-Art Form of a Creative Process Praxis Shannon Mockli Lucinda Coleman
Grassroots in Academia? Ilana Goldman
Citizenship, and the Choreographic Classroom as Grassroots Context Sarah Knox
Moderator: Linda Caldwell
10:30 - 11:00 Coffee available outside MU BREAK 2025 11:00 - 12:30 Health Series Workshop 8-10 am –Choreolab space in case of rain Education and Training Exploring the Benefits of Network Meeting Tai Chi Movement to Health & Well-Being Rex Cheng
12:30 - 1:30 Prepaid box lunches available LUNCH BREAK 8-10 am –Choreolab space outside MU 2025 in case of rain
1:30 - 3:00 MEET IN COOK TO BEGIN CHOREOLAB VIEWING OF WORK BY Yeajean Choi, Sarah Joy Stoker, Mary Trunk
OFF CAMPUS: KITCHEN PARTY AT THE SHIP PUB (LIVE MUSIC AT 10:30 PM)
16 MEETINGS, PERFORMANCES AND OTHER EVENTS
SAT. JULY 22 2:00-5:00 PM Global Executive Meeting Seminar Room School of Music
SUN. JULY 23 9:00-3:00 PM Global Executive Meeting Seminar Room School of Music
5:00-7:00 PM Registration for Global Summit Atrium Faculty of Medicine
5:00-7:00 PM Reception for Global Summit Atrium Faculty of Medicine
MON. JULY 24 8:30-11:00 AM Registration for Global Summit Outside MU 2025 School of Music
8:00-9:00 AM Choreographic Lab Orientation Suncor Meeting Recital Hall School of Music
9:00-10:00 AM Opening Ceremony Cook Recital Hall School of Music
10:00-10:45 AM Interactive Community Dance Cook Recital Led by Eastern Owl Hall School of Music
12:30-1:30 PM Keynote Address - Beverley Cook Recital Diamond Hall School of Music
17 3:30-5:00 PM Americas Regional Meeting MU 2025 School of Music
8:00-9:30 PM An Evening of Atlantic Canada LSPU Hall Dance Downtown St. John’s
TUES. JULY 25 8:30-11:00 AM Registration for Global Summit Outside MU 2025 School of Music
12:30-1:30 PM Early Career Researchers Music Seminar Room School of Music
3:30-5:00 PM International Performance Cook Recital Program A Hall School of Music
8:00-9:30 PM A Night of International Dance LSPU Hall Series A Downtown St. John’s
WED. JULY 26 8:30-11:00 AM Registration for Global Summit Outside MU 2025 School of Music
9:00-11:00 AM Annual General Meeting and MED IM101 Digital concert Faculty of Medicine
11:30-1:30 PM Site specific performances at MacPherson MacPherson Quad
3:30-5:00 PM Creation and Presentation MU 2025 Network School of Music
18 8:00-9:30 PM Toronto Heritage Dance and LSPU Hall Sashar Zarif Dance Theatre Downtown St. John’s
THURS. JULY 27 8:30-11:00 AM Registration for Global Summit Outside MU 2025 School of Music
9:00-10:30 AM Research and Documentation MU 2025 Network School of Music
3:30-5:00 PM International Performance Cook Recital Program B Hall School of Music
8:00-9:30 PM A Night of International Dance LSPU Hall Series B Downtown St. John’s
FRI. JULY 28 8:30-11:00 AM Registration for Global Summit Outside MU 2025 School of Music
11:00-12:30 PM Education and Training Network MU 2025 School of Music
8:00-12:00 PM+ Kitchen Party The Ship Pub
SAT. JULY 29 9:00-12:00 PM Americas Board Meeting Music Seminar Room School of Music
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20
SCHOLARLY
PRESENTATIONS
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Monday, July 24
10:45 to 11:30 am – Cook Recital Hall (School of Music) Health Series
Moderator: Evadne Kelly
Roundtable: Indigenous Perspectives on Dance, the Arts and Wellbeing Jenelle Duval – Member of Eastern Owl, St. John’s, Newfoundland Rebecca Sharr – Member of Eastern Owl, St. John’s, Newfoundland Carolyn Sturge Sparks – Aboriginal Health Initiative, Project Co-ordinator, Clinical Assistant Professor, Memorial University, St. John’s, Newfoundland Eastern Owl – First Nations Drum Music and Contemporary Folk Music Ensemble
This roundtable explores indigenous perspectives on dance and the arts in Newfoundland and Labrador. The discussion extends from the community interactive dance led by Rebecca Sharr, and the healing dimensions of dance and arts more broadly.
12:30 to 1:30 pm – Cook Recital Hall (School of Music)
Introduction: Mary Jane Warner
Keynote Address:
Beverley Diamond – Professor Emerita in Ethnomusicology, Memorial University, Order of Canada (2013)
Time and the Body: Where Dance and Music Meet—Sometimes
1:30 to 3 pm – MU 2025 (School of Music)
Dance Festivals
Moderator: Mary Jane Warner
Catherine Limbertie – PhD candidate in Dance, York University, Toronto
Grassroots Dance and Manifestations of Power: A Case Study of Toronto Caravan 1968-2002 Although Toronto, Canada is today known as one of the most successfully diverse cities on the planet, its motto “Diversity our strength” did not always reflect the city’s reality. Indeed, prior to the city’s amalgamation in 1998, “Industry, intelligence, integrity” were the three words used to define the city’s character on its coat of arms and the city was nicknamed “Toronto the Good,” referring to its strict adherence to laws governing sobriety, especially on “the Lord’s Day.” In this paper, I will argue that a grassroots dance festival, Toronto Caravan, was instrumental in changing perceptions of diversity, understanding of difference, and acceptance of “otherness” in the city. First organized in 1968, Toronto Caravan became a much looked forward to event that, every June, brought the city’s cultural communities out of their Church basements and community centres into the mainstream of Toronto’s cultural life. Using methodologies of historical research, participant observation and ethnographic analysis, I will show how the power of grassroots dance confronted and ultimately created a cultural environment in which diversity is celebrated, rather than discouraged.
Andrea Luján – MA candidate in Interdisciplinary Studies, CUNY, New York, USA
Ballet Folklorico: Choreographing “The Society of the Spectacle” in Mexican-American Dance In 1952, Amalia Hernandez founded the Ballet Folklorico de Mexico, which has achieved international success performing and touring around the world. Hernandez referred to art, including the government funded muralist
22 projects of post-revolutionary Mexico, as inspiration for her choreography. An examination of Mexican muralism reveals its function as a tool to further the nation-state’s nationalist propaganda and to “folkloricize” Mexico. Similarly, the state-sponsored Ballet Folklorico de Mexico represented the diverse populations of the country in dramatic, theatrical productions—“spectacles.” Hernandez’s “spectacularization” of Mexican folk dance, described by Walter Terry, dance critic and author of The Dance in America, is referred to as a “synthesis of the dance,” combining “authenticity and creativity.” The terms “authentic” and “creative” produce a duality that arouses a curious tension within the realm of folklorico practitioners, who strive to preserve traditional dance while implementing innovative aesthetic strategies. Anthropologist Olga Nájera-Ramírez addresses the dilemma of “authenticity” as it relates to folklorico in her article, “Staging Authenticity: Theorizing the Development of Mexican Folklorico Dance.” Nájera-Ramírez’s probing analysis guides my examination of the evolution of folklorico in the USA. Additionally, Guy Debord’s Marxist theorist text, The Society of the Spectacle, illustrates how the “spectacle” functions as a diversionary tool, muddling the social climate. In this art/dance historiographical analysis, I argue that folklorico is an “authentic” representation of Debord’s theory of the “spectacle.” Folklorico is an inversion of the Mexican-American experience—its practitioners are unified as part of an imagined community.
1:30 to 3:00 pm – MU 2017 (School of Music)
Dance and Aging
Moderator: Ilana Goldman
Zihao Li – Assistant Professor, University of Macau, China
Guangchangwu: A Study in Sustainable Community Dance Practices in Public Spaces Guangchangwu, a form of Chinese Square Dance, has gained attention in recent years due to large numbers of participants (over 100 million worldwide) and through its social and political impact and battles (verbal and sometimes physical) among those supporting the dance and those against. This presentation focuses on how information communication technologies, specifically the use of mobile devices, contribute to Guangchangwu’s rapid growth. My research into the phenomenon of Guangchangwu looked at three cities in China: Harbin (Northeast), Beijing (Central), and Macau (South). Through interviews and observations, researchers found that nearly all Guangchangwu participants came from different places and had diverse interests and educational backgrounds. The majority of participants had little or no dance background. However, participants shared similar goals: social networking, health pursuits and redefining identity at near-or-post retirement stage (most were retired women in their 50s and 60s). Information and communication technology (WeChat, equivalent to Facebook) played an important role in organizing and spreading Guangchangwu as a grassroots dance activity through multiple genres (folk, ballroom, modern, ’vampire’). However, Guangchangwu caused disputes in “public spaces” in recent years. Government policies have been implemented; some effective, while others failed. These approaches backfired on the government’s good intention to make peace between those who support Guangchangwu and others who do not. What is the future of Guangchangwu? How can they keep dancing while not offending others, especially in public spaces? Research findings from the Guangchangwu study offer fresh ideas for healthcare providers, politicians and other grassroots dance groups seeking social engagement through artistic pursuits.
Sonia York-Pryce – PhD candidate, Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, Australia
Ageism and the Mature Dancer This paper examines the role of dancers who extend beyond the paradigm of age as they continue to contribute to current dialogues in the field of dance. The intention is to create new awareness and to make visible the mature dancer by promoting and celebrating the older dancing body. Traditionally, ageing holds prejudice and no more so than in Western society where the preoccupation with youth is rampant. This phenomenon is particularly evident in the modern dance world. For generations, dance has been a discriminatory industry, irrespective of gender or physicality. This Western cultural norm has engendered prejudice towards the physicality of mature dancers’ bodies, disregarding a lifetime of embodied dance experience. Which is the preferred or appropriate body to
23 perform, the younger or the older? Should this still be the case or is it inappropriate behaviour? The primary research process was through gathering qualitative data via a questionnaire and interviews with male and female mature dancers. In the survey the dancers address their ageing, physicality, injuries, and process in the dance world they inhabit, and the data gathered provides the mature dancer with a voice. There is a need for the mature dancer to be recognized not only for their “corporeal difference” but also for their ongoing practice. The findings in the research indicate there is a new interest in the lived body experience of mature dancers and this is adding new value to Western contemporary dance culture.
1:30 to 3 pm – MU 2025 (School of Music)
Americas Regional Meeting
______
Tuesday, July 25
9 to 10:30 am – MU 2025 (School of Music)
Dance in Different Spaces
Moderator: Lynn Matluck Brooks
Alexandra Kolb – Associate Professor in Dance, Middlesex University, London
Urban Spaces, Domesticity and the Performance of the Everyday This paper engages with the ways in which 21st-century choreographers have collapsed the boundaries between urban spaces and domestic spheres in performance. It examines how that which is normally hidden from public scrutiny or too trivial to be noticed (dressing, cutting bread, reading a newspaper) has been transported into public domains – such as city streets and squares – in choreographic works, and how performance has been embedded in traditionally private realms such as family homes. Selected examples from recent site-specific works will be analyzed using – and adapting to dance – a framework of philosophical and sociological theory about the everyday borrowed from authors such as Henri Lefebvre and Raymond Williams. Many such works feature amateurs from local communities rather than professional performers, such as German artist Angie Hiesl’s unusually titled x-times people chair, which sees elderly members of the public perform everyday actions on chairs fixed to house facades. It will be questioned how the collapse of the private-public divide might testify to a reality of cultural change and social difference, and a movement (initiated in postmodernism) towards a more democratic approach to dance.
Cheryl Stock – Director of Post Graduate Studies and Head of Cultural Leadership at NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Art)
Twilight: Connecting with Place through an Intergenerational Dance and Music Community Project Twilight, with the theme “sensing sea, sky, earth through connection to place,” was a cultural engagement project for and with the community; set in a spectacular, tropical Australian environment to celebrate its natural beauty, unique socio-cultural attributes and the place of the arts in fostering a sense of identity and belonging. This
24 creative case study tracks the conceptual underpinnings, process and outcomes of a large-scale promenade performance across 14 sites involving 12 community groups; led by a team of professional artists and community project leaders working with 167 participants. Together, performers and audience members descended the winding paths in a promenade performance beginning at dusk and finishing in moonlight. Young dancers and musicians, senior women dancers – both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, an intergenerational disabled group, parkour performers, and an acapella choir contributed to the magic of Twilight, in a collaboration that deepened both an appreciation of the environment and built on existing community relationships through the shared experience of connecting people to place.
Bala Sarasvati (AKA Shelley Shepherd) – Teacher, Danza Universitaria Dance Company and Programa Danza Abierta, University of Costa Rica, Costa Rica
Contemporary Dance Production: Molding a New Performance Model to Reflect our Changing World Science technology and the arts are becoming increasingly inseparable. It is becoming more difficult to explore and convey meaning in one aspect without the use of the other. In this presentation, I show film excerpts and discuss the development of a multimedia presentation format specifically utilizing the integration of contemporary and aerial dance, backdrop and interactive film media, and music and sound effects to create a 21 C “show.” The purpose for generating this type of format, one that intentionally departs from the 20 C dance concert model, is to create layers of multimedia to formulate impressions, expressions, and impacts that reflect the world we live in. Furthermore, applying this format seemingly further joins notions about science, technology, and the arts through association. Examples discussed involve both collaborative efforts with scientists as well as inspiration gained through numerous films about environmental and social activism produced by independent artists. As social and environmental activism is shared through many perspectives, we seem to gain increasing hope that we all can improve the world we live in through our daily choices. We also have choices about the direction of the art of dance and how it can connect and express to people in the world we currently live in.
9 to 10:30 am – MU 2017 (School of Music)
Dance in the East
Moderator: Linda Caldwell
Ainsley Hawthorn – PhD, Near Eastern Studies, Yale University
Speaking of the Grassroots: Representing Oriental Dance Movement in North American English Camels and snake arms, jewels, and choo-choo shimmies – English speakers have invoked a wealth of imagery to describe Oriental dance or “bellydance” movement. A performance art that evolved from a type of Middle Eastern social dance, Oriental dance has no classical tradition, meaning that it has neither recognized authorities who dictate norms nor a named set of standardized movements. As dancers outside the Middle East have adapted the dance to Western pedagogical strategies, they have labelled and taxonomized movements that, in their native contexts, are subject to little codification. This process has occurred in many respects from the grassroots: while influential teachers have invented and promoted some terminology, much has arisen from the community of amateur or part time professional dancers and been popularized by word of mouth. This paper examines the vocabulary used for teaching Middle Eastern movement in North America and considers the verbalization of movement as a space for negotiating competing visions of the dance and its cultural meanings. Based on surveys of Canadian and American Oriental dancers conducted in 2016 and 2017, the paper will compare the terms that are in current use in both countries to represent Oriental dance movement and will analyze trends in the North American Oriental dance lexicon. Ultimately, the paper will interrogate the implications of North American dancers’ choice of terminology for attitudes towards the peoples and cultures of the Middle East.
Tiffany Pollock – PhD candidate in Gender, Feminist and Women’s Studies, York University, Toronto, Canada
25 Finding Flows in Frictions: “Slow” Fire Dancing, Resistance and Community-Building in the Tourism Industry in Southern Thailand Fire dancing in Thailand was borne from encounters and exchanges between Thais and backpacking tourists doing participatory “flow arts” in the 1990s. It is now an essential aspect of the tourism industry, with performances happening every evening on island beaches. Fire dancers are almost exclusively Burmese and Thai men who are hired by beach bars to perform for, and socialize with, tourists at nightly parties. Drawing on fieldwork in Koh Samui, this paper explores how one team of dancers maintains a community, or “fire world,” within an industry filled with inequalities and tensions. I demonstrate how their fire world operates on logics of sharing, an “intimate economy” (Wilson 2004) that functions differently than the capitalist tourism industry in which they work. The dancers define their community, and their own style of movement, in opposition to others who “only spin fast” and perform purely for economic gain. I highlight their desires and struggles to foster an embodied politics based on sharing “slow” flows and non-competitive creativity across cultures. They reveal that in moving together, cross-cultural tensions in the industry, particularly between Thais and Burmese, are eased. Their fire world is a site of alliance (Diamond 2006) based on ways of moving with others, rather than identity (Manning 2006; 2012), a space for people to (re)imagine the social (Hamera 2006). This grassroots fire world offers resistance to fast-paced capitalism and social exclusion, and is a poignant example of the potentials borne from the “frictions” of global connection (Tsing 2006).
11 to 12:30 pm – MU 2025 (School of Music)
Pecha Kucha
Moderator: Linda Caldwell
Jessica Murphy – MFA in Dance candidate, Texas Woman’s University, USA
Minimizing the Hierarchy within One’s Dance-Making Process In Fall 2016, a cast of four performers/choreographers, one costume designer, and one music composer set out to create a choreographic work using collaborative methods of dance-making. The purpose of this project was to reduce the “culture of silence” (Freire, 1970) that is often found in more traditional, hierarchical choreographic settings in which the voices of the performers and designers are often subject to the desires of the choreographer. This Pecha Kucha addresses how the cast in this presentation developed and implemented a more democratic dance-making structure, and how it resulted in a work that was founded in the collective voice of all involved. The presentation further addresses the struggles and benefits of working in this collaborative manner and what factors were essential to its success.
Kahoru Saruta – Masters candidate in Sociology, Rikkyo University, Japan
A Sociological Study of the “Dance Player”: Balancing Dance Practice with Work Schedules This study examines the social role of contemporary dance in the busy lives of the Japanese. The aim is to discuss what kind of problems occur when people try to maintain balance between a contemporary dance practice and their work schedules. In the presentation, I will examine documents and texts exploring issues more globally in terms of social power and social structure within the public sphere around not only contemporary dance, but other cultural activities as well. I will present interviews with Japanese contemporary dance players (dancers who have a contemporary dance practice as a hobby or the person who dances contemporary dance as a professional dancer while having other jobs to earn money) and will then posit a global view of dance activities using interview data and my research exploring this issue in other cultures. It is hoped that this study contributes to the improvement of the work-life balance, the spread of dance, and a policy for promotion of dance.
Mary Beth Taylor – Registered Irish Dancing Teacher, Director of Irish & Sean-Nós Dance Dublin Ireland
26 Sean-nós Dancing: A Grassroots Tradition for Dancers of all Ages, Sizes, and Skill Levels Sean-nós (old-style) dancing is a grassroots style of traditional dance with origins in rural Ireland. With no formalized method of teaching certification, sean-nós steps are handed down from one dancer to another; over time, participants put their own distinctive stamp on rhythms to create new traditions. Sean-nós shares similarities with modern Irish dancing, the style popularized by Riverdance: namely, both styles employ Irish music and emphasize rhythm. However, in recent years, Irish dancing has become a stage-show phenomenon: movements have become much more athletic and impressive. As for the dancers – like with most professional troupes – youth, fitness, and physique are as important as talent. But what of the Irish dancer who loves to dance, but cannot jump as high as what is expected? The dancer capable of performance, but without the preferred body type? The recreational learner who, due to age or bodily restrictions, cannot keep up with the physically demanding regimen of Irish dancing? Is there a place for these dancers? As a dancer and a teacher, I argue that sean-nós dancing – the grassroots, “underground” form of Irish dancing, can provide opportunities for artistic expression to all learners, regardless of age, fitness, or skill level. In this presentation, I will explore the grassroots tradition of sean-nós dancing, and its place on the spectrum of traditional culture. With a combination of research into the origins of sean-nós dancing, along with interviews from dancers and learners of different backgrounds, I will document and present the history of this grassroots form of traditional Irish dancing, and its role in contemporary society.
Cylene Walker-Willis – MFA candidate in dance, Texas Woman’s University, USA
Narrative in Dance: Creating a Space for Untold, Unvoiced Stories I will begin the presentation with a discussion of narrative as a spectrum and then dig more specifically into how narrative in dance can be a form of outreach to stimulate conversations around taboo or sensitive socio-political topics. Further, I will discuss the history of narrative in dance, how narrative can give a voice to the voiceless, how narrative can be used to promote social change, and which dance artists are currently using narrative in their performances as a form of community engagement. Some current choreographers, community dance groups, and artists using narrative to engage with personal and social topics as potential for outreach include David Rousseve in his work “Stardust,” Rulan Tangen and her direction of Dancing.
11 to 12:30 pm – MU 2017 (School of Music)
Developing Creativity
Moderator: Bala Sarasvati
Rosemary G. Bennett – PhD in childhood dance education, and lecturer Monash University, Melbourne Australia
Sustaining Creativity and Imagination through Music and Dance in the Home and Primary School Environments: A Grassroots Movement. Young children’s understanding of creative improvisation is demonstrated by their participation in activities such as moving to music, dancing, playing, singing and improvising within groups or individually (Bresler, 2007). In early childhood the beginnings movement to music occurs amongst the family unit and is nurtured via the relationship between parent/carer and child. This initiates a child’s identity as performer, but it is often not visible to the researcher as it is privileged and private – behind the closed doors of the home. Once young children are asked to speak or write about their dancing it has been found easier to theorize about this creative and imaginative expression by analyzing the data revealed through drawings (Anning, 2008; Coates & Coates, 2011; Jolley, 2010). This paper will examine research which spans the domestic and the institutional environments. A specific case study of young dancers (aged 8-10 years) at a suburban primary school in Melbourne, Australia will be discussed. The children were asked to produce a drawing entitled “Me Dancing” in an empty frame. They then participated in an open-ended interview, explaining their drawing and involvement in movement and dance to music. The researchers’ own background in both music and dance facilitated the analysis of this data in different ways, looking at the connections across environments and links to embodied expression. The important components of imagination, improvisation and performance, alongside the application of interpretative
27 phenomenological analysis (IPA) (Brocki & Wearden, 2006: Smith, 2009) produced an interesting discourse focused on the beginnings of creativity. This paper will shine a spotlight on creative identity, offer a revealing insight into young children’s experience in their physical and embodied learning environments and celebrate “dancing from the grassroots.”
Jennifer Lynn Dick – Dance instructor, Centennial College, Toronto, Canada
# I am Always a Dancer In this age of the internet, we are faced with increasing influences and demands on our identity. When do we take off one hat and put on another? What if the reality is that we are all of the hats all of the time? Where can we look to inform a pluralistic view of irreconcilable differences? Perhaps in grassroots dance. What is grassroots dance? I propose grassroots dance in this instance can be found in the embodied archive of a dancer. And an inquiry into the embodied archive of a dancer might reveal a pathway of knowledge, mobilization, and transmission which describes dance on a spectrum, from the everyday dance of movement and gestures repeated daily, such as when we wake, brush our teeth, reach for the fridge door, pour a bowl of cereal, etc., to the disco or punk dance floor, through to concert dance and conservatory training. This might open a view on how the influence of grassroots systems within an understanding of the phenomenon of dance can contribute to new knowledge affecting difference across systems yet within one organism. # I am always a dancer.
Rebecca Gose – Teacher, University of Georgia, USA
Creative Movement and Grassroots Dance: Cultivating 21st Century Creative, Democratic Bodies Grassroots movements begin with the individual body connecting with other bodies. In dance, grassroots can refer to a specific dance form (e.g., folk or traditional dance) as well as dancing that originates and is deeply rooted in its community. In alignment with the expanding 21st century horizons of participatory and maker cultures, as well as unfolding non-dualistic, neurocognitive paradigms of the body (e.g., embodied cognition), this presentation makes the timely case for the renewed relevance of integrating concept-based creative movement and other grassroots dance forms into widened educational contexts to further develop embodied, empowered, and activated citizens of a democratic society. This call is supported by scholarly literature in arts and dance education (Dewey 1916; Blumenfeld-Jones 2009; Burridge 2012; Catalano and Leonard 2016; Deans 2016) as well as dance teaching methods (Green Gilbert 2006; 2015; Paine, 2014) that support the alignment of grassroots dance and dance education with democratic, feminist educational theories and principles. Specifically, I will look at how grassroots dance forms generate this democratic moving body as it continues to expand these forms over time. To this end, calling on my experiences awakening pre-service elementary education teacher candidates to creative movement and folk dance, I will discuss how grassroots dance education continues to support the accessibility and right to dance for all as a basic human freedom of expression (eschewing notions of dance solely as virtuosic, exclusive or an unchangeable form), that fosters the fundamentals of creative, aesthetically- charged, expressive dancing for individuals and their communities.
12:30 to 1:30 pm – Music Seminar Room (School of Music)
Meeting for Early Career Researchers
1:30 to 3:00 pm – MU 2025 (School of Music)
Dance History
Moderator: Lucinda Coleman
Lynn Matluck Brooks – Humanities Professorship, Franklin & Marshall College, USA Street, Ballroom, Church, and Stage: The Body in Motion in Early Philadelphia
28 Antebellum Philadelphia (1820 to 1860) saw a rich mix of movement performance. From the lively dancing of African Americans selling their wares on the streets, or celebrating Sunday services, to the emerging European high-art of romantic ballet, as exemplified by the rage for Fanny Elssler during her American tour, the city was in motion. At the same time, and from one end of the movement spectrum to the other, parody magnified the impact of the original performance source – be it through minstrelsy’s selective exaggerations of African-American culture or by means of burlesqued versions of theatrical toe dancing. How did these different movement strands interweave, shape one another, and jostle for attention in this dynamic city, where the philosophical ground of the new nation had been proclaimed and was still in formation? The writers, artists, and producers of the United States wrestled to define and achieve American cultural distinction, yet they and their audiences thirsted for European recognition. This complex of forces was played out in the nation’s movement displays, from the streets to the dancing studios, from balls and assemblies to theatrical offerings, by whites and blacks separately and together, by native-born and immigrant populations. While these turfs had their boundaries, they were porous and cross-fertilizing. This paper will present an overview of the dance life of the city in this period, highlighting examples from key contributors to the overall movement culture of Philadelphia.
Lisa Fusillo – Chair, Department of Dance, University of Georgia, USA
Dancing the Unspeakable: Lynchtown and Rooms as Grassroots "Actions" Attending to the conference theme, two categories of "Dancing from the Grassroots" become apparent: grassroots dancing and grassroots dance organizations/movements. In addition to grassroots dancing and groups that begin movements or become grassroots organizations, there are individual dancer-choreographers who also contribute to making social, political, and cultural changes. Offering another category of grassroots dance to consider - grassroots "actions" - this presentation will focus on two American modern dance choreographers, Charles Weidman and Anna Sokolow, whose works were grassroots "actions" contributing to changing American culture of their time. Weidman and Sokolow are two of many early American modern dancer-choreographers whose innovations changed dance in a multitude of ways. While creating new styles in movement, they also produced works on social issues such as race, war, and social injustice, as well as psychological studies and cultural behavior. These choreographers impacted and contributed to the changes in American culture especially during the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Dance artists at this time participated in grassroots "actions" by putting works on stage that made bold choreographic statements, which profoundly impacted audiences. In this paper, I will discuss the sociological and political similarities of Lynchtown and Rooms, as grassroots "actions" - choreography that addressed social and political injustice, along with the power of cultural behavior. With a "dance style that sprang from American soil" (Weidman, 1990), Lynchtown raised awareness of racism and Rooms addressed alienation. I will argue that these are indeed grassroots dance artists whose choreographic voices continue to make an impact today.
1:30 to 3:00 pm – MU 2017 (School of Music)
Traditional Scottish and Canadian Dance
Moderator: Bala Sarasvati
Pat Beaven – Educator and dancer, Toronto, Canada “Something out of Nothing”: The transformative power of Scottish Ceilidh dance for first-timers, fraidy cats, and the footwork-challenged At community events and festival happenings, participants who come up to have fun and join in the dancing are often first-timers – people with no dance training and little or no experience dancing at all. They’ve never done this before; they may be nervous and self-conscious, worried about not being able to follow along or pick up a pattern quickly enough, wary of being judged if they “mess it up” for others. Ceilidh dance – the party dance of Scotland, Ireland, and our own Canadian East Coast – is a perfect way for people to discover the sheer enjoyment of moving together to music: suddenly … they’re dancing! Where there was once a gaggle of non-dancers, there is now a group of people moving their way through a rousing Eightsome Reel or Marmalade Sandwich. Of course, it’s not actually “something out of nothing” – there’s the music, the dance-making that has come down through the
29 years, and the spirit and energy of that day’s dancers … but something has been made! There are reasons that ceilidh dance is an ideal catalyst for initial dance engagement, for those 6 or 86 years old. What are those reasons? And what are ways of sharing the dance that ensure the sense of accomplishment and smiles of pride as participants see the pattern of their dance emerge? These questions will be addressed in this presentation.
Jane Rutherford – Staff member, Vinland Traditional Newfoundland Music Camp; Coordinator, Dance Program, Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival
Dance to the Future: Strategies for Sustainability of Newfoundland Set Dance – Preliminary Findings Traditional “set” or group dances as part of community social life are well rooted in Newfoundland and Labrador’s cultural heritage. However, starting about 70 years ago, with improved communications and modernization, community dancing in Newfoundland began to wane. Currently, the dance style is no longer part of general community social life. In many communities the dances are being forgotten or are already lost. Nevertheless, in other communities, small groups rehearse and perform their traditional community dances for special events. This paper will present preliminary findings from a major research project I am currently doing that examines factors contributing to people maintaining the set dance tradition in Newfoundland. Factors explored include personal, social, situational, and institutional, as well as forces within and outside of the groups’ control. The framework for this research project is an adaptation of the recently completed “Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures” initiative, a five-year multi-partner research project led by Huib Schippers formerly of Australia’s Griffith University. The Schippers-led research looked at sustainability of music practice in the context of the ecosystem in which it exists. My project focuses specifically on traditional Newfoundland set dancing rather than traditional music in general. The research methodology involves ethnographic fieldwork (interviews and observation of dance group activities) and review of relevant government policy and strategy. My goal for this project is that it will produce information that will assist people with an interest in this dance style to start or maintain dancing.
3:30 to 5 pm – MU 2025 (School of Music)
Documenting Dance
Moderator: Cheryl Stock
Anja Ali-Haapala – PhD, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Australian Ballet and its Audiences, 1940s-1960s Participants of an Australian dance audience research project perceived ballet, as a cultural phenomenon, to have conventions and rules, which must be obeyed. Their understanding of the logic behind these perceived conventions was vague, and, more importantly, the ways in which these audience members participated in ballet experiences were significantly influenced by their perceptions of these rules. The rules of being an audience member for ballet is a significant topic, as these conventions provide the framework – the limitations and possibilities – for participation and relationships between audiences and artists, ballet works, ballet culture, and between audience members. This paper explores Australian ballet culture, particularly audience relationships, through analyzing its grassroots: the early years of Australian ballet companies (1940-1970). It draws on academic literature, historical artifacts, and oral histories. It is anticipated that this analysis could provide a rich historical lens to contextualize current audience relationships.
Caroline Lussier – Head of the Canada Council’s Dance Section, Ottawa, Canada Jacinthe Soulliere – Canada Council
The Survey of the Social Impacts of Dance Organizations in Canada. This survey represents the final phase of the Canada Dance Mapping Study. The goal of this survey was to provide new knowledge and to gain a better understanding of activities or programs that are offered by dance organizations in Canada to achieve social impacts. For the purpose of this survey, the term “social impact” is used
30 to signify a broad range of impacts that incorporate the physical, emotional, and psychological well-being of individuals and the communities they live in. The results of the survey are shared via an interactive data visualization which you can explore step by step online. The presentation will provide an overview of the survey, its methodology and results, such as the following: 1) Social programming is designed to achieve a wide range of impacts: from improved health and sense of well-being of individuals, to greater engagement in and attachment to the community, as well as to personal pride in oneself, in one’s culture and in one’s community; 2) Just over half of respondent organizations with programming designed to have a social impact offer activities to enhance community vitality, energy and civic engagement or fostering physical and psychological well-being of individuals; 3) Most organizations involved in programming designed to have a social impact have associated or worked with other organizations (predominantly other arts organizations or community/recreation centres) over the past three years, emphasizing the strong collaborative nature of this type of programming in the dance field in Canada.
3:30 to 5 pm – MU 2017 (School of Music)
Roundtable: Grassroots Dance Organizing in the Academy and Local Community
Amy Bowring – Director of Research, Dance Collection Danse Lois Brown – Interdisciplinary artist, St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada Sara Coffin – Co-Artistic Director, Mocean Dance, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada Kristin Harris Walsh – Adjunct Professor, School of Music Memorial University, St. John’s,NL Candice Pike – Dance maker and teacher, President Dance NL, Corner Brook, NL Colleen Quigley – Acting Head and Manuscripts Librarian, Archives and Special Collections, Memorial University, St. John’s, Newfoundland
Participants will discuss the impacts, roles, and contributions of their grassroots dance organizing and how it might continue to help support dance in Canada today and into the future.
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Wednesday, July 26
9:00 to 10:30 am – MU 2025 (School of Music) Health Series
Panel: Arts and Health in the Academy, Part 1
Natalie Beausoleil – Professor of Social Sciences and Health, Division of Community Health and Humanities, Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University
Arts and health at Memorial University In this presentation I will broadly describe the fields of arts and health from an academic perspective and introduce more specifically arts and health research at Memorial University. I will provide some context for a range of research and community issues explored by members of our innovative interdisciplinary NLCAHR Arts and Health research group (and of our MUN Autoethnography group, which includes many members from the Arts and Health group). The following presentations in this session will describe some specific ways in which arts and health intersect in different disciplines and community contexts.
Megan Morrison – PhD Candidate in Community Health and Humanities, Faculty of Medicine at Memorial University
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Exhibiting Creativity in Caregiving for a Family Member with Dementia This research took place in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada between 2012 and 2014. This qualitative arts- informed research elicited the stories of ten individuals with the experience of caring for a loved-one with dementia. Beginning with one on one semi-structured interviews, the participants described their caregiving journey and their understanding of creativity as well as its connection to dementia and dementia care. Following the interviews, the participants engaged in the process of creating a piece for an exhibit in the community. Through poetry, photo, painting, short story, geo-caching, mixed media, digital story, singing and songwriting, the ten participants exhibited their creative strengths. Findings show that encouraging creativity in caregivers addresses the health and wellbeing of caregivers, those living with dementia, and the community. This talk provides an overview of the arts-informed research process, a photographic walk-through of the “Care-full Pieces of Creativity” exhibit, and a discussion of its impact.
Leah B. Lewis – Counseling Psychology Program, Faculty of Education, Memorial University Heather McLeod – Art teacher, Faculty of Education, Memorial University Xuemei Li – Associate Professor, Faculty of Education, Memorial University Abena Boachie – PhD candidate, Faculty of Education, Memorial University
Belonging and Inclusion: Exploring Immigrant and Refugee Youth Experiences Through Community- Based Arts Practice In St. John’s newcomers face an insider/outsider dynamic. Our Open Studio project was a form of community- based practice involving art making and exploring experiences of belonging to help immigrant and refugee youth adapt. Taking a participatory action perspective, this arts-based process sought emergent themes and was grounded in ideals of collaborative community development, Adlerian theory, social justice, and feminist thought. Not reliant on common language, art making was a social and developmental process. Seven parameters offered structure; focus on intentional art making, no judgmental commentary, no evaluation, flexible involvement, witnessing, sharing, and facilitator participation. The optional participant-planned final event contributed to learning and group cohesiveness. We used a plain language needs assessment, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups.
9:00 to 11:00 am – MED 1M101 (Faculty of Medicine)
Annual General Meeting and Digital Concert
1:30 to 3:00 pm – MU 2025 (School of Music)
Dance and Inclusivity
Moderator: Lucinda Coleman
Peter Gn - Dance performer, choreographer, teacher, Singapore
Youthopia: Dance and Young People in the Lion City From Singapore’s malls to theatres, myriad dance platforms at the grassroots level occupy an important place on Singapore’s national calendar, particularly as concert and show planners actively harness the creative youth talents and energy. Most organizers believe that the different dance avenues will continue to have far-reaching impact on both the arts and education landscape in Singapore. Organizers of different youth dance events, whether publicly funded ones or otherwise, have a twofold responsibility of first delivering youth-centered platforms driven by the needs of the youth themselves and, secondly, evaluating their effectiveness. Of the broad spectrum of dance activities available to the youth in Singapore, some enjoy a significant participation base and are as compelling as they are current, sensational and appealing to the youths. While we are not able to test any of these platforms’ true effectiveness in nurturing the youth’s interest in dance, anecdotal information appears to
32 suggest that there are positive changes in the youths’ lives that accrue to dance participation. Additionally, the youth themselves do respond favourably to the various dance experiences offered by dance groups and institutions, whether commercial or otherwise. In researching Singapore’s youth dance culture, this inquiry examines the place that dance has in the lives of the youth and the current landscape of youth dance, before discussing the value of the different grassroots platforms that support it. The underscoring principle is that if dance is to function as a vital experience for Singapore’s youth, the responsibility must lie with educators, dance professionals and advocates.
Lubna Marium – Artistic Director, Shadhona – A Center for Advancement of Southasian Culture
Combating Radicalization through Grassroots Performative Practices, including Dance Muslim nations are facing a two-pronged assault. First, there is the “market” seeking to subjugate the world in the interest of transnational capital while creating growing inequity thus frustrating the multitudes unable to meet these capital aspirations. Second, this market situation is ideal ground for the assault by religious radicalization with its false promises. Therefore, there is an urgent need to “create and maintain a new consciousness” through “cultural intervention.” As cultural historian K.N. Panikkar states, “Cultural action is an intervention in daily life, directed to the transformation of social consciousness.” It is only through these interventions that a life free from domination, both by the “market” and its retaliatory, obscurantist religiosity, can be built. Bangladesh has been an anomaly in a Muslim world for thwarting institutionalized fundamentalism and Wahabi radicalization. This has been possible due to Bangladesh’s historical, grassroots performative practices that are assimilative and plural. These practices include ritual theatre, replete with music and dance. Bangladesh is not just a confluence of rivers from the East, West, and the North, but also a land that witnessed the convergence of mystic beliefs, thus generating a plural belief system. Surprisingly, these beliefs have always been translated into performance. Inherent in these practices is the firm belief that the finite body has the potential to realize the infinite creative principle through corporeal practices. It is time to strengthen these practices.
Amanda Sowerby – Faculty member, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah
Democratic Values in Dance Education for the Developmentally Disabled Student Social disconnection and isolation are a hallmark sign of persons with Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Inclusion, or mainstreaming in educational settings, can generate anxiety and fear in the child with ASD. The use of movement therapies such as creative dance, improvisational exploration and cross-curricular dance planning have shown positive outcomes for cognitive, physical, social and emotional well-being. This paper aims to shed light on the collaboration of Weber State University dance pedagogy students and ASD youth participants of the Children's Adaptive Physical Education Society (CAPES!) of Northern Utah, USA. The use of time, space, energy and relationship are themes explored in crafting teaching methodology to connect ADS youth to a community of movers in a shared space. The semester long praxis of pre-service dance educators facilitating movement experiences for students with developmental disabilities has generated not only dance curriculum for general populations but an awareness, sensitivity and proficiency towards the inclusion of students with ASD in mainstreamed educational settings.
1:30 to 3:00 pm – MU 2017 (School of Music)
Social Change
Moderator: Barbara Snook
Anwesa Mahanta – Artist in Residence, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, India
Rasa: The Social Ecology of Arts in Assam. A Case study of Ojapali and Sattriya Traditions Rasa in Indian aesthetics includes a participation process where essence of a particular expression and mood are savoured in its response towards its formulation. An artistic expression includes this co-creation of response,
33 where the art and its interpretation create a new rasa with the performance dynamics. Borrowing the term from Murray Bookchin’s “social ecology,” which views the synthesis of individual response towards arts, society and ecology, this composite whole secures a sustenance and growth of an artistic tradition, which lives the testing periods of time and its changes. Assam, situated in North-eastern India, is a land with rich natural heritage and a strong legacy with multiple traditions of arts. While some of these artistic expressions have disappeared with time, a few of them have evolved and survived time-tested history and endured as living traditions. One of the significant features of these expressive forms are that they are integrated with the social ethos. Forms like Ojapali, a semi-theatrical performance tradition, incorporates the contemporary social problems while serving the ritualistic cycle of social observances. Similarly, the living tradition of Sattriya arts, integrating a range of expressive traditions within its fold, like masks, paintings, wooden sculptures, dance music and theatre, have been celebrating the sociological perspective of performance where ritual/performance becomes an institutional unit of society. Reading the views from performers’ perspectives, who are mostly farmers pursuing their art as passionate endeavour, the paper takes up an understanding of the organic relationship between individual, art and society, while also taking up issues of economic sustainability and governmental support.
Deanne Kearney – MA candidate, Dept. of Dance, York University, Toronto, Canada
#BlackLivesMatter: Social Change through Krump Krump is generally defined as an urban/street dance style that uses highly aggressive, energetic and fast movements made up of jabs, arm swings, chest pops and stomps. The aggression in krump is often negatively perceived as anger by observers. Krump has also historically been portrayed in the media as overly sexual and violent, and has deemed the movement style to be uncontrolled and seizure-like. Using Howard Becker’s (1963) idea’s on the sociology of deviance and labeling theory, this research study will argue that that many participants of krump are using the dance style as a positive escape from a deviant lifestyle. This paper explores how the aesthetic of the dance is perceived by outsider audiences and how participants engage with these perceptions. During the Black Lives Matter movement’s emergence, Toronto dancers often used the style to promote social change within their local neighborhoods and supported the cause through their artistic practices. I investigate Toronto krump performances in relation to the Black Lives Matter movement and discuss how both movements engaged local communities. Through interviews with krump practitioners and examining public artistic practices, I follow the trajectory and argue for the complexities of aesthetic performances that map onto diverse audiences in often-contradictory ways.
1:30 to 3 pm – MED IM101 (Faculty of Medicine) Health Series
Panel: Arts and Health in the Academy, Part 2
Amy Sheppard – PhD candidate, Memorial University
Body Image and Embodiment for Women in Prison: Ethnography of a Dance Workshop I will present my ethnographic experience of offering a dance workshop to women living in prison. The purpose of the workshop was to provide women in prison with an opportunity to discuss body image, embodiment, and the impacts of prison on the body. I will explain the process of creating the workshop, including theoretical and methodological influences that helped craft the idea for the research. Further, I detail the lessons learned as a result of discussing body image, embodiment, and participating in dance with women in prison. Findings are focused on the relationships between workshop participants and facilitator (me), impacts of prison on the body, and sexuality within a women’s prison. Implications around women in prison and issues of the body and dance are discussed.
Bahar Haghighat – PhD candidate, Faculty of Education, Memorial University
Rethinking Fat through Arts
34 In this presentation I would like to talk critically about the growing concern over the “obesity epidemic” and a promotion of a “weight matters” message. Increasingly, health leaders, scholars, and professionals are speaking out against this weight-based health paradigm as it ignores important social determinants of health and perpetuates harmful assumptions about weight, wellness, and willpower. In this climate, evidence suggests that discrimination based on body shape and size is pervasive and often passes unrecognized especially in health and educational settings. Given the evidence of the harmful consequences of weight-biased attitudes within educational settings, I would like to share current research related to weight bias in educational context, and explore how art-informed research like digital storytelling can highlight the need for awareness of teachers’ assumptions, biases, and actions about weight, bodies, and health.
Natalie Beausoleil – Professor of Social Sciences and Health, Division of Community Health and Humanities, Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University
Arts for Medical Education? On Identity, Teaching and Learning in our Medical School In this presentation I will share some of the results of my study entitled The power to heal: promoting artistic activities and exploring the possibility of integrating an arts program in our medical school (Ingram Award). This study is contributing to the growing field of critical health/medical humanities in Canada and beyond. I have conducted semi-structured interviews with medical students and faculty in Medicine at Memorial University. I use a discourse analysis approach for the interpretation of the data as co-constructed accounts and I also locate myself as a social scientist and artist in a medical education. Participants discussed the value of the arts and literature in relation to learning and teaching about individuals and community, improving communication with patients, wellness and reflection. Participants felt that engagement with creativity and the arts and literature contribute to humanize medicine and, interestingly, to promote and sustain Newfoundland and Labrador’s culture and identity. For them, medicine is inextricably both an art and a science.
3:30 to 5 pm – MU 2017 (School of Music)
Creation and Presentation Network Meeting
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Thursday, July 27
9 to 10:30 am – MU 2025 (School of Music)
Research and Documentation Network Meeting
11:00 to 12:30 pm – MU 2025 (School of Music)
Performative Presentations
Moderator: Tanya Evidente
Colleen Quigley – Acting Head and Manuscripts Librarian, Archives and Special Collections, Memorial University, St. John’s, Newfoundland
Dancing Documents
35 This presentation is a 20-minute performative PowerPoint intended to address the myriad of practical and philosophical issues relating to the archiving of the performing arts (specifically dance and other bodily-focused practices) from the archivist/dancer perspective. My role is choreographer and performer/ presenter. I dance and present with projections that speak to the creative process and experience. These projections represent the “performance archive” and will include: textual documents (correspondence, grant applications); photographs; Laban, Benesh, and Quigley notation; ephemera (programs and posters related to all showings of Dancing Documents); as well as video of rehearsals and previous performances. Dancing Documents features Laban notation by Christine Heath and contributions from Newfoundland artists, including musician Duane Andrews and videographers/photographers Peter Furlong and Liz Solo. Dancing Documents begins as a traditional academic presentation; however, the majority of the presentation is performative combining dance, discussion, and projections.
Eliecer Perez Leyva – Dancer and Teacher, Toronto, Canada Mary Jane Warner – Professor Emerita, Dance Program, York University, Toronto, Canada
Emerging from Grassroots: The Development of the Cuban National Ballet School The Cuban National Ballet and its accompanying school evolved from Ballet Alicia Alonso, when Fidel Castro came to power in 1959. The revolution brought hardships to Cuba, but ballet training benefited because Castro agreed to financially support both a ballet company and accompanying school. The Cuban method developed from the grassroots by scouring the country to recruit potential students around age 10 who were enrolled in a free eight-year program that offered both ballet and academic subjects. The method still used today was developed primarily by Fernando Alonso, Alicia Alonso's former husband, who worked with a medical doctor to develop safe teaching techniques that drew upon best practices from Russia plus France and England, while still displaying a distinct Cuban flavour. From its beginning the renowned teacher Ramona de Saa directed the School maintaining its original principles. The technique relies on numerous tendus to warmup the feet and legs rather than full plies at the beginning of class; frequent changes of direction, both at the barre and in the centre; and a strong central core that gradually results in dynamic attack, exciting jumps, multiple turns and rock steady balances. Partnering work is introduced early in the training to develop the relationship between the male and female dancer. This presentation examines some of the key components of the Cuban technique to illustrate with video footage and live demonstration, by former company dancer Eliecer Perez, how the teaching system produces strong dance artists who dominate the international scene.
11:00 to 12:30 pm – MU 2017 (School of Music)
Dance History
Moderator: Jessica Murphy
Beth Cassani – Senior Lecturer in Dance, Leeds Beckett University, England
Unprofessional Choreography: The Dancing Underclass in Two Case Studies Exploring the Work of Choreographers Lucy Suggate and Vanessa Grasse, both based in the north of England, I use auto-ethnographic methodologies to explore these artist’s “social choreography” (Hewitt 2005). I critique the ways in which dances’ aesthetic and cultural policy developments can be seen to engage with the socio-economic and political landscape. I do this by developing Bishop’s discussion of the relationship between social practices and artistic quality (2006). I also explore Andrew Hewitt’s claims that the “aesthetic operates at the very base of social experience” (2005). My case studies illustrate how artists may align themselves with aesthetics that reside or may be sourced in a grass roots context. Deploying non-professional “undisciplined” bodies the practices and products are positioned both physically and ideologically to challenge the implicit commodification of the artist’s labour, his or her making practices, and the framing of value derived from dance practice in the neoliberal context. Working with “the popular” and “the mass” often meets the impact agendas of large organizations and the remits of public funders, as such it may provide the artist with a profitable hunting ground. But the perception that the grassroots is the starting point from which to advance to a more glossy lucrative and aesthetically superior
36 mainstream is an outmoded and politically facile trajectory. Problematizing the economic, social, political, and aesthetic concerns faced by these independent artists in the UK, I will explore the ethical contexts for dance artists navigating the building of coalitions with communities.
Urmimala Sarkar Munsi – Associate Professor, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
An Intercultural Dialogue in Indian Dance History: Uday Shankar and Alice Boner This paper will focus on fragments of the history of “modern” dance in India, which may be constructed from biographies, diaries and photographs of legendary Indian dancer Uday Shankar and the Swiss sculptress Alice Boner. Many dancers from India were exposed to the dance in the West during the early and middle part of the twentieth century. Uday Shankar was one of them and his efforts to create an alternative and creative dance language was seen as being influenced by the West. Uday Shankar was also as much critiqued in India as he was adored by the audience in the West, who saw him as the cultural ambassador from the East. After Boner first watched a performance by the Indian dancer in her hometown, Zurich in 1926, she and Shankar spent almost a whole year in India looking at different forms of performing arts, historical monuments, temples and everyday life of people. Shankar, an elite son of a Brahmin family, looked at India through Boner’s eyes for the first time. Methodologically the paper will attempt to create a connection between Boner’s sculptures and sketches that show her fascination with the perfect and idealized body of the eternal dancer, clearly modelled on Shankar and his popular dance of Shiva. Further, Shankar’s dance, remnants of which are preserved in his film Kalpana, will be analysed to explore the dichotomy between his fascination of sculptural representations of mythological stories and his ability to create dance out of everyday movements.
11:00 to 12:30 pm – MED IM101 (Faculty of Medicine) Health Series
Roundtable: Community Engaged Dance, Health, Healing, Wellbeing
Lee Saunders – Naturopathic Doctor, ISMETA-Somatic Movement Educator/Therapist April Nakaima – Evaluation Centre for Complex Health Interventions, Toronto, Canada Katie Prowse – Dancing for Life with Parkinson’s, St. John’s, Newfoundland Louise Moyes – Dance artist-researcher, St. John’s, Newfoundland This roundtable convenes noted dance and health researchers and practitioners from across Canada who engage in dance and critical disability perspectives in their own scholarship, pedagogy, and/or practice. This discussion will focus on the research, teaching, challenges and resources.
1:30 to 3:00 pm – MU 2025 (School of Music)
Dance Education
Moderator: Cylene Walker-Willis
Hiroki Koba – Graduate student, University of Tokyo, Japan
The impact of Title IX on Dance in Higher Education: A case study of the dance program of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Title IX, which was enacted in 1972, is a very short but powerful law. It states: No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. After the enactment of Title IX, many physical education departments that had been separated based on sex merged. In the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the faculty of the Department of Physical Education and the Department of Physical Education for Women started to discuss their future direction in the 1970s. Since the establishment as the first
37 dance major in 1926, directed by the powerful leadership of Margaret H’Doubler, the dance program of the University of Wisconsin-Madison had been a sub group under the Department of Physical Education for Women. During the debate over the merger, the faculty of dance division were examining two options: remaining in the Department of Physical Education or becoming independent as a new Department of Dance. After much discussion, the dance program became the sub group of the newly established Department of Physical Education and Dance. In this research, the author examines the debate at that time, using the archived documents of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and will clarify why the dance program remained under the newly established Department of Physical Education and Dance and how the environment which surrounded the dance program changed after the merger.
Ann Kipling Brown – PhD, Professor Emerita, Faculty of Education, University of Regina Susan R. Koff – Associate Professor and Director, Dance Education Program, New York University
Dance Education in Grassroots Dancing Dance Education traditionally refers to formal and non-formal dance settings, as defined by Susanne Keuchel (2014). However, participation in Grassroots Dancing, which coincides with Keuchel’s definition of informal setting as happening with the daily life activities, is often relegated to the sidelines of a young person’s dance learning and not considered in the same light as the dance that is learned within formal and non-formal settings. In our research about dance learning experiences of young people, they have often experienced the hidden curriculum within their formal dance learning that discretely tells them their informal learning is not valued within the formal dance settings. We argue that the grassroots dance experience is part of the lived experience of the dancer and is embedded in all that they do within the dance realm. It can inform more formal dance learning and actually deepen the learning of all dance forms. Therefore, we argue that it should be embraced and valued as the full education of the young person. Our initial survey research of dance education for young people was reported at WDA in Angers, 2014. As we have deepened the research into individual interviews, the stories represent the conflict that has been imposed upon the participants from those who teach in formal settings, who have denigrated the informal learning as inferior learning. We argue that this informal learning in dance is powerful for the individual in identity formation and becomes significant when considered in life choices and direction.
Brittany Harker Martin – Assistant Professor of Leadership, Policy and Governance, University of Calgary, Canada Barbara Snook – Teaching and Research fellow, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Primary and Secondary: The Accessibility of Arts Integration Within the University of Auckland Dance Studies program, there is an awareness that arts are generally not being taught in schools despite being featured in the school curricula of many countries. It was for this reason that we began to advocate for arts integration so that students may gain from the benefits the arts offer in classrooms. Our research led us to many classrooms in many countries. After meeting Brittany Hawker Martin at a conference in China, it was clear that she was successfully conducting similar research in Canada. Our discussions focused upon what teachers could implement in the classroom and how they might go about implementing an arts integration program. Throughout our mutual studies we have examined the difficulties in understanding the “how,” the “what” and the “why” of arts integration and have concluded that successful implementations can be relatively simple for teachers providing they have the will and confidence to include an arts pedagogy in their teaching. We wish to outline the simplicity of an arts integration model in a combined presentation where I will speak of my research experience at the School of the Arts in Singapore and Brittany will present her findings from a primary school perspective.
1:30 to 3:00 pm – MU 2017 (School of Music)
World Dance
Moderator: Cheryl Stock
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Miriana Lausic Arratia – PhD, York University, Toronto, Canada
“Sacromonte, through the olive groves come gypsies bronze and dreamy!” The presentation is based on my extensive empirical ethnographic fieldwork research over a period of nine months in Andalucia, Spain. I examine the socio-political space of the Sacromonte in Granada through the performance of flamenco choreography of those living in the area. The caves of the Sacromonte are simultaneously home and performing space to the Roma people, where the political architecture is being continuously inscribed through the flamenco gesturing of bodies. The neighbourhood of the Sacromonte has been historically marginalized and, despite the flamenco tourism and affluent visitors, the marginalization of its inhabitants persists through racial prejudice. This paper examines how the political space is subverted by Curro Albaycin’s performance of the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca. His flamenco interpretation of Lorca’s poetry transgresses time, creating a suspended reality where past and present become one. In relation to temporality and the performance of his body, I pose the following questions: How does the fantasy in the movement of flamenco relate to the multiple antagonisms within its ideological structure? For whose gaze is this transgression staged? Where is the point of intersection between performed fantasy and socio-political reality? Through Curro’s performance and storytelling, I explore the socio-political reality of the Sacromonte during Franco’s regime and contemporary Spain. In doing this, I use a theoretical framework that draws upon dance studies, performance studies in a dialogue with philosophy and critical theory.
Regina Bautista – MA candidate in Dance, York University, Toronto, Canada
Embodied Indigeneity: Translating Tradition for the Philippine Contemporary Dance Stage As a point of inspiration and innovation for dance theater, the use of indigenous and folk movement motifs has been Embodied Indigeneity: Translating TRADITION FOR the Philippine Contemporary DANCE Stage, a consistent ever-present choreographic tool in the dance theatre scene in Manila. This paper explores the presence of indigeneity in three dance pieces that transform Filipino folk dance movements and indigenous ways of living to Western dance forms and staging in Manila, Philippines from 1970 to 2016, coinciding with the founding of Ballet Philippines to 2016 Through dance studies and dance anthropology methods of ethnography, archival research and movement analysis, this paper uncovers the aesthetic concepts, historical connections, and sociocultural meanings embedded in the performance of indigeneity in a post colonial nation country. The choreographers studied share in common the means to present their works at the Cultural Center of the Philippines with Ballet Philippines, and are influenced by the country’s national folk dance company, the Bayanihan. and/or Francisca Reyes Aquino. I trace these choreographers’ genealogies to the nationalist rhetoric promoted by Imelda Marcos, wife of the former dictator, and the Bayanihan who that have shaped an imagined embodied community in the country that renders folk dances part of an embodied archive and affective culture. I assert that these three artists I am focusing on have the agency to interpret their own form of nationalism as an articulation of their own subjectively embodied experiences of the folk dances. Thus, this paper also illustrates how these dances historicize, reflect, shape and are shaped by the politics of what constitutes and constructs nationalism, Philippine dance and the Filipino identity in the “cultural center” that is the Cultural Centre of the Philippines, and the country’s capital of Manila.
Yuko Hatano – Professor, Kobe Shinwa Women’s University, Japan
An Observation of a Student’s Experience of a Yosakoi Dance: An Example of the Grassroots in Japan In Japan 2008, dance became mandatory for men and women in compulsory education with the goal of encouraging positive attitudes towards dance as part of the students' lifetime education. Yosakoi is a dance originally based on Japanese grassroots folklore and then developed as a town promotional performance. Yasakoi became so popular that the dance quickly spread and was embraced by many in Japan. Yosakoi is accompanied by Japanese music, which includes Yosakoi-bushi and the Naruko, a Japanese castanet rhythmical instrument. The performers wear an interpretation of the traditional Japanese Kimono as a costume. In the present study, an interview was conducted with a university male student who had almost no experience of dance education in school, but who entered a dance group at his university and who is now performing Yosakoi. This male dancer was asked, "why he would like to involve dance in his life?" In his response, the student stated that
39 his experience of enjoyment and his fascination of feeling the dance in his body, as well as his discovery of his own way of expression, were elements he wanted to continually explore. He also discovered he liked sharing this experience with his peers. In this presentation, the author will share details about the student’s insights and the recorded dance movements will be shown. Teaching dance for boys has been only recently introduced to the school curriculum in the junior high school at the national level in Japan. The result of this interview with the male student provided incentive and insight into the evaluation of the new dance education system for dance curriculum in Japanese schools.
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Friday, July 28
9:00 to 10:30 pm – MU 2025 (School of Music)
Dance as Community
Moderator: Linda Caldwell
Lucinda Coleman – PhD candidate, Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Perth, Australia
Remnants of Us: Collective Dance Making as Multi-Art Form Praxis The Australian dance theatre collective, Remnant Dance, was established with a vision to “create, make, connect” through artistic practice and performances. Initially self-funded and part-time, the collective has generated unexpected social networking, community development and sustainable arts practices. The dancers have sought to create innovative contemporary dance works in non-traditional theatre spaces, making dance films in outback Australia and Myanmar, and collaborating across disciplines including visual art, fashion, literature, music, photography and film, to experiment with contemporary dance theatre forms. Despite ongoing challenges of funding as well as the administering and marketing of collaboratively-devised, participatory and experimental dance works, Remnant Dance has produced work extensively throughout Australia, and internationally to Vietnam, China and Myanmar. During 2015/2016, Remnant Dance ventured into ambitious creative territory by inviting 23 artists from the fields of music, contemporary dance, and visual/multi-media arts to collaborate in response to fragments of literary text, matched with the aroma of wines. The project, “winery psalms - the mixed half dozen,” generated six short, multi-art form pieces which were performed on site at a local winery, inviting audiences to experience viscerally sensory connection through visual, aural and kinaesthetic (wine-tasting and responding to site-specific installations) mediums. Embedded in the devising and production process was mentoring across disciplines and generations, as well as creative risk-taking for both emerging and established arts makers. An innovative venture for Australian artists and audiences, the collaborations extended creative practices that consider how artwork is seen as a commodity for consumption, challenging audience engagement with performing art works.
Ilana Goldman – Assistant Professor Florida State University, Tallahassee, USA
Grassroots in Academia? Can grassroots dance projects exist within a large institution like a state research university? The idea of “grassroots” might seem fundamentally counter to what occurs in a bureaucratic organization of higher education, with its standards, hierarchy, policies, and regulations. Surprisingly, the characteristics of “grassroots”— participatory, inclusive, intergenerational, and nonhierarchical—are ideals that I have witnessed in a number of community-based dance projects that occur under the umbrella of academia. In this presentation, I will investigate
40 four such endeavors: two at the University of Washington and two at Florida State University. Three of these were performances that involved students as well as intergenerational community members. One is a student organization whose mission is to engage with the local community through dance and art. Because community- based projects often have many unpredictable variables to manage, including alternative, nontraditional venues, and fluctuating diverse casts of participants who may not fit into the customary dancer stereotype, they are often viewed as “fringe” and not given a central place in curricula. I will illustrate how these four projects fit into the structures at the University of Washington and Florida State University in unconventional and indirect ways. I will argue that this placement on the edges of academia both help and hurt the grassroots, community-based dance that lives within it. Including this type of work within the ivory tower and granting it a perceived “elevated” status has benefits as well as drawbacks.
Sarah Knox – Lecturer in Dance Studies, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Citizenship, and the Choreographic Classroom as Grassroots Context In a first-year choreography class in Dance Studies at the University of Auckland the students are diverse, “fresh,” full of expectations of what choreography is and can be, and at times socially segregated. In much dance scholarship that attends to choreographic education, the focus is placed upon content; the how and what of teaching students to make dances is debated in depth from both historical and pedagogical perspectives. This research aims to explore an alternative primary agenda, that of creating community and fostering citizenship first as a method of acclimatizing students towards responsibility, commonality, decision making, and action, essential values and practices in both dance making and of living in a globalized 21st century. This study is driven by the query: how might the choreographic classroom be reimagined as a grassroots context and how could this affect teaching and learning citizenship? As auto ethnography, through reflexive journaling, the researcher reflects on the challenges, dilemmas, and revelations of teaching choreography to three cohorts of students in first year choreography papers. Each features the creation and public performance of a collaborative class choreography as a strategic method of creating a sustainable community from the bottom up, from the inside out. This research aims to contribute to scholarship surrounding choreographic education and dance citizenship. It may be of relevance to dance or arts educators, community or professional practitioners/organizations.
11:00 to 12:30 pm – MU 2025 (School of Music)
Education and Training Network Meeting
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WORKSHOPS
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Monday, July 24
11:00 to 12:30 pm – Dance Studio (MMaP – Music, Media and Place)
Hannah Park – Assistant Professor and Director of Dance Program, Iona College, NY, USA
Investigating and Reactivating Movement from the Inside: Every Body’s Journey This workshop encourages participants to consider the moving body as a home, a place where energy radiates from and thus is seen through physical movement and the quality that reflects from within. Inspired by somatic modalities and meditative energy modalities, such as Qi Gong, this workshop explores the relationship between movement dynamics and the different systems of the body (skin, bones, muscles, fluids) through hands-on experiments, movement activities, and improvisations that integrate the explorations of internal and external awareness of the body. Relying on their intuition and physical sensations, the participants will use somatic modalities to investigate bodily movements with subtle changes to re-educate the body and connect with other bodies. The session will include individual, small and large group experiments, concluding with discussions and implications of the observations and experiences in the teaching and practicing of dance technique, choreography and outreach practices for diverse populations.
1:30 to 3:00 pm – Dance Studio (MMaP)
Lisa Fusillo – Department of Dance, University of Georgia, USA
Ballet Technique – An introduction to Comparative Styles in Western Ballet Traditions: Russian, Italian, Danish, British, and American This ballet technique class will be an intermediate/ advanced level and will follow the traditional classical ballet class with barre and centre exercises. The centre will focus on petit allegro with four to five combinations, each of which will be given in a different style selected from Russian, Italian, Danish, British (Royal Ballet School, de Valois syllabus), and American (Balanchine). This brief introduction to these balletic styles will enable students to embody the physical practice as well as the pedagogical methodology used to achieve the nuances in each of these styles as taught in the major ballet training centres around the world. The class epitomizes the rigors of creative practice/creative scholarship through embodied knowledge as well as intellectual synthesis of acquired information, research, and application, and it exemplifies the symbiotic association with scholarly research. Developed from intensive and thorough training and study, as well as significant pedagogical research in the afore mentioned methods of training at the respective academies and schools, this is a unique opportunity for students to experience an introduction to these styles of ballet. The goal of this experiential learning (Kolb, 1999), a trend of best practices currently being incorporated in higher education, is to broaden student experiences through an understanding of stylistic nuance and cultural assimilation in ballet technique. Historical and pedagogical information will be presented during the class and students will have opportunities to ask questions throughout the class. This opportunity will enrich students' experiential knowledge base as they progress in their own training and development.
1:30 to 3:00 pm – Suncor Recital Hall (School of Music)
Bala Sarasvati (AKA Shelley Shepherd) – Teacher, Danza Universitaria Dance Company, and Programa Danza Abierta, University of Costa Rica, Costa Rica
44 Contemporary Dance Technique – Falling, Flying and Spiraling In this class, we will explore the creative process within the contemporary modern dance technique class environment. This will include movement processes that involve release, riding on the wave of momentum, free- falling; and three-dimensional activities such as looping, threading, and spiraling while regenerating internal lines of energy. The correlation of all these dynamic aspects, now considered central to the contemporary modern dance genre at large, will be explored through level changes, short partnering sequences, moving through space and during stillness. The essential core of this experience is to access and further deepen inner body connections; and awaken movement sensations to create motion, momentum and expression. While cultivating artistry and nurturing the creative process in the daily technique regime may be greatly enhanced through anatomical, sensory, kinetic awareness, sustaining an inquisitive nature and pure passion for motion and movement are essential. While exploring both simple and sophisticated movement processes, we will also reflect our body’s memory of significant individual moments of freedom. When do we feel most alive through open channels of energy flow? How do we practice technical skills and enhance our creative approaches to do so?
1:30 to 3:00 pm – Cook Recital Hall (School of Music) Health Series
Lee Saunders – Naturopathic Doctor, ISMETA-Somatic Movement Educator/Therapist Louise Moyes – Dancer, choreographer, St. John's, Newfoundland
Dance, Primitive Reflexes, Neuro-plasticity, Creative Process and Health Lee Saunders is the lead teacher and Louise Moyes is the assistant teacher. Working with Lee’s humanistic approach to all movement through dance and the primitive reflexes, this experiential/ theoretical exploration integrates the universal aspects of breath, voice, rhythm, tone, balance, counter balance, improvisation, initiation of movement, with how we perceive. Using floor work and standing dance, or playing with gymnastics balls; participants learn how the primitive reflexes from conception, through birth to the first 12 months of life, lead us to talking and walking. The primitive reflexes inform and support the vast scope of neuro-plasticity which is effective for assistance and/or rehabilitation of disabilities that people live with, such as stroke, PTSD, autism, learning disabilities and so much more. Seeing all movement as creative process, we incorporate music to experience the reflexes in dance, and the power of movement when the reflexes are engaged.
3:30 to 5 pm – Dance Studio (MMaP)
Mary Beth Taylor – Director of Irish & Sean-Nós Dance Dublin, Ireland
Sean-Nós Dancing: A Grassroots Tradition for Dancers of all Ages, Sizes, and Skill Levels Sean-nós (‘old-style’) is a grassroots style of traditional dance originating in rural Ireland. Typically, sean-nós steps are handed down from one dancer to another; over time, participants put their own distinctive stamp on rhythms to create new traditions. Sean-nós shares similarities with modern Irish dancing, the style popularized by Riverdance: both employ Irish music and emphasize rhythm. However, Irish dancing has become a stage-show phenomenon: regarding the dancing, movements have become more athletic and impressive. As for the dancers – like with most professional troupes – youth, fitness, and physique are as important as talent. But what of the Irish dancer who cannot jump as high as what is expected or the dancer capable of performance, but without the preferred body type? The recreational learner who, due to age or bodily restrictions, cannot keep up with the physically demanding regimen of Irish dancing? Is there a place for these dancers? In this class, I will introduce sean-nós dancing – a traditional, grassroots art form open to all learners, regardless of age or ability: low-impact and suitable for all: Rhythm is key, and rhythm is not dictated by age, weight, or fitness. Spontaneous and interactive: participants may enjoy the music and improvise steps, alone or in groups. This class will guide students through a warm up and introduce basic rhythms and movements. Participants will learn a set of steps, which they will dance to traditional Irish music. They will work in groups in order to create their own unique steps. Finally, students will improvise to Irish music, embracing and personalizing the tradition.
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Tuesday, July 25
9:00 to 10:30 am – Dance Studio (MMaP) Lisa Fusillo – Department of Dance, University of Georgia, USA
Ballet for All – A Grassroots Class in Ballet Technique This class is designed for multi-level participants, including those with little or no previous ballet experience. The class begins with cross-training and strengthening exercises on the floor and will proceed to the barre for introductory exercises. Contemporary movement will be incorporated with ballet technique to make the movement accessible and to "de-mystify" ballet technique. Breaking down the barrier of the exclusivity of ballet, students will experience the fundamentals of ballet training no matter what prior training/dance experience. A valuable class for strengthening necessary muscle function applicable to all forms of dance, this class offers an innovative approach to addressing accessibility while finding connections between ballet training and grassroots dance. The pedagogical approach to this class has been informed by and developed from 1) a rigorous training and scholarly study of ballet pedagogy, including many years of embodied practice and teaching; 2) physical and scholarly study of Ohad Naharin's Gaga and Alexandre Munz's S.A.F.E. Method; 3) many years of teaching "ballet basics" to all levels of students in the USA, Asia, and Europe; and 4) research and practice in experiential learning. This ballet class combines body strengthening/awareness with ballet principles and incorporates concepts, philosophies and principles of Gaga and the S.A.F.E. Method. The class will aid in strengthening confidence and community building, improving personal awareness, and expanding perceptions of ballet training. Discussion of technique and exercises is encouraged during the class, as participants experience an introduction to new possibilities to assist them in recognizing and understanding important elements in personal movement development.
9:00 to 10:30 am – Suncor Recital Hall (School of Music)
Shannon Mockli – Associate Professor of Dance, University of Oregon, USA
Finding Sensation and Self in a Technique Practice How can a dance practice honor the individual and foster a sense of self-responsibility so that dancers move in accordance with their own bodies while in relationship to others? What politics reside in particular expressions of mobility and space within a contemporary dance practice? How can our teaching foster experiences of mobility and space that serve to empower individual dancers and the class community? These are my ongoing questions as I facilitate a contemporary dance practice that primarily focuses on the body practice and pedagogically evokes how our teaching empowers dancers be strong dancers and engaged community members. Three themes permeate the class progression: self, mobility and space. We will investigate technique primarily through sensation, fostering a strong sense of self through improvisational and sensorial cues. Structured phrases begin with floor work, focusing on initiation and elongation intermixed with strength and building mobile core support. The proprioception fostered in the floor work is a theme that guides sensitivity to one’s three-dimensionality in later class choreography that utilizes spiral, momentum, torque and release for a full-bodied and dynamic movement experience. While movement vocabulary is steeped in the modern dance tradition and focuses on the dancer in practice, my pedagogical practice focuses on the experience of the individual within the group. In guiding this class within the context of the conference theme “dancing from the grassroots,” I am curious about how my class pedagogies and movement practices develop a sense of self and communal empowerment through particular expressions of self, mobility and space.
11:00 to12:30 pm – Dance Studio (MMaP)
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Peter Gn – Choreographer, Dance Educator Ministry of Education, Singapore
Bold Moves: Unleashing the Contemporary Dancer’s Movement Potential Dance performance globally and across genres often seems to favour displays of technical virtuosity. Are there untapped potential and expressive possibilities in choreography and performance that allow deeper connections between the dancers and what they dance? How does one create a dance with dancers’ own imaginative and personal input? How do we guide our dancers’ own creative process or harness their creative energy? Are there significant opportunities for dancers to push their own boundaries, find their own style, and have their own voice in what they dance? Open to all levels, this lively and engaging class by Singapore choreographer Peter Gn advocates the choreographic approach where dancers have their voice in and a deeply personal relationship with what they dance. Participants are invited to be spontaneous and daring in the types and quality of their movement vocabulary, challenging their own choices, familiarity and physicality. Constantly shifting between set material and improvisation, emphasis is on participants’ personal movement styles and explorations as well as enjoyment of moving through simple yet challenging, boldly directed movement routines. This class illustrates how choreographers can find new ways of introducing unique movement ideas into their dances through mining dancers’ personal, creative and whole-body movement potential as well as encouraging them to innovate, experiment or respond to a variety of stimuli from artistic disciplines like film and sound. An ensemble work-in- progress, created with and performed by the participants, draw together the key ideas in this class. While contemporary dance-based, the class content could apply across genres.
11:00 to 12:30 pm – Suncor Recital Hall (School of Music) Judy Yiu – International dance artist, gymnastics coach and yoga teacher, Hong Kong, China
Liberation from Perfect Body: Improvisation, Modern Dance, and Gymnastics This class integrates Limón and Humphrey techniques with gymnastic skills and improvisation. It is designed for students with intermediate to advanced level dance skills interested in learning basic gymnastics. It promotes interdisciplinary learning - students integrate gymnastic skills with dance - to question and challenge ideas of compatibility of athletics and dance aesthetics. Part 1: Dance and gymnastics. Class begins with a warm-up to build upper body strength and whole body flexibility in order to understand theories and techniques behind skills and how to practice them safely. For example, the progression of cartwheel/upside down movement will be taught. Students will be in pairs, taking turns and practicing movements and spotting their partner until everyone is confident of their ability to perform the skill independently. Together with conscious use of breath and balance, Limón and Humphrey technique (e.g. fall and recovery, rebound, and suspension) will be applied to connect dance with gymnastics. Part 2: Integrating new ideas. In the transition from gymnastics to dance, I discovered improvisation helped me to question ideas of the perfect body for dance or gymnastics. Dance with people of different body types, sharing ideas and movements, witnessing and discussing this process, created a supportive environment that helped me realize my story and empower my dance pathway. Having class participants start at the same place, with new gymnastic skills and integrated with dance will engender a sense of solidarity and trust. Improvising with these will give participants an opportunity to reexamine their stories and goals.
11:00 to 12:30 pm – MED 1M102 (Faculty of Medicine) Health Series
April Nakaima – Evaluation Centre for Complex Health Interventions, Toronto, Canada
Grassroots Approach for Dance Instructors to Address the Needs of Elderly Participants The content for this class is based on the presenter’s many years of experience in leading dance classes for older adults and research knowledge for addressing common health issues and social needs of older adults. The presenter also will relay what she has learned about addressing individual preferences of participants and how to vary class content and difficulty level to keep participants coming back for many years. This class will be partly lecture presentation interspersed with demonstration and participation. Most of the presentation will be in regards to prevention and health promotion with relatively well adults, both mobile and those needing seated classes.
47 Time permitting, participants who wish may have the opportunity to practice leading and receive feedback. We will end with discussion around areas that need further investigation and experimentation, and ideas for taking what was learned in this class and applying it to respond to grassroots needs of potential dance participants.
1:30 to 3:00 pm – Dance Studio (MMaP)
Sashar Zarif – Multi-disciplinary performing artist, educator, and researcher, Toronto, Canada
Dance of Maugham: Creating Living Steps out of Ancient Traces of Sufi-Shamanic Performance trio of dance, music, and poetry/story telling This class offers a practical and holistic experience with Sashar Zarif’s contemporary dance practice. The mandate of his practice is to facilitate a creative inquiry into the reality of human experience. The two pillars of his practice are Moving Memories (the creative approach) and Dance of Mugham (the creative medium). Moving Memories is a generous inquiry into the two bi-products of the human experience: memory and culture. Through animating memory and culture this creative approach considers the concept of identity, not as a product, but as a process of an ongoing negotiation between time and place. The Dance of Mugham was reconstructed and re- imagined through the study of its once integrated partners: mystical poetry, classical music, classical calligraphy, and rituals of Sufi-Shamanic traditions of Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. Stemming from 20 years of research and fieldwork, this dance form explores the relationship between performance and the body (through dance), the emotions (through music), and the mind (through words). The class will start with a brief introduction to his dance practice followed by a series of exercises that introduce Sufi-Shamanic dance rituals and Spiral Flow approach to movements, thoughts, and emotions. Sashar Zarif will also share his experience with negotiating identity, displacement/migration and colonialization, in his creative practice. All participants will join to conclude the workshop with a structured improvisation exercise that explores the elements of flow, displacement and acceptance.
1:30 to 3:00 pm – Suncor Recital Hall (School of Music)
Tina Kambour –University of Central Oklahoma, USA
Inner and Outer Space: Somatic Improvisation This class will provide a grassroots dance experience that cultivates creativity, imagination and exploration. Through improvisation, this class will utilize the principles of BodyMind Dancing (BMD), developed by Dr. Martha Eddy, Founder of Dynamic Embodiment™. BMD integrates skilled touch and movement principles from Body- Mind Centering®, approaches from Laban Movement Analysis and Bartenieff Fundamentals. These principles provide a strong yet pliable foundation for one’s movement experience. Whether participants approach the class from a desire to focus on technical acuity or from the desire to have freedom to improvise, the class offers a structure in which self-awareness and a sense of community are both possible. The class provides a safe environment in which participants are encouraged to explore their own unique process. Although each individual may bring a personal, individualized focus, the nature of the class is such that a sense of unity and cohesion is formed even though participants may differ in age, background, culture and experience. The class begins after the instructor asks participants if they have a particular personal focus they would like to explore. Comments may range from the desire to focus on a specific body part to a suggestion to include a particular movement quality. The instructor continues to take non-verbal cues from participants and the class progresses in a way that is not forced, while providing a flexible structure that allows for personal investigation. By integrating breath and inner connectivity, participants are invited to experience full-bodied outward expressivity. All levels of experience are welcome to participate.
1:30 to 3:00 pm – MED IM102 (Faculty of Medicine)
Julie Mulvihill – Guest artist, Antelope Valley College, USA
48 Making Dances: Listening and Voicing in Dance Making Moments This class will include ideas from my dissertation entitled “Dance Making: The Work and Working of Collaboration” (2017), including Listening and Being Present, and Voice and Bodying. Participants in the class will have an opportunity to engage in activities that animate and enhance both concepts. To earnestly seek understanding, one must be willing to listen to the ideas of others. Listening and Being Present involves awareness of others, and a commitment to responding with honesty and courtesy. Listening and Being Present with other dancers in a group allows an individual to continually configure her role and identity in the process. This can lead a dancer to situate herself within the dance making process, inciting her to assert her voice in relation to the dialogues emerging around her. Sharing ideas and feedback can be an instrumental part of the dance making process. Dancers often engage in movement generation and design trials with the other dancers. Dancers may then reflect together on what is made, attempting to understand and make decisions about the dance based on experiences with the trials. Voice and Bodying is an endeavor toward understanding in multiple directions. By checking in with each other, dancers develop a sense of themselves as a group made up of diverse interacting bodies that inform each other throughout the process. The class will address the conference-theme regarding social change. While this workshop does not address a particular grassroots organization, it focuses on practices that may contribute to relationship building, knowledge creation, and perhaps even social transformation.
3:30 to 5 pm – Dance Studio (MMaP) Health Series
Katie Prowse – National Ballet School TTP (Dip.), CSC-CICB, AISTD (Bio)
Adapting Dance – Ideas for Teaching Dancers with Mobility Challenges In this workshop, we will examine how it is possible to adapt a standard dance class structure, and the movement vocabulary used, to make room for dancers with different needs in the studio. The focus will be on adult dancers, and how dance can both enrich and improve quality of life. Taking a practical approach, participants will engage physically with different modifications of exercises, and will hear from dancers in the “Dancing for Life with Parkinson’s” class offered through Parkinson NL. Dancing is as natural as breathing – every person can find a way to reintegrate dance into their daily lives.
Wednesday, July 26
1:30 to 3:00 pm – Dance Studio (MMaP)
Sarah Knox – Lecturer in Dance Studies, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Expanded Ballet Myriad contemporary dance styles demand dancers be competent in a multitude of kinesthetic forms and fusions. Ballet is an undeniably useful mode of technique for contemporary dancers, for its discipline of line, alignment, stability and precision. However, traditional approaches towards the form and ballet conventions might be more applicable to a contemporary dancer’s bodily repertoire if significantly expanded, to incorporate diverse contemporary dance movement principles. Expanded Ballet integrates sections of contemporary technique class (floor work, weight transfer, swings, locomotion) into the ballet class format (barre work, centre practice, adage, pirouette, petite and grande allegro). Each sequence includes a selection of both classical ballet and contemporary movements, layered with contemporary movement principles to reimagine how ballet technique might be usefully engaged with. Working with balance and suspension throughout the class, participants maintain their classical technique in the midst of falling and moving into and out of rolling sequences. Port de bras and ideas such as épaulement are extended to explore momentum pathways, and contrasting integrated and sequential movement. Working with the body on alternative points of balance and base, (static, and while turning/locomoting) participants craft movement pathways through the body whilst maintaining line and safety. There is a focus on finding articulation, resistance, dynamics and opposition with the whole body and on swift switching between engaging the finer muscular strength of ballet and the ‘brut’ strength of larger muscles
49 employed in contemporary dance. The class is taught through traditional demonstration and explanation methods, integrated with drawing and creative tasks.
1:30 to 3:00 am – Suncor Recital Hall (School of Music)
Ashima Suri – Artistic Director of Limitless Productions, Canada
Limitless Stories: Indo-contemporary Dance for Social Change Artistic Director of Limitless Productions, Ashima Suri, will guide participants through her work in Indo- contemporary dance, story-telling and social change. Indo-contemporary is a blend of Indian classical and contemporary dance. Limitless Productions is a grassroots arts collective that weaves in dance and theatre to break down barriers and create social change. In this dynamic masterclass, participants will discover creative ways of conveying stories through movement and text. Through this movement vocabulary, participants will learn how-to use indo-contemporary dance to express a social issue and break down barriers. Social issues that are relevant to the participants will be used as a guide in creating a collaborative movement piece upon completion of the 90-minute class.
3:30 to 5:00 pm – Dance Studio (MMaP)
Melonie Buchanan Murray – Associate Professor and Ballet Program Coordinator, School of Dance, University of Utah
Ballet with a Contemporary Twist: Contemporizing a Classical Vocabulary Working within the Western traditional structure and vocabulary of classical ballet, such as those exhibited in historically codified methods such as Cecchetti and Vaganova, this class includes barre and centre work. By incorporating choreographic tasks from contemporary dance-making processes - such as playing with point of initiation, improvisation, and timing - the class encourages students in developing their own physical interpretation of classical vocabulary. This is a genre of dance class that I have been adapting, refining, and reexamining for several years in a variety of settings and is accessible to a wide range of ages, experience levels, and capabilities.
Thursday, July 27
9:00 to 10:30 am – Dance Studio (MMaP)
Shiu-Chin Yu – Assistant Professor, Department of Performing Arts, Shu-Te University, Taiwan.
Martial Dance The class is based on martial arts techniques and Chinese Opera movements combined with the instructor’s own style. The class will expand the participants’ bodies as well as their mental resilience. It will also lead to increasing self-consciousness and confidence. The class begins with simple combinations of Kung Fung, focusing on breathing and exploring the body. These combinations are followed by exercises that isolate different zones of the body in order to stabilize the flexibility of the muscles and joints. Chinese Opera movements and martial arts will be combined into dance combinations. In class, participants experience a free improvisation with a dialogue between somatic dance practices and martial arts.
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11:00 to 12:30 pm – Suncor Recital Hall (School of Music)
Jane Rutherford – Staff member, Vinland Traditional Newfoundland Music Camp, Coordinator Dance Program, Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival
Newfoundland Set Dances Traditional “set” or group dances as part of community social life are well rooted in Newfoundland and Labrador’s cultural heritage. Although the dance style is no longer part of general community social life, there are still numerous communities in the province where small groups of people rehearse and perform their traditional community dances for special events. This workshop will take you to some of those communities with Jane leading participants through the basic steps and structure of several of the more interesting set dances from Newfoundland. Given that many of the dances originally came from Europe, there are recognizable names such as The Lancers and the Cotillion. Due to isolation, the dances have deviated from the original dances and between communities within the province. Jane will invite you to dance some of those variations. You will see elements of Irish set dancing, American square dancing, contra dancing, and English country dancing. In Newfoundland set dancing the pace is quicker, the footwork looser, and the dances often are longer. Still today these dances are learned in the traditional way – by doing them. Most communities do not have a written version of their dance. Videos, if they exist, are usually segments of performances. Dance music for this workshop will be traditional Newfoundland dance tunes performed by a Newfoundland musician.
1:30 to 3:00 pm – Dance Studio (MMaP)
Eliecer Perez Leyva – Dancer and teacher, Toronto, Canada
Insights into the Cuban Ballet Technique The Escuela Ballet Nacional de Cuba, directed by Ramona de Saa, is renowned for graduating strong technical dancers with remarkable turning and jumping skills and dramatic expressiveness. Cuban-trained dancers are found in most of the major ballet companies throughout the world. The male dancers are especially recognized for their skillful partnering ability. In this class for intermediate and advanced dancers, we will explore some of the basic techniques that are used to train Cuban dancers, especially those that differ from those in most training methods. Fernando Alonso, Alicia Alonso's former husband, collaborated with an orthopaedic doctor early in his career to develop safe ways of working with young dancers that would also produce high level artists. The Cuban method concentrates on warming up the smaller muscles of the legs at the beginning of the barre through the use of numerous demi plies and tendues, and no full plies are done until after ronde de jambe. Other specific techniques are used at the barre early in the dancer's training to develop balance, turning and jumping skills and are further developed in centre work. The class will also explain why specific training techniques that are unique to the Cuban method are used.
1:30 to 3:00 pm – Suncor Recital Hall (School of Music)
Candice Pike – Dance maker-researcher-teacher, Cornerbrook, Newfoundland coeurPulse Approach Hearts are powerful physiological and energetic forces in human lives. Their constant pulsation is a signifier of life and a creator of electromagnetic energy. coeurPulse is a contemporary dance performance that I have developed based on research into how ‘heartbeats’ (rhythms) and ‘heartsounds’ (stories) can inform the creative process and help to build empathetic communities. However, this approach to creation can be used to generate choreographic material or as a tool to revise and edit choreography for a wide array of dance forms. It is the
51 ultimate form of grassroots dancing – listening to the core of the body and understanding its relationship to the core of the place that body is situated in. A master class in the coeurPulse approach guides participants through a process that uses meditations, listening with stethoscopes, story sharing, and responding with the body to create a short solo contemporary dance piece ‘from the heart.’ Participants work with each other to quiet their minds and tune in to the pulses of the heart. I then guide them through a series of contemporary dance-based exercises that alter their heart rates, play with amplifying and replicating the percussive rhythms of the heart, layer family-based stories on top of these rhythms, and generate a movement phrase. Participants are also welcome to come with a pre-existing movement phrase and apply the techniques to that instead. All activities are accessible to participants of any age and physical ability.
Friday, July 28
9:00 to 10:30 am – Dance Studio (MMaP)
Shannon Mockli – Associate Professor of Dance, University of Oregon, USA
Exploring the Dramaturgy of a Creative Process Through a series of exercises and reflections on the editing process involved in the construction of a choreography, we will look at the dramaturgical arch of time, space and narrative. This workshop is a theoretical and practical investigation into the essence of constructing meaning on stage, regardless of styles and forms. Anyone interested in questioning the creative process involved in the construction of a public performance is welcome. Dramaturgy, in a collective and collaborative creative experience, becomes a vehicle for addressing emerging questions about the craft of the work, and therefore a tool for a truly ‘grassroot’ effort in the sharing of artistic visions and responsibilities. Moreover, this workshop addresses the never-ending need for fresh and innovative tools in the theorization of the relationship between dance and the stage.
11:00 to 12:30 pm – Suncor Recital Hall (School of Music) Health Series
Rex Cheng – Free-lance dance artist, Hong Kong, China
Exploring the Benefits of Tai Chi Movement to Health & Well-Being Tai Chi, the philosophy in Chinese society for more than a thousand years, describes the co-existence and relationships of perceived opposites/extremes in the phenomenal world: full and empty, sky and earth, movement and stillness, light and dark, etc. The core value is the importance of balance and harmony in all things, and how they should interact in order to reach the ultimate equilibrium. Its influence is deep-rooted in all Chinese, from individual behavior to emperors’ strategy on ruling the country. The aim of applying Tai Chi is to achieve a moral and physical standard that leads to health and well-being of all who are able to co-exist harmoniously with nature. The class on Tai Chi movement will focus on the fundamental technique of breathing and unique dance style that integrates the flowing movement of the dancer’s own body, and the interaction amongst dancers and with the surroundings. It includes “Cloud Hands,” “Pushing Hands,” and “Kung Fu,” etc. Throughout the class, dancers are given chances to learn how to reach the state of internal stillness and peace of mind and soul. Also, as all movements follow and respond to the body as well as the external entities, it provides techniques and methodology to strengthen the dancers’ physicality and clear their minds, and to protect them from injuries and accidents during daily practice and training. The session will be conducted so that the participants are engaged with the instructor regarding the benefits of Tai Chi movement to participants’ health and well-being.
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SUMMARY OF HEALTH SERIES ACTIVITIES
Monday, July 24 ` 10:45 to 11:30 am – Cook Recital Hall (School of Music) Roundtable: Indigenous Perspectives on Dance, the Arts and Wellbeing with Jenelle Duval, Rebecca Sharr, Carolyn Sturge Sparks, Eastern Owl
1:30 to 3:00 pm – Cook Recital Hall (School of Music) Dance, Primitive Reflexes, Neuro-plasticity, Creative Process and Health with Lee Saunders, Louise Moyes
Tuesday, July 25
11:00 to 12:30 pm – MU 2017 (School of Music) Grassroots Approach for Dance Instructors to Address the Needs of Elderly Participants with April Nakaima
3:30 to 5 pm – Dance Studio (MMaP) Adapting Dance – Ideas for Teaching Dancers with Mobility Challenges with Katie Prowse
Wednesday, July 26
9:00 to 10:30 am – MU 2025 (School of Music) Panel: Arts and Health in the Academy, Part 1 with Natalie Beausoleil, Megan Morrison, Leah B. Lewis, Heather McLeod, Xuemei Li, Abena Boachi
1:30 to 3 pm - MED IM101 (Faculty of Medicine) Panel: Arts and Health in the Academy, Part 2 with Amy Sheppard, Bahar Haghighat, Natalie Beausoleil
Thursday, July 27
11:00 to 12:30 pm – MED IM101 (Faculty of Medicine) Roundtable: Community Engaged Dance, Health, Healing, Wellbeing with Lee Saunders, April Nakaima, Katie Prowse, Louise Moyes
Friday, July 28
11:00 to 12:30 pm – Suncor Recital Hall (School of Music) Exploring the Benefits of Tai Chi Movement to Health & Well-Being with Rex Cheng
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NETWORKS
A special feature of WDA is its international network of both emerging and experienced dance professionals dedicated to furthering dance as a global human phenomenon. The four networks are overseen by co-chairs who are appointed by the President of each region to coordinate and drive activities to advance the issues raised by these groups. Each network will meet once during the Global Summit, but participants are also encouraged to meet informally throughout the week.
• Creation and Presentation Network includes choreographers, performers, designers, musicians, and all others who collaborate in the art of dance. It provides opportunities for choreographic development, networking and cultural exchange. Wednesday, July 26, 3:30 to 5:00 pm in MU 2017(School of Music)
• Research and Documentation Network identifies, initiates and supports projects that preserve dance’s heritage. The network regularly publishes journals and conference proceedings and encourages members to participate in writing, editing and reviewing for these publications. Individual projects proposed by members addressing the heritage and future of dance are encouraged and supported through this network. Thursday, July 27, 9:00 to 10:30 am in MU 2025 (School of Music)
• Support and Development Network creates and implements plans of action for generating funding, new membership, and new initiatives for the World Dance Alliance within each region and as a global organization. No meeting scheduled
• Education and Training Network brings together teachers of diverse dance traditions, techniques and methodologies. It provides opportunities for sharing curriculum information and resources and a forum for professional exchange. It covers dance training of professional artists, and dance education and appreciation in schools, studios and communities. Friday, July 28, 11:00 to 12:30 am in MU 2025 (School of Music)
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CHOREOGRAPHIC LABORATORIES
Yeajean Choi is a dance artist who creates multimedia performances. Currently, Choi is a 2017 MFA in Dance candidate and the Digital Media Coordinator at Texas Woman’s University. Originally from Seoul, Choi earned her BFA in Korean Dance from the Sung Kyun Kwan University in 2012, and performed with Du-Ri Theater and Korean National Theater of Korea. Her choreography has been presented internationally at World Dance Alliance- Americas in Mexico, Dallas Dance Fest, and the Choreographer’s Series in Korea. Her dance film Infinite Journey is screened in Sans Souci of Dance Cinema Festival in 2016. She was selected to choreograph at the International Young Choreographer Project in Taiwan. For more information: www.yeajeanchoi.com or vimeo.com/yeajean.
Choreolab: Hello Stranger? Hello Stranger? shows how a specific space can be re-envisioned and interpreted differently through each dancer’s quality of movement through the use of different characters. The audience can see each dancer’s characters through the relationship between the single space and their movement with different costumes. To re-envision the space in several ways, I will use the film editing technique “jump-cut” which means creating a quick transition from one scene to another scene. I expect to re-envision the specific space several times with each jump cut. The work will be less than 10 minutes, with a maximum of fifteen dancers.
Sarah Joy Stoker, St. John’s, NL native began her dance training as a child and graduated from the School of Toronto Dance Theatre’s Professional Training Program in 1996. She went on to work as an independent dance artist for David Pressault Danse, Pigeons International and Lynda Gaudreau performing throughout Canada and internationally. Her own work has been presented throughout Canada, in New York and Italy. Her creative process puts emphasis on the human condition; how we affect others, our environments, and ourselves. Sarah believes that art is an active force in life and should therefore be a vehicle for action in our communities. Sarah has worked extensively with Neighbourhood Dance Works and the Festival of New Dance in St. John’s from 2003 until 2010, Sarah continues to create dance and cross - disciplinary work and owns and operates Pony Locale, a Pilates, Kinesiology Massage Therapy studio in St. John’s.
Choreolab #1: “Until and getting there” A site-specific group improvisation, (location TBD with the summit), performed by Sarah Joy Stoker and her collaborators, Peter Trotszmer, Tammy MacLeod, Andrea Tucker, and others. The performance will be a melding of their improvisational explorations; themes of preservation of ecology, conservation, loss and mourning for the natural world, coupled with the idea of grassroots dance as a form of powerful action, activism and resistance, a theme completely intertwined into the fabric of Sarah’s artistic practice.
Choreolab #2: “Until and getting there” Also a site-specific group improvisation, (location TBD with the summit), led/facilitated by Sarah Joy Stoker, this will be an open lab. All are welcome to participate regardless of experience, practice or discipline. Please be ready to listen deeply, respond accordingly and engage fully.
Mary Trunk (Director/Choreographer) started as a painter, became a dancer and choreographer and has been making films for over 20 years. Her films have received numerous awards and include three feature length documentaries and many shorts. Her newest hybrid documentary project, Muscle Memory, focuses on memory, age and the desire to keep dancing in some form or another. The idea for this proposal stems from this project. Mary teaches film and video at Art Center College of Design and Mount Saint Mary’s University in Los Angeles, CA. She created the Screen Dance courses specifically for Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, CA. Her colleague, Caren McCaleb (Editor), is an Emmy winning editor and filmmaker. With a deep love for visual communication, Caren came to filmmaking from a background in painting, photography and dance. www.carenmccaleb.com
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Choreolab: Dance for the Camera This Choreolab explores how live dance performance can be reconfigured into screen dance. Screen dance is a valuable tool to experience choreography and dance intimately with the community. A camera can move in many ways and viewers can share in the kinesthetic space of a dance from multiple angles. Participants, numbering 12 to 18 dancers, will interpret movement phrases I create. Their input will help shape the tone and mood of the piece and give them a participatory and grassroots experience. The movements will be gestural in nature and intimate in tone and can be adapted to many different locations. The choreography will be designed to create a more internal, reflective mood. My editor/collaborator and I will film the dancers in one or more locations and then edit the footage into a 3 to 5 minute video. Dancers will also perform live in the locations where we will film. The dancers will be interviewed about their lives and those answers will be included as the soundtrack in both the live performance and on video. We will bring all equipment to film and edit the piece. The video can be screened on a large monitor and shared via vimeo or youtube.
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SITE-SPECIFIC PROGRAM – Wednesday, July 26, 2017
“win. place. show.” (2016) - AGA Collaborative (Gretchen Alterowitz, Alison Bory, and Amanda Hamp)
Created and performed by AGA Collaborative: Alison Bory, Gretchen Alterowitz, Amanda Hamp
Dramaturgy: Jeanmarie Higgins
Original lighting design: Neil James Reda
Music: Queen, Survivor (Gloria Gaynor) win. place. show, a full length dance work, investigates a set of interrelated themes: the pressures of accomplishment and achievement that seem to shape our individual lives, the demands of perpetual productivity that are instigated by our “always on” economy, and the many ways that we find ourselves navigating the daily race. Sporting track suits and surrounded by tidy rows of 5-inch-tall trophies, we reveal structures that shape our expectations and experiences of success in order to press audiences to consider their own investment in the contemporary climate of constantly “performing.” The performance overflows on itself through its surplus of trophies. As we navigate this arrangement, we strive to contain, to overcome, and to coordinate ourselves within it. Over time and with effort, our bodies fatigue. We tender modes of survival and indulgence within the systems. Through our enactment of the composition and the structure it provides, we offer glimpses at disruption: a brief somatic intervention on perpetual productivity, a playful dismantling of the order, and a willful wrecking of the system—if only for a moment.
Research for win. place. show. was supported by a grant from the University of New Mexico Research Allocations Committee. Additional funds provided by Davidson College, the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and the University of New Mexico.
“Carta Blanca” – Corie Harnett
Music: Acid, by Ray Barretto; Loco de Amor, by Luis Vargas; Chan Chan by Buena Vista Social Club
Choreographer: Corie Harnett
Dancers: Christopher Sawchyn and Corie Harnett
Musicians: Marijn Companjen, Sylvie Proulx, Gabriela Sanchez, Tony Tucker
Carta Blanca explores the traditional gender roles and vocabulary of Latin partner dance through contemporary practice. Accompanied by live music, this work-in-progress is an experiment in changing the rules of engagement, examining the ways in which an expanded lexicon affects the conversation between partners.
We acknowledge the support of ArtsNL, which last year invested $2.5 million to foster and promote the creation and enjoyment of the arts for the benefit of all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.
“Home Front War and Family: An Intergenerational Dance-Theatre Presentation” - Louise Moyes
Home Front is an interactive and intergenerational show, a Neighbourhood Dance Works’ commission bringing together children, mothers and grandmothers to tell stories with dance, sound and words. Accompanied by the gorgeous Youth Phantasior String Quartet, Home Front looks at World War I and the families left behind - the
57 stories and effects of war through the generations. Audience members are invited to look at performers' costumes incorporating their own families' stories and speak with them at the end of the performance. This show was created with the dancers, a mix of professional and amateur. The costumes include 10-foot long aprons, created in collaboration with visual artist Kelly Bruton. These aprons tell the stories of the performers’ families, from World War I to the present, through photos, artefacts and written memories. The Patriotic Flag Dance in the show is a reenactment of the exact piece performed at Vigornia, the Browning family residence on King’s Bridge Rd St. John’s, as a fundraiser for the troops during the Great War.
Thank you to Amy Bowring of Dance Collection Danse Museum and Archives Toronto and her research for this dance.
“Solo Parade Study With Hat” - Rebecca Pappas
Choreography and Performance: Rebecca Pappas
Music: Rob Funkhauser
Costume: Joy Havens
In 1917, the Ballets Russes premiered Parade a collaboration between Massine, Picasso, Satie, and Cocteau that was the height of the modern. Parade2017 is a response to this piece, investigating forward motion as a metaphor for progress, and traversing one hundred years of artistic history. It recontextualizes this high art as a grassroots effort, locating it within and around community. It is a collaboration between choreographer Rebecca Pappas and sculptor Jill Spector. Solo Parade Study With Hat is one of the twenty vignettes that make up Parade2017.
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POP-UP PERFORMANCES JULY 24 – JULY 28
Watch for Pop Up Dances throughout the World Dance Alliance Global Summit.
Meagan O’Shea is a Canadian contemporary dance-theatre artist who creates and performs “Uplifting, energetic and totally out of the ordinary” solo, ensemble, participatory and site-specific work. Her dance like no one is watching improv project animates/disrupts public space and has reached over 30,000 passers-by and included 200 dancers (2007-11). Selected solos include: Where Truth Lies with local translator for international performance, Dora nominated The Atomic Weight of Happiness, interactive installation/performance something blue. Meagan teaches improvisation and creative process in art, education and social change contexts in North America and Europe. She is co-founder of hub14/Toronto, was Associate Artist at Dance Ireland and Theatre Direct Canada, and Artist in Residence at fabrik Potsdam/Germany, Faber/Spain, The Banff Centre, Dance Victoria, Le Groupe Dance Lab in Canada, and the recipient of the KM Hunter Award in Dance. Current projects include a new solo, Dream A Better Day, a feminist re-visioning of James Bond examining rape culture, hero worship and the inheritance of secret keeping; Dance-Scapes: Land-Songs, dance-films exploring power of place across Canada; ID/LEX, International Dance/Language Exchange, a platform for international exchange and collaboration via creating choreography in languages we don’t understand. Stand Up Dance is a partner with Barcelona International Dance Exchange (BIDE).
dance like no one is watching ~ Grassroots: Remix The project brings together experiences, materials, and scores through translocal and international collaboration spanning a decade of improv practice. In 2007 Meagan O’Shea conceived of “dance like no one is watching” – dancers performing spontaneous choreography in unexpected locations through shared improv practice. O’Shea spent 5 years working to create this ever-evolving work, which reached audience members in parks, on streets, in parking spots, public transit, shop windows, and at farmers markets. For the last 5 years O’Shea has been developing that source material through her work in international contexts. For the World Dance Alliance Global Summit, O’Shea brings together dancers from myriad countries and contexts to connect practices, experiments dance scores in Grassroots: in Remix. http://www.standupdance.com/http://www. Standupdance.com/
Dancers: Meagan O’Shea, Veronique Emmet, Marie Pier Gilbert, Danielle Russo, Allison Brooks, Shawn McLaine, Tristán Pérez-Martín, Alison Carter, Charlotte Fowlow
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PERFORMANCES
COOK RECITAL HALL
AND
LSPU HALL
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COOK RECITAL HALL – Program A – Tuesday, July 25, 2017
“Time Certainties Peace” - Alysia Ramos and Mustapha Braimah
Dance Performance and Choreography: Alysia Ramos and Mustapha Braimah
Music Performance and Composition: Aliya Ultan and Carson Fratus
Text: Excerpts from The Pilgrimage by Paolo Coelho
Inspired by Paolo Coelho's text "The Good Fight," Time Certainties Peace addresses the challenge of enduring in the fight for one's dreams in spite of obstacles both without and within.
“Social Construction” - Chris Johnson
Choreography: Chris Johnson in collaboration with the performers
Performers: Gabrielle Garcia, Clare Harper, Zoë Koenig, Charlotte Amelia Vail
Music: Endalaus II by Ólafur Arnalds and 3 Chords by Rival Consoles
* This work was an inaugural commission of Side Street Studio Arts’ 2017 Going Dutch Festival (Elgin, IL).
Social Construction explores the ways in which human interaction can appear on the surface to be positive, and supportive while underneath it may actually be harmful, destructive and subversive. The piece will explore notions of privilege and oppression. Privilege is something that those who have it cannot see, and those who do not have it have no choice but to be negatively affected by it. Systems of oppression are often created unwittingly by the oppressors while the marginalized have seemingly no recourse. The dance will exhibit interactions that at once appear cooperative and beneficial while from a different perspective they are revealed as obstructive and damaging. The duet questions assumptions we make about how barriers are constructed and who is responsible.
“No More Secrets” - Ashima Suri
Title: No More Secrets
Music by: Olafur Arnalds, The Echelon Effect
Original background sound by Ashima Suri
No More Secrets was created in August 2016, under the guidance of Tedd Robinson. Ashima will present a piece that speaks to our ancestors, particularly the women who carried stories in their hearts they could not share. Through functional movement, indo-contemporary gestures and story-telling, Ashima reveals the struggles of what it feels like to carry the burden of the secrets and also the freedom of letting each one go.
“The Lennon Project (excerpts from Revolutions, concept by Loren Wilder)” - Melonie Buchanan Murray Title: The Lennon Project (excerpts from Revolutions, concept by Loren Wilder)
Choreography: Melonie B. Murray and dancers
Sound: John Lennon and The Beatles, editing by Melonie B. Murray
Performers: Nell Josephine and Kara Roseborough
62 This performance includes excerpts from an evening length work titled Revolutions. Revolutions began as a grassroots initiative inspired by a motivation for social change that manifested in an evening-length theatrical production conceptualized by artist Loren Wilder and choreographed by Melonie Buchanan Murray. Featuring the philosophies of John Lennon, Revolutions focuses on contemporary social, political, and cultural issues. The solo performer embodies the voice of John Lennon as he speaks candidly about religion, politics, peace, and love.
“Alone (excerpt from Complexity of Love)” - Shiu-Chin Yu Choreography by: Shiu-Chin Yu
Performers: Xing Ying Feng and Wen-Yu Cheng
Music by: Zshan Lin and Chin Yueh Chou
Institution: Department of Performing Arts, Shu-Te University and Somatic Theater Company, Taiwan
To be with someone or involved in a relationship, it’s never an easy matter. Being homosexual has even more boundaries. Facing the pressure of society, countless struggles, fighting and separation, the heart is no longer young and frivolous. Sometimes, it’s also a release to be alone. This work presents an unacceptable relationship, which two men have tried to fight through with their life.
Cook Recital Hall Technical Team Concerts and Facilities Coordinator - Peter Stanbridge Music Technologist – Rich Blenkinsopp Stage Manager – Kassandra–Anne Demers Lighting and Sound – Holly Winter
63 COOK RECITAL HALL – Program B – Thursday, July 27, 2017
“Connecting Bodies: Music Performance, Femininity, and Body Mapping” - Gabriela Sanchez Diaz Choreographer: Corie Harnett
Dancer: Corie Harnett
Percussion: Gabriela Sanchez
Music by: Keiko Abe, Pius Cheung, and Gabriela Sanchez
Based on Gabriela’s master’s research in gender studies, this performance represents how the characteristics that define femininity affect the body and its movement. The performance explores social beliefs that women absorb about the ways they should move and behave; the struggle with these ideas within the body; and the reconstruction of the self through body awareness and acceptance.
“Society” - Jessica Murphy Project Facilitator: Jessica Murphy
Choreography: Azaria Hogans, Chely Jones, Jessica Murphy, and Jazmin Pettit
Performers: Yeajean Choi, Jessica Murphy, Martheya Nygaard, and Melissa Sanderson
Music: "Society" an original composition by Matthew Peyton Dixon
Costumes: Cylene Walker-Willis
In an effort to challenge the hierarchical power dynamics often found in a traditional choreographic rehearsal process, Murphy set out to create a work collaboratively through a process that would allow for all four performers, along with the costume designer and music composer, to be “co-owners” of the work made. The resulting work, Society, is a sixteen and a half minute exploration of the power dynamics of voice, silence, and societal structures through abstract choreographic tools such as small, bound gestures done in unison which are juxtaposed by free, large-reaching solos; contrasts of stillness and movement; use of the performers’ focus to witness and “listen” to one another; and manipulation of bold, yellow coats that hide the shapes and subtle movements of the dancers underneath. For the 2017 World Dance Alliance Global Summit we would like the opportunity to present a twelve-minute excerpt of this work so that we may invite the conference’s audience into our collaborative process as meaning-makers of the final product that we have created.
“The Outsider” - Prateek Ahora Music Credits: Innocent Vaditra by Lutvi deKasyaf; ATEETAM: Sitar - B. Sivaramakrishna Rao, Tabla & Percussions – Venky, Flute – Shakthidhar, Keyboard - Varun Pradeep; Night Fight by Yo-Yo Ma Costume Credits: Pooja Shah
Right from our birth, we are bracketed into various moulds of gender, ethnicity, nationality, sexuality, class, creed among others. The Outsider treads the journey of an outlier who refuses to twist oneself into a human pretzel. When your inner self becomes a nomad in the search of self. When you are who you are and not the one who you present to the world in order to be accepted. The Outsider presents the human form inside out.
64 “Never Stop Blooming” - Judy Yiu Choreographer and performer: Judy Yiu
Percussionist: Alvin Chan Chun San
Never Stop Blooming is an autobiographic piece that shares my experience of adjusting to the new environment in the United States. I got the inspiration and hope of overcoming the struggles from watching a blossom blooming. This piece shows the belief and hope I start having that I will grow eventually, even if it may take a long time. To deliver this, I use dried/dead branches and a Chinese red fan that represent my past memories and my Chinese identity in the United States, respectively. Dance moves shape around the branches and usage of the fan thus symbolize my journey of growing.
“Porichoy – An Identity Exploration of 8 Bangladeshi Dancers” - Tahmina Anwar Anika Choreographer: Tahmina Anwar Anika
Performers: Tahmina Anwar Anika
Music composer: Shoummo Saha
Vocals: Anusheh Anadil
"Porichoy - An Identity Exploration of 8 Bangladeshi Dancers" is choreographed by Tahmina as her final year Senior Project at York University. This ethnographic research focuses on eight emerging dance artists in Bangladesh who represent the multi-faceted concept of embodying plural identities. Contemporary Dance in Bangladesh has evolved from influences of Uday Shankar’s modern, creative and experimental dance forms in the early 1920s and now has become an amalgamation of Western Contemporary, Indian Classical and Bangladeshi Folk dance forms. The choreographic aim was to facilitate collective expression of the plurality of the dancers in the piece and portray a glimpse of how aspects of identity are in fluid conversation with the socio- political conditions. Due to the current geo-politics the eight Bangladeshi dancers were denied visas to enter Canada. Therefore, the piece has been re-choreographed into a solo. As a Muslim majority country, Bangladesh has fought religious rigidity and discrimination through cultural practices since 1952. Similarly, this piece aims to address stereotypes and curve a path for inclusivity and expression. I want to thank the eight original performers and their organization, Shadhona, for making this piece possible with their love and support.
Cook Recital Hall Technical Team Peter Stanbridge – Concerts and Facilities Coordinator Music Technologist – Rich Blenkinsopp Stage Manager – Kassandra-Anne Demers Lighting and Sound – Holly Winter
65 An Evening of Atlantic Canada Dance – Monday, July 24
"Lumi" – Aeros Aerial Dance Company
Choreography & Design: Hilary Walsh
Music: Rajaton
Performers: Hilary Walsh, Keeley Whitelaw
Lumi is a first look performance combining aerial arts and dance. Inspired by the movement, strength and beauty of ‘Lumi’ (meaning snow, in Finnish), the piece explores large movements, patterns, synchronicity, spinning and shapes, all of which representing the elements of snow. The piece is a first for the company, and the initial premise of the project is to integrate a new realm of movement into contemporary dance. The result is a six- minute aerial dance piece highlighting the strength and elegance of aerial dance, while demonstrating a unique and ethereal style of movement. Lumi premiered 17 December 2016.
“Fanga” – Dunungbe
Choreography: Tony Tucker & Dounia Hamoutene
Performers: Tanya Lasby, Angela Nurse, Stacy Fowler, Lynette Lawlor, Dounia Hamoutene.
Fanga is a popular rhythm from Liberia, West Africa used by traveling tribes upon entering new villages.
“L’école buissonnière” – DansEncorps
Choreography: Pierre-Paul Savoie
Design: Linda Brunelle
Music: Benoît Côté
Performers: Chantal Baudoin, Chantal Cadieux, Rokaya Duval
In L’école buissonnière, Pierre-Paul Savoie delves into the works of the great French poet Jacques Prévert. A fantasy-infused performance combining dance, theatre and music, L’école buissonnière is set to captivate young audiences with its energetic choreography and appealing musical score. A world of fantasy and movement, but also, at a deeper level, an exploration of Prévert’s poetry and the solid humanist views of the mid-twentieth century author. The confluence of art and culture in L’école buissonnière makes it an ideal event that will renew the artistic experience of dance among children and youth. L’école buissonnière premiered 18 October 2015 at Capitol Theater (Moncton, NB).
“Dansa” – Dunungbe
Choreography: Tony Tucker & Dounia Hamoutene
Performers: Tanya Lasby, Melissa Power, Angela Nurse, Stacy Fowler, Lynette Lawlor, Dounia Hamoutene.
Dansa, is a popular rhythm of Khasonka drumming from Mali, West Africa. Both pieces will be interpreted by local talented dancers in a choreography by Dounia Hamoutene based on African traditional dance movements and Dounia's own interpretation of percussion based rhythms acquired through her upbringing in Algeria
66 “Were You A Poem”
Choreography & Performance: Candice Pike
Music: David Barry
Were You A Poem began with movement-based research into a series of 21 love poems and was originally presented as a site-specific dance at the Ferriss Hodgett Library. In its stage adaptation, a solo dancer explores the experience being inside or outside a relationship. It highlights the connection between the imagery of writing and the human body as well as the rhythm of poetry to the similarly irregular metre of the human heartbeat. This piece is developing as part of the Me, Myself, and Her Residency taking place throughout 2017 in Corner Brook, NL, Halifax NS, and Saint John, NB. Support for the research phase of this project was provided through a Memorial University Arts and Creative grant. Were You A Poem premiered 4 October 2016.
Egyptian Saidi Cane Dance
Choreography & Performance: Ainsley Hawthorn
The Egyptian Saidi cane dance is a folkloric style from Upper (southern) Egypt. Saidi cane dance, typically performed by women, is a proud and playful imitation of tahtib, a traditional martial dance in which male “combatants” conduct a mock fight with sticks. Some of the movements of Saidi dance mimic aspects of daily life in rural Egypt, such as rowing a boat on the Nile, threshing grain in the fields, and the prancing of Saidi horses. This will be a solo performance to traditionally arranged, pre-recorded Saidi music, and the dance will be performed in an Upper Egyptian stage costume. Saidi cane dance, like other solo Egyptian performance styles, is normally improvised or structured improvisation. The piece being performed tonight includes improvisational elements.
“Standing Alone Facing You” – Mocean Dance
Choreography: Sara Coffin
Lighting Design: Stephane Ménigot
Music & Set Design: Brian Riley
Performers: Sara Coffin & Gillian Seaward-Boone
Standing Alone Facing You premiered 21 January 2016.
LSPU Hall Technical and Administrative Team Technical Director - Robert Gauthier Technician - Pat Dempsey Technician – Phil Winters Festival Lighting Plot Design – Aaron Kelly Stage Manger – Crystal Laffoley Box Office-Facilities Manager - Mike Hammond Communications Officer - Danielle Hamel Administrative Assistant - Emily Carrigan
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A Night of International Dance - Series A - Tuesday, July 25
“Faint Parallel Lines”
Choreography: John Utans (Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts)
Performers: Chan Tsz Ching, Chung Wai Nam, Hou Xuchen, Kan Ka Ki, Tan Zhizhuo, Wong Ching Yan, Wong Ming Wai, Yao Wei, Kwong Yin Cheung
Music: Federico Mompou & Kan Hei Chun
Design: Jacqueline Ip Tin Wai
Original Lighting Design: Yu Mei Po
Premier: June 17, 2006
Faint Parallel Lines was created in 2006 for performances in Hong Kong and Monaco (Monaco Dance Forum). The work is intended to showcase the uniqueness and diversity of dancers coming from different backgrounds and training; Chinese Dance, Classical Ballet and Contemporary Dance. Merging these streams together creates subtle and refreshing encounters, finding similarities and shared languages within moments and undercurrents of lyricism, poetry and dynamics… Faint Parallel Lines explores notions of systems within systems. Happenings and events that appear to be accidental and improvised may in reality be part of a much larger plan or structure. Sometimes lines of fate may overlap; at others they may run, and continue to run in parallel lines, never merging, overlapping or meeting. “We are actually living in a million parallel realities every single minute.” Marina Abramović
“Bang Bang” – Wei Dance Company
Choreography & Design: Cheng Wei Huang
Performers: Cheng Wei Huang, Yung Hua Liang, Chen Yang Yi, Hsing Ying Feng
Music: Meredith Monk - Dolmen Music
Bang Bang means ‘fire’ in Bunun, the language of the Bunun aboriginal group in Taiwan. The choreography, based on an aboriginal story, talks about a flood coming and people trying to reach fire from another mountain in order to survive. The piece portrays people praying to God, their struggle with fear, and finally finding hope in each other.
“Karuta Game” – MACOBA Dance Company
Choreography & Design: Hiroki Koba (Japan)
Music: Steve Reich – Four Organs; Miku Hatsune – levan Polkka
Performers: Hiroki Koba, Kahoru Saruta
Chi haya furu All red with leaves Tatsuta's stream Kami yo mo kikazu So softly purls along, Tatsuta gawa The everlasting gods themselves, Kara kurenai ni Who judge 'twixt right and wrong, Mizu kuguru to wa. Ne'er heard so sweet a song. - Ariwara no Nari-hira
68 Karuta is a Japanese traditional game in which two players race to grab cards associated with a given reading. In Karuta Game, a duet of 10 minutes, dancers try to read and anticipate the other’s motion and mind. The audience will be able to feel the unspoken negotiation, cheating, and unconscious tendency of the dancers’ movement. Karuta Game premiered 27 January 2017.
“Faux Fur” – Gina T'ai / Distance Dances Choreography & Design: Gina T’ai (USA)
Performers: Gabrielle Garcia, Zoë Koenig, Charlotte Amelia Vail, Sarah Ellen Miller
Music: Todd Terje – Delorean Dynamite
Faux Fur is about the societal pressures and expectations of what it means to present as a women in western culture. The work explores the tension between woman as human and woman as status – as desire. Faux Fur premiered 1 February 2016. *this piece contains brief nudity* ______
“I Wish I Were a Sheep”
Choreography: Skylar Miller & Santiago Quintana (USA)
Performers: Skylar Miller, Emmy Newman
Music: Animal Collective – My Girls (edited by Skylar Miller)
I Wish I Were a Sheep premiered 22 April 2015.
“Nrisimha Leela” (The Man-Lion Incarnation)
Choreography: Dr. Jagannath Mahanta & Dr. Anwesa Mahanta
Design & Performance: Dr. Anwesa Mahanta
Music: Prabhat Sarma
Exploring theatrical nature and a rich vocabulary of movements, Nrisimha Leela is choreographed on one of the most popular stories of the man-lion incarnation Vishnu. The story describes the presence of Narasimha through the eyes of his son Prahlada’s intense devotion and his strong negation. The literary text has been taken from the chapter of “Prahlada Charitra” from Kirtana Ghosa by Sankaradeva.
LSPU Hall Technical and Administrative Team Technical Director - Robert Gauthier Technician - Pat Dempsey Technician – Phil Winters Festival Lighting Plot Design – Aaron Kelly Stage Manger – Crystal Laffoley Box Office-Facilities Manager - Mike Hammond Communications Officer - Danielle Hamel Administrative Assistant - Emily Carrigan
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Toronto Heritage Dance and Sashar Zarif – Wednesday, July 26
SASHAR ZARIF DANCE THEATRE
“Moving Memories”
The wound is the place where the light enters you. - Rumi
I carry in me an old man, a young son, a lost child, and a forgotten soul the body re-enters the earth and memories flow down like forbidden tears the breath becomes them and the search begins.
Choreography & Performance: Sashar Zarif
Concept Development: Katherine Duncanson
Dramaturgy: Elizabeth Langley
This performance addresses migration, the idea of home, identity, and displacement; but at its core, it is a work that has been created to connect cultures. Moving Memories is a site-specific show is performed inside a yurt and is designed to tell Zarif’s story of displacement through his personal life (refugee, war, flight, migration, adaptation), and professional life (research and creations). It is comprised of two of Zarif’s stories in a framework of two myths from the Central and West Asian cultures with which he is affiliated. The content of this performance represents the third and final year and chapter of Zarif’s multi-year project Moving Memories, which explores Zarif’s personal experience with his many migrations. He has created his own approach to Moving Memories through his dance creation tool Dance of Mugham. Moving Memories and Dance of Mugham are the manifestation and process of his own artistic voice that is still deeply rooted in long, rich history of sufism Eastern mysticism.
TORONTO HERITAGE DANCE
“Trio” and “Square Dance” from Alberta Suite (Premier)
Choreography: David Earle
Lighting: Aaron Kelly
Music: Kevin Breit – Alberta Suite
Performers: Nicole Rose Bond, Jade Clancy, Sierra Chin-Sawdy, Megan Nadain
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“Duet” from Quai Voltaire (Premier)
Choreography: David Earle
Lighting: Aaron Kelly
Music: J. S. Bach
Performers: Megan Nadain, Eliecer Perez Leyva
“Radical Light”
Choreography: Patricia Beatty
70 Lighting: Aaron Kelly after Roelof Peter Snippe
Music: Carlos Chavez
Performers: Nicole Rose Bond, Philip McDermott
Radical Light premiered 1986.
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“A Simple Melody”
Choreography: Peter Randazzo
Lighting: Aaron Kelly after Roelof Peter Snippe
Music: collage by David Davis
Performers: Nicole Rose Bond, Sierra Chin Sawdy, Jade Clancy, Megan Nadain, Andrew Hartley, Andrew McCormack, Eliecer Perez Leyva, Jake Ramos
A Simple Melody premiered 1977.
LSPU Hall Technical and Administrative Team Technical Director - Robert Gauthier Technician - Pat Dempsey Technician – Phil Winters Festival Lighting Plot Design – Aaron Kelly Stage Manger – Crystal Laffoley Box Office-Facilities Manager - Mike Hammond Communications Officer - Danielle Hamel Administrative Assistant - Emily Carrigan
71 A Night of International Dance – Series B – Thursday, July 27
“Berceuse” – Wild Goose Chase Dance
Choreography & Design: Susan Douglas Roberts (USA)
Construction: DC Roberts
Performer: Collette Stewart (USA)
Music: Donald Sur - Berceuse
Berceuse plays off the imagery inherent in the structure of five strings, which can be seen as a web, as the bones of a hand, as a musical instrument, or as the lining/framework of a great skirt. The physical presence of additional women in this dance – perhaps as support, or as witness – can work into the overall signature.
“Le vent se lève” – MACOBA Dance Company Choreography, Design & Performance: Masako Ito (Japan)
Music: Frank Bridge - Souvenir (H.48), for violin and piano
Le vent se lève (The wind has risen) is based on the poem by Paul Valéry and the Japanese novel by Tatsuo Hori in 1938. In the novel, the wind contrasts the death of the lover and the life of the widower. The wind brings a presage of a lover’s death, and it brings an upsurge of living at the same time. Japanese has more than 2000 words for wind, and we have been describing our feelings through the names of wind. The japanese view of living has been cultivated by living in nature and watching the subtle change of the seasons. The Valéry’s poem continues: ...il faut tenter de vivre (...we must try to live.) Yes, we must try to live, wherever the wind has risen.
“Babel 3.5”
Choreography: Iris Lau (Hong Kong)
Collaboration: Carmine Santavenere
Dramaturgy: Katie Gartan-Close
Music: Elliot Vaughan
Performers: Iris Lau, Manuela Sosa
Babel 3.5 is part of the research of “Babel--verbal and nonverbal languages”. Its inspired by the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, which tells how God created a myriad of languages so that humanity would not be coherent enough to communicate. It is an exploration of the nature of dance from creator, dancer, and audience. The “bare process” presents the interior lives of performers and tests audiences’ consciousness of performance inside reality. We’re blending the trio relationship between creators, performers and audience and questioning how audience’s interpretation of a performance relates to artists’ choices and designs.
“Landing”
Choreography & Performance: Shannon Mockli (USA) & Cristina Goletti (USA)
Music: Christian Cherry
This project is multilayered, exploring collaboration and the relationship between land and embodiment. I have long held a deep appreciation for land, its grandeur, diversity and dynamism, either unaffected or affected by
72 modern development. I am emotionally impacted by the nature of its presence around me. Of recent, I have grown curious about the impact of surrounding land on my embodiment, creativity, my sense of place and self. I’m curious about my body memory of land that makes up my experience and how that might manifest in an original work.
“The Song of Sticky Notes” – Burapha University, Thailand
Choreography & Design: Hsin-Yu (Lucas) Kao (Taiwan)
Music: Nuvole Bianche / Ludovico Einaudi
Performer: Chieh-Hsi Chiang
Sticky notes are one of the tools that people often use to remind themselves or others. The strength of this small sheet of paper is not just the text above but also the pressure it carries. How do we face the overwhelming unfinished events that are on the sticky notes? The Song of Sticky Notes premiered 24 March 2016.
“Saltwaters” – Kaleidoscope Dance Company
Choreography: Tina Kambour (USA)
Costumes: Alyssa Coutourier-Herndon
Music: Azam Ali and DJ Mayer; Dorsaf Hamdani; Azam Ali and Loga Ramin Torkian
Performers: Natasha Abu-Fadel, Ali Hendrix, Emma Prilaman, Yukino Sato, Bailey Smith
Saltwaters uses both instrumental and vocal music including a traditional Arabic lullaby. The inspiration for this work reflects my response to the numerous news stories covering the Syrian refugee crisis. My Greek ancestors emigrated many decades ago, fleeing a different war from today’s refugees, but crossing the same seas. This dance seeks to touch on the grief and struggles as well as the hope and resilience of the many men, women and children who seek a better life. My ancestors departed from Asia Minor and from the island of Lesbos, the same island where many of today’s immigrants have landed, seeking refuge. ______“Snake” (7.5 min)
Choreography & Performance: Yeajean Choi (USA) & Melissa Sanderson (USA)
Music: original composition by Matthew Peyton Dixon
Snake is an improvised duet examining circular pathways of the body through space. Following a structured movement score, Choi and Sanderson carve continuous spatial trails around the upper-half of one other. This exploration gains momentum and grows into individual full-bodied spiraling movement. Echoing between these continual pathways, the pair then returns to the calm, sensorial experience of tangling and de-tangling their slithering arms.
LSPU Hall Technical and Administrative Team Technical Director - Robert Gauthier Technician - Pat Dempsey Technician – Phil Winters Festival Lighting Plot Design – Aaron Kelly Stage Manger – Crystal Laffoley Communications Officer - Danielle Hamel Administrative Assistant - Emily Carrigan
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BIOGRAPHIES
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AGA Collaborative (Gretchen Alterowitz, Alison Bory, and Amanda Hamp), formed in 2011, is a trio of performer-choreographers who collaborate across geographic distance. Committed to the values embedded in the practice of collaboration, we aim to present dances that offer multiple perspectives and layers of meaning that are beyond the reach of a single choreographer. We approach choreography as an act of investigation—one that provides embodied information we could not access through other means. Whether in vigorous dancing or quiet contemplation, our performance work is always full-bodied and whole-hearted. To date, we have completed seven performance projects, including five dances that we perform, a piece for students, and an original theater work in collaboration with other artists. We have performed our work at a variety of venues including The Dance Complex (Cambridge, MA), Spoke the Hub (Brooklyn, NY), Queens University Belfast (Belfast, Northern Ireland), Coventry University (Coventry, UK), and several colleges and universities across the U.S.
Prateek Ahora is a choreographer and dancer of the Indian Classical Dance - Kathak. Trained in the Guru Shishya Parampara (Guru Disciple Tradition) under the able guidance of Guru Smt. Rajashree Shirke, he has participated in various dance festivals across the country. Not just India, he has also represented the country in the International arena. He was invited to the prestigious Australia India Universities Youth Forum held in Sydney. He also represented India in the cultural exchange program in Osaka, Japan where he was invited to perform classical and folk dances of India. In 2014, he participated in World Dance Alliance - Global Summit and presented a pecha kucha on Guru Disciple relationship in Indian Classical Dance. He also underwent a short-term course in Jazz so as to learn how two different forms of dancing, the technique and nuances can be captured in his performances.
Anja Ali-Haapala is an audience researcher and dance practitioner. In 2016, she completed a PhD on the topic of open rehearsals with Queensland University of Technology. Central to Anja’s audience research work is listening and giving agency to the audience voice, and positioning audiences as authorities of their own theatrical experiences.
Gretchen Alterowitz, an Associate Professor in the Department of Dance at University of North Carolina Charlotte represents AGA at the Global Summit. She teaches ballet technique, dance history, and choreography. Her research addresses collaborative and feminist approaches to contemporary choreography, performance, and pedagogy. Her recent articles appear in Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies (2015), Dance Chronicle (2014), and The Journal of Dance Education (2014).
Tahmina Anwar Anika, born and brought up in Bangladesh, regards dance as a way to globalize contemporary ideas from across the world through its interdisciplinary nature. After training in Kathak from the age of three, she had her first solo Kathak concert at the age of 14 in Dhaka followed by concerts in various cities in India and Bangladesh, under the guidance of Pt. Krishan Mohan Mishra. Subsequently, she has also trained in Bharatnatyam for the past 11 years. With over 15 national gold medals, she decided to be the first Bangladeshi to travel to the West and enroll in a BFA Dance program at York University and specialize in Western Contemporary Dance and Dance Studies. Her double major consists of BA Psychology (besides dance), which helps her take an interdisciplinary approach to her research. Her current study is ethnographic research to understand different definitions of “contemporary dance” within the South Asian diasporas.
Falon Baltzell, minimalistic choreographer and certified Evans Teacher, has been teaching movement efficiency at such places as Ohio Dance Festival, SUNY Brockport, ACDFA, Kona Performing Arts, and master classes for communities she is a part of. Baltzell directed the upper school dance program at Hathaway Brown School for three years, where she taught the Bill Evans Method to middle and high school students. She holds an MFA in Dance, a BFA in Dance Education and a K-12 Licensure. Baltzell has served as Field Tester for the Ohio Arts Council, current Co-Chair of Creation and Presentation for the WDA-A, and a member of the National Dance Education Organization. She has been Artist-in-
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Residence with the MacDuffie School and Water Rights Resident at the Santa Fe Art Institute. Baltzell is currently engaged in professional development and performing her choreography locally, nationally and internationally at festivals, conferences, site-specific venues and concert stages.
Regina Bautista is currently a graduate student in York University’s MA Dance Program, and is a cum laude graduate of the Dance Program at the University of the Philippines. Trained in ballet since she was 10 with accreditations from the Australian Conservatoire of Ballet and the Royal Academy of Dance, she was a company scholar of Ballet Philippines, and a member of its junior company, from 2011-2014. As a student, she was research assistant to Basilio Esteban Villaruz for his book Walking Through, and was a contributor to the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Encyclopedia of Philippine Art. In fulfillment of her degree’s requirements, she co-choreographed a full-length modern ballet entitled Awit ng Magdaragat. After graduating, she worked in Ballet Philippines as Artistic Assistant to the Artistic Director, and as Information Officer to the Executive Director. She currently dances with the HATAW folk-urban dance group in Toronto.
Natalie Beausoleil is a feminist critical obesity scholar, artist and Professor of Social Sciences and Health in the Division of Community Health and Humanities in the Faculty of Medicine at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Over the course of her career, her work has focused on the representations and experiences of the body and health, qualitative and arts based research in health, and arts and humanities in medical education.
Pat Beaven earned her teaching credentials from Macdonald College at McGill University, and has had extensive experience as an educator for over thirty years. As a dancer, she has performed, competed, and taught internationally. She has taught Highland dance, Ceilidh, and modern Celtic-inspired choreography privately, as well as in the enrichment program for the public school system, at dance camps, recreation centres, libraries, and the Royal Ontario Museum. Pat writes on dance for various publications such as Performing Arts and Entertainment, The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, and Urban Mozaik. She regularly presents at conferences and staff development workshops, where she shares her knowledge and enthusiasm for dance and enjoys learning from her students.
Rosemary G. Bennett, MEd, BA, DipED, BEd(Dance), Grad Dip Ed (Jazz music), is an academic, researcher, musician and dancer. She has been teaching across a range of Australian universities for the last 25 years. Her focus has been firstly in creative arts education and more recently in the qualitative research of her own and other’s early dance and movement experiences in relation to personal growth, mindful wellbeing, improvisation, and embodiment. Her Masters research was an in-depth study of the body in dance, and the issue of safe dance pedagogical practices across the wider Australian arts community. Formerly President of Ausdance SA and Ausdance TAS, Rosemary has contributed to a range of arts bodies and retains membership in the World Dance Alliance and Dance and the Child International. Rosemary is currently completing a PhD in childhood dance education whilst lecturing at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
Mustapha Braimah is a scholar artist from Ghana, West Africa. He is a choreographer, dancer, musician, percussionist and actor currently completing his MFA at the University of Maryland College Park. Prior to coming to the United States, he trained as a contemporary African dancer and performer with Noyam Dance Institute in Accra under Prof. F. Nii Yartey and performed with the National Dance Company of Ghana.
Lois Brown (BA Drama Univ. of Alberta, MEd, Memorial Univ.) has won numerous awards including The Canada Council’s Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award for outstanding achievement in theatre (2005) and YWCA’s Women of Distinction Goodwill Award for contribution to the local and national community (2014.) She was curator of NDW’s dance programming from 1984-89 and curator of its festival from 1990-93. Lois’s work crosses disciplines. Recent work includes "Love and Adaptation" with choreographer Candice Pike, and her in process solo "Papers Improvisation" which explores notions of democratization of the inanimate through the do-able.
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Melonie Buchanan Murray is a scholar and an artist, both a professor and choreographer. Currently an Associate Professor and Ballet Program Coordinator within the School of Dance at the University of Utah, Melonie holds a BFA in Ballet from Friends University, MFA in Dance from the University of California, Irvine, and is ABD with anticipated completion of a Ph in Dance from Texas Woman’s University in 2017. Her research interests lie in exploring the continual evolution of ballet training methods and performances, and while honoring the past, investigating ballet through a critical theory lens. Topics of recent research have included analyzing the commoditization of dancers in the advertising campaigns of American ballet companies, exploring notions of ballet as a form of cultural identity, examining how gender is performed in early ballet training, and exploring ballet as a degree focus in American higher education.
Chantal Cadieux is intimately linked to the development and flourishing of dance in Acadia. In 1979, she founded the DansEncorps Productions, the first Professional Dance Company in New Brunswick. She has choreographed over a hundred works, whether for the Company, the Jeune Troupe, the school or outside contracts. Sans Frontière, Oda, Sébomatik are only some of the full-length choreographies Chantal has created and were performed in various parts of the world. Chantal teaches movement education for the theater department and the School of Kinesiology of the Université de Moncton, training physical educators since 1980. In November 2010, Cadieux received the Lieutenant-Governor’s Award for High Achievement in Arts in New Brunswick. Since 2014, under the direction of Cadieux’s initiative, the company has started to coproduce new works with other dance companies in French Canada. Today, Chantal is dancing in this coproduction with PPS Danse (Montréal). A new project with Code Universel, Daniel Bélanger from Québec is in the process and planned to premiere in December 2017.
Linda Caldwell, PhD and Certified Movement Analyst in Laban Movement Studies, is coordinator of the low-residential dance doctoral program at Texas Woman's University while also serving on the World Dance Alliance Americas Executive Board as Vice-President of North Americas and co-chair for Research and Documentation. She is the co-editor of the World Dance Alliance publication Journal of Emerging Dance Scholarship, an online, double-blind reviewed open-access journal, highlighting current research in dance by scholars in graduate schools or within 5 years of graduation (www.jedsonline.net). Her dissertation and past publications concern a 15-year exchange with Poland 's contemporary dance company, The Silesian Dance Theatre. Dr. Caldwell's choreography has been performed in dance festivals in Lyons, France, and Krakow, Poland, as well as chosen twice for the National College Dance Festivals in Washington, DC, and Tempe, Arizona.
Beth Cassani is Senior Lecturer in Dance and Course Leader for MA Performance and MA Choreography at Leeds Beckett University. She also works as “Questioning the Contemporary” symposia and PaR research events 2014-16 and co-editing the current special issue of Choreographic Practices Journal (Vol 7:1). A talk series and further curated program of performance events are proposed for 2017- 18. Current academic research is into the contemporary “undisciplined body” in choreography and agency in dance making and performance. Other research interests include interdisciplinary choreographic practices, improvisation, dance dramaturgy and curation. Her choreography has toured internationally and received a Herald Angel Edinburgh 2007 for “13” and a UK National Critics Award 2003 for the work “My House is Melting” commissioned by Scottish Dance Theatre. Beth teaches company class for international repertory companies and independent companies.
Rex Cheng graduated from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (BA with a major in Chinese Dance) and after graduating joined the local dance company, DanceArt HK. Currently, he works as a free-lance dance artist and Tai Chi, Yoga and Pilates tutor. He began learning Tai Chi and Choy Li Fut (Chinese martial art) at ten years of age and has been awarded with First Runner Up in Traditional Wushu (Choy Li Fut) in 2004 and a Gold Metal in Traditional Tai Chi in 2016 by the Hong Kong Wushu Union. He has performed in many local and overseas dance and musical performances. In 2016, he performed in “Human Internship” for HK Dance Alliance “Springboard Showcase” and “The Rite of Spring” for Zuni Icosahedron. Also he has presented several choreographic works over the years and his new dance piece “The Butcher” will be presented in June 2017.
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Sara Coffin is a Halifax-based dance artist and Co-Artistic Director of Mocean Dance. She has cultivated her professional career in Vancouver, BC, Halifax, NS, and Northampton, MA where she completed her MFA in Choreography at Smith College (2014). Sara additionally holds a BFA in Dance (Simon Fraser), and a BSc. in Kinesiology (Dalhousie). Her awards include the Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award (2009), and the BC Emerging Dance Artist Award (2005). Coffin has worked professionally with several dance companies and is a co-founder of the dance collective SiNS (Sometimes in Nova Scotia). An award winning choreographer, her work has been presented in many prominent dance festivals including; Canada Dance Festival/Magnetic North Theatre Festival, Dances for a Small Stage, Dancing on the Edge and commissioned by Mocean Dance (2014, 2016) and Verve Mwendo (2004). www.saracoffin.com.
Lucinda Coleman is a PhD candidate at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Perth, Australia. She has performed and presented at a variety of international conferences and is a published dance scholar. Coleman is the Dance Maker for the performing arts collective, Remnant Dance, which she founded in 2010. Her most recent dance works have been performed in industry and community events and in educational contexts throughout Australia and internationally to China, Vietnam and Myanmar. www.remnantdance.com.au.
Jilissa Cotten, Associate Professor of Dance at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi, began her dance training under the direction of Nancy Sulik and Corpus Christi Concert Ballet. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Spanish with a minor in Russian from the University of Texas at Austin and also holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Choreography and Performance from Sam Houston State University. She is the producer of the Bailando Dance Festival, an international dance festival that offers choreographers opportunities to showcase their works and invites professional companies and master teachers to perform and teach during the event. She owned InStep Dance Studios, for eight years, and also has worked at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi for the past 12 years. Ms. Cotten’s choreography has been nationally recognized at the American College Dance Festival in Washington DC, and internationally throughout Mexico and Austria. She continues to create new works through the Island Dance Company, which she started in order to serve her students and give them opportunities to perform throughout the community and in the future, throughout the world.
DansEncorps was founded by Chantal Cadieux in 1979. It was the first French dance school and professional dance company in New Brunswick. Her goal was to make dance accessible to more people and demystify this art that was unknown to many. Since its beginnings, under the artistic supervision of Chantal, the DansEncorps Company has produced shows that stand out for their originality and creativity.
Beverley Diamond, ethnomusicologist, is Professor Emerita at Memorial University of Newfoundland where she served as Canada Research Chair in Ethnomusicology and also founded and directed the Research Centre for the Study of Music, Media, and Place from 2003-15. She previously taught at Queen’s University and York University. She has contributed to Canadian cultural historiography, feminist music research, and Indigenous studies. Her research has explored social constructs of technological mediation, Indigenous theory as it relates to sound worlds, and, most recently, concepts of reconciliation and healing. Publications include Native American Music in Eastern North America (OUP, 2008) and coedited anthologies: Aboriginal Music in Contemporary Canada. Echoes and Exchanges (McGill-Queen’s UP, 2012), and Music and Gender (U Illinois P, 2000), among many others. Diamond has been recognized with a Trudeau Fellowship (2009-12), fellowship in the Royal Society of Canada (2008), Order of Canada (2013), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s Gold Medal (2014) and an Honorary Doctorate from McGill University. She is a Past-President of the Society for Ethnomusicology.
Jennifer Lynn Dick is a Toronto-based professional dancer, teacher, choreographer and academic. She graduated from the School of Toronto Dance Theatre and began working with the Desrosiers Dance Theatre from 1990-2000 creating new works and touring nationally and internationally. Jennifer has worked with many Canadian independent dance artists, has performed in music videos and rock operas, spent time on the board of the Canadian Alliance of Dance Artists-Ontario Chapter and currently volunteers at Dance Collection Dance helping with their archives. Jennifer completed her Masters in
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Dance from York University in 2016, focusing her research on contextualizing the embodied archive of a dancer and how to concretize ephemeral artifacts transmitted through making dancing. Recent performance highlights include: choreographer/dancer at Douglas Dunn Salon, New York City; dancer for Sarah Stoker with The New Dance Festival, St. John’s, NL; choreographic research workshop with Ballet
Susan Douglas Roberts, dancemaker, educator, community builder and curator is the artistic director of wild goose chase dance, a project-based company located in Texas and Maine. Her work has been presented across the US and in Mexico, Central and South America, Taiwan, Japan, and Europe. Spine – a duet - was presented at the WDA Global Summit in France in 2014. As a dancemaker, she looks to details that bridge choreographed and lived experience, and frame choices that performing artists make on stage. Dance writers have called her work “elegant,” “mysterious,” “witty and winsome.” Honors include Fulbright Specialist Awards to Taipei National University of the Arts (Taiwan) and Centro de Danza e Investigación del Movimiento at the Universidad Rafael Landívar (Guatemala). Susan is Professor of Dance in the TCU School for Classical & Contemporary Dance in Fort Worth TX and hosts artists at the landing in Columbia Falls ME.
Jenelle Duval is a proud Mi'kmaq woman from St. George's NL. She started her journey as a drum carrier when she was just 5 years old. She has been in several notable performance groups including the St. George's Loon Dancers and Drummers, St. Anneway Choir in Miawpukek (Conne River, NL) and the Rainbow Thunderbird Women in Stephenville NL. Jenelle currently resides in St. John's and works as a Program Facilitator with the St. John's Native Friendship Centre and The St. John's Women's Centre, where she delivers programs through a cultural lens. She has been working as the Artistic Director of Spirit Song Festival for the past four years - the first festival primarily celebrating the accomplishments of indigenous artists in the province. Jenelle has most recently been nominated for a YWCA Women of Distinction Award for having made an integral contribution to the revitalization of Mi'kmaq culture in NL. As a professional artist, she works with many organizations throughout NL sharing cultural knowledge and has put off many successful workshops in drum building, rattle making and talking circle facilitation. She has travelled across the province and nationally to share songs with her drum group Eastern Owl.
Eastern Owl is known locally and nationally as a unique group of women who blend the styles of First Nations Drum Music and Contemporary Folk to create their own innovative sound. A powerful ensemble of seven vocalists, they have been captivating audiences at festivals and concerts across Canada. With deep roots in community, Eastern Owl has committed to deepening their connection with their traditional practices while helping to educate indigenous and non-indigenous audiences alike. They are recent recipients of the 2016 ArtsNL CBC Emerging Artist award and have taken the national stage during Canadian Music Week, Coastal First Nations Dance Festival, and Petapan. The women have been making waves following the release of their celebrated debut album “Not Quite Like You” and are one of the most in-demand groups in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Lisa Fusillo began her professional ballet training at the Washington School of Ballet in Washington, DC and later trained in New York, London, Russia and Denmark. She holds the Professional Teaching Diploma from the Royal Ballet School in London and certifications from American Ballet Theatre National Training Curriculum and the New York City Ballet Education Department. She has taught and presented her choreography in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, England, Amsterdam, Paris, Thailand, Taiwan, and at the International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Mississippi. WDA affiliation began when she was teaching at the National Institute of the Arts in Taiwan. Fusillo is a Fulbright Scholar and has published articles on Léonide Massine, Charles Weidman, and dance in American musical theatre. She is the recipient of four NEA grants, is the founder/director of Dance Repertory Project and is head of the Department of Dance at the University of Georgia.
Peter Gn has contributed as dance performer, choreographer, teacher and practitioner in the dance community and schools in Singapore. He trained as choreographer at London’s Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, where he graduated with a Masters in Choreography. Peter also holds a Masters in Dance Studies from London’s University of Roehampton, where he was a UK scholarship holder. His professional development has taken him to Beijing Dance Academy, Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts, Taipei National University of the Arts and the New Zealand School of
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Dance. He has created and staged contemporary dance works that move between spectacle and interdisciplinary art. His works for youth and professional dance productions have been seen in many venues in Singapore. He is a regular speaker and presenter at WDA conferences, teaches movement classes and has vast experience with directing productions and organizing dance conferences. He recently spoke and presented works at The New Zealand School of Dance and the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts.
Ilana Goldman is an Assistant Professor of dance at Florida State University and has taught and choreographed for schools and companies across the country. She received her BFA from The Juilliard School, where she was awarded the John Erskine Prize for Artistic and Academic Excellence, and her MFA from the University of Washington. She danced professionally as a principal dancer with Oakland Ballet and Sacramento Ballet, as a member of Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, as a guest artist with Alonzo King's LINES Ballet, and most recently as a dancer with Trey McIntyre Project. Her two short dance films, Convergence and Fledgling, have screened at numerous international film festivals.
Cristina Goletti is a full-time dance professor at Universidad De Las Americas Puebla and Chair of the Arts Department. She holds an MFA from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a secondary emphasis in Gender Studies and Somatics. Cristina trained at the London Contemporary Dance School where she gained a Postgraduate Diploma with distinction dancing and touring across Europe with Edge, the Postgraduate Company of LCDS. In 2007 she co-founded Legitimate Bodies Dance Company, the dance company in residence at Birr Theatre and Arts Centre and supported by Offaly County Council. The company has toured to some of the most important venues and festivals in Europe, the USA and Mexico, thanks to the support of Culture Ireland. Cristina's recent awards include DanceWEB European Scholarship, two Bursary Awards, the Project Award and several travel awards from The Irish Arts Council and the European Cultural Foundation. From 2008 until 2014 she was the director of I.F. O.N.L.Y. the first and only festival in Ireland dedicated to dance solos and in 2014 she co-directed the festival Performatica in Mexico.
Rebecca Gose, BS Ed, MFA, has been teaching courses in contemporary modern technique and dance pedagogy at the University of Georgia, USA, for a decade and a half, also coordinating the P-12 Teacher Certification Program in Dance. Her dancing career is highlighted by her membership as a principal dancer with Garth Fagan Dance, where she toured across the US, Europe, and beyond. Subsequently, her passion for teaching has directed her career path and continues to inspire her scholarly work in dance education. Rebecca’s work, primarily focusing on applying principles of somatics, motor learning, and pedagogies of care to the dance technique class, has been published in the Journal of Dance Education, Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, and The International Journal of the Arts in Society, and others.
Bahar Haghighat is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Education at Memorial University. She received her BA degree in counseling psychology from the University in Tehran, Iran. After her bachelor degree, she worked as a counselor in a rehabilitation center in Tehran and her hometown Qazvin. Then she moved to Malaysia and got her masters in educational psychology, working on issues around gender equality in higher education. Before moving to Memorial University to continue her studies, she worked as a counselor with adolescent daughters of mothers with breast cancer. Her broad research interests include innovative approaches of arts-based research, qualitative research, gender equality in education, critical approaches, social justice, health discourses in education and teacher-education. For her PhD research project, she works on critical obesity studies with special attention on body image and weight stigma through the lens of arts, and by using digital storytelling.
Dounia Hamoutene was born in Algeria and started dancing and drumming as soon as she could walk. In 1998, she arrived in Newfoundland to pursue her career in science. Nostalgia, love of music and a strong desire to share her heritage pushed Dounia to start teaching Algerian Belly Dancing in 2001. After teaching many workshops across town as well as regular classes at Kittiwake Dance Theater, Dounia joined the Jill Dreaddy dance co school of dance team in Sept. 2006. During all these years, Dounia kept expanding her dance horizon by taking courses in St John’s and Montreal in Contemporary, Hip-hop, Salsa and Flamenco. She has also performed at various festivals and fundraising events including her
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latest own production Metissages in December 2015 and a performance with the Choir “La Rose des Vents” and Shelley Neville in March 2016. Going beyond the gender-specific language associated with traditional North African dances, Dounia has broadened her dance vocabulary and included less known styles of dance, such as Gnawa steps and other African traditional dances. Dounia has enriched her classes with drumming, teaching her students basic rhythms and inviting local musicians to share her dance experience. Dounia has also published children stories in French in Algeria entitled: Les histoires de Momo le poulpe.
Brittany Harker Martin is a thought leader at the intersection of leadership, learning, and the arts. She works regularly in schools to integrate the arts into the core subjects through a process she calls Inquiry Through Drama. Creative movement and choreography are at the heart of this work. She refers to herself as an “Artistic Teacher” since designing engaging learning is her artistic process where student learning is a work of art. With a BEd in Arts Education and a PhD in Global Strategy, she is an Assistant Professor of Leadership, Policy and Governance at the University of Calgary. Her work includes collaborations with Stanford’s Gardner Centre, Harvard’s Leadership Institute, the Rozsa Foundation, the Royal Conservatory, and more. Her current research focuses on her model for student engagement called Socially Empowered Learning, and her model for professional development of artistic teachers called the Artistry of Instructional Design.
Corie Harnett is a multidisciplinary artist and arts educator. Her choreographic work is largely informed by Latin and Afro Latin dance traditions, her perspective influenced through explorations in physical theatre, improvisation comedy and somatics. Corie first fell in love with Latin street dances over ten years ago, and has since created and performed for events in Toronto, Montreal and New York. Having moved to St. John's in 2011, Corie has showcased work locally at Red Hot, Metissages, and Neighbourhood Dance Works' First Look and Sidewalk Dances, and she has had occasion to collaborate with musicians to create and perform pieces to live musical accompaniment for Invocación Y Danza and Femfest.
Kristin Harris Walsh is a dancer and dance scholar based in St. John's, NL. She holds a PhD in Folklore from Memorial University of Newfoundland and a MA in Dance from York University, and has published her writing in both scholarly and popular sources. Her main research and creative interests lie in exploring how percussive dance forms embody and perform culture. More specifically, her research and artistic practices focus on step dancing in Newfoundland and Ireland, especially vernacular styles such as traditional Newfoundland step dance and sean-nós step dance in Ireland, recently completing a SSHRC Insight Development Grant to that end.
Yuko Hatano is a professor at Kobe Shinwa Women’s University in Japan. She teaches dance and expressive movement for students preparing to be teachers. She received an MA degree from Nara Women's University in Japan. She was a visiting scholar in the Dance Department at UCLA during 1992- 93. She performed at the Ethiopian National Theater during Japan Week in 1999. She is a member of the Japanese Society for Dance Research, and Japanese Olympic Academy. Co-author, Motoko Kuyama, works at Kobe Shinwa Women’s University as a part-time lecturer and received a MA degree from Hyogo University of Teacher Education.
Ainsley Hawthorn holds a PhD in Near Eastern Studies from Yale University. Her research interests include ancient Mesopotamian literature and religion, Middle Eastern dance styles, sensory studies, and corpus-based lexical analysis. Her dissertation, Catching the Eye of the Gods: The Gaze in Mesopotamian Literature, examines representations of vision in the Sumerian and Akkadian literary sources from the third millennium to the third century B.C.E. She has been an invited lecturer at universities in Germany, Austria, and Italy, and is co-editor of the first volume on the senses in the Ancient Near East, forthcoming from Eisenbrauns academic press. She also teaches and performs Middle Eastern and international folk dance, specializing in the dances of Egypt. She has trained with expert instructors from around the world, including Morocco, Ranya Renée, Mahmoud Reda, Elizabeth Artemis Mourat, and Reyhan Tuzsuz.
Masako Ito is a dancer and choreographer of contemporary dance. She studied classical ballet, rhythmic gymnastics, modern, jazz, contemporary, tap, Spanish and Japanese traditional dance at Japan Women's
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College of Physical Education. Since 2014 she has danced Butoh for a Japanese Butoh choreographer Kakuya Ohashi. She received her Masters degree of Physical Education at the graduate school of JWCPE, and her Masters degree of the Arts at the University of Tokyo. She established MACOBA Dance Company in 2013. She has danced not only in Japan, but also in the USA, Singapore and Korea. Her original duet "Life of Time" won the third prize at the most historical modern dance competition in Japan in 2013.
Chris Johnson, artistic director of Chelonia Dance and dance professor at Beloit College has been selected to present work for WDA, NDEO, ACDA gala concerts, at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, The Ruth Page Center for the Arts, Chicago; Touhill Performing Arts Center, St. Louis; The Union Theater, Madison, Wisc., and in Sacramento. She was awarded First Place for Choreography in the New Prague Dance Festival 2013 and won the Laureate and Grand Prix at the Seventh International Competition: Festival of Choreographic Collectives in Moscow. Her dance, Wreath of Memories, was performed by special invitation at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Washington, DC.
Tina Kambour lived in New York for 12 years before moving to Oklahoma where she is a fulltime faculty member at the University of Central Oklahoma. She teaches modern technique, improvisation, composition and Laban Movement Analysis. Her choreography, which has been presented in Mexico, on the West coast, throughout the Midwest and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, has been commissioned by professional companies and universities. Tina earned a graduate degree in Dance from Teachers College/Columbia University, a Certified Movement Analyst Degree from the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies and certification in Dynamic Embodiment Somatic Movement Therapy under the direction of Dr. Martha Eddy. From 1999-2008, she was a visiting faculty member for the New World School of the Arts in Miami, Florida. She has taught throughout the US, in Mexico, Northern Ireland, France, Guatemala, and at Dance New Amsterdam in New York where she taught BodyMind Dancing
Deanne Kearney is currently studying in the MA in dance at York University, Toronto, with a focus on urban dance studies, specializing within the area of Canada’s krump dance scene. Along with being classically trained in ballet and modern dance, Kearney is a b-girl. Training and teaching with the Toronto B-Girl Movement, an artist based collective which creates a platform to mentor young women in hip hop culture and breaking. In 2015, Kearney created an urban dance theatre company entitled BreakinGround, which has produced numerous shows and choreographies from Canada’s top urban dancers. Kearney has been afforded many great writing opportunities from The Dance Current Magazine, Dance International Magazine as well as completing The National Ballet of Canada’s Emerging Dance Critics program.
Evadne Kelly is an artist-scholar with a PhD in Dance Studies from York University. She has presented and published on topics relevant to the fields of anthropology and dance studies with a focus on the political and social dimensions of trans-locally performed dance traditions. Publications of her research can be found in Pacific Arts Journal, The Dance Current, Performance Matters 2.2, and Fiji Times. Her book, Dancing Spirit, Love, and War: Expressing the Trans-Local Realities of Contemporary Fiji, is under contract with University of Wisconsin Press. Research for her book received support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council doctoral award and builds on her 20 years of professional experience as a performer, teacher, and rehearsal director for celebrated choreographer, David Earle. Dr. Kelly developed her manuscript as an invited participant in the 2015 Mellon funded Dance Studies summer seminar at Northwestern University.
Ann Kipling Brown, PhD is Professor Emerita in dance education from the Arts Education Program in the Faculty of Education at the University of Regina. She works extensively with children, youth and adults and leads classes in technique, composition, and notation. Her research and publications focus on dance pedagogy, the integration of notation in dance programs, the application of technology in dance education, and the role of dance in the child’ and adult’s lived world.
Sarah Knox is a lecturer in Dance Studies at the University of Auckland, in New Zealand. Her teaching specializations and research interests include dance technique and pedagogy, choreographic education,
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rehearsal direction, and creativity. She has taught extensively in recreational, pre-tertiary, tertiary and professional contexts and regularly teaches industry classes in both ballet and contemporary dance in New Zealand. Sarah graduated from the New Zealand School of Dance in 2001 and has had a 15 year career working as a professional contemporary dancer and choreographer. Sarah has completed a Master of Creative and Performing Arts and is a Doctoral candidate, exploring the acculturation of creativity within multicultural choreographic education. In 2015 she was the scholarly presentations secretariat for the WDA Asia Pacific Symposium in Singapore. Sarah is the Co-chair of the Early Career Dance Researchers’ Community, alongside Anja Ali-Haapala. Extended Ballet, is developed from Knox’s 15 years of extensive professional performing and choreographic experience, within the demands of repertory dance companies.
Hiroki Koba is a dancer, choreographer, researcher, and a graduate student at the University of Tokyo, majoring in education. His research interest is dance education, especially the history of dance education in Japan and the USA. As an exchange artist of the US-Japan Friendship Commission Program and as a PhD candidate, he studied in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Dance Department in 2013-14. So far, he has presented his research about dance education in the WDA Global Summit 2014 (Angers, France), WDA-Americas Assembly 2015 (Hawaii, USA), WDA-AP Conference 2015 (Singapore), WDA-AP Conference 2016 (South Korea) and the annual conference of the Japanese Society for Dance Research (JSDR). His papers have been published in several journals including Journal of Emerging Dance Scholarship and Choreologia, which is the annual journal of JSDR.
Susan R. Koff is a clinical associate professor and director of the Dance Education Program in the Steinhardt School at New York University. She previously was at Teachers College, Columbia University, Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, University of Denver, Pennsylvania State University, and the Jerusalem Rubin Academy of Music and Dance in Israel. Dr. Koff’s academic and service activities are in the area of dance education, within the United States and in an international arena. She currently serves as the chair elect of the board for Dance and the Child International (daCi).
Alexandra Kolb (PhD and MPhil Cambridge, MA Cologne) is Associate Professor (formerly Reader) in Dance at Middlesex University, London. She has around fifty publications, including a monograph Performing Femininity: Dance and Literature in German Modernism (2009), an anthology Dance and Politics (2011), and many journal articles and book chapters. She is a recent recipient of the Gertrude Lippincott Award (2014), a British Academy/Leverhulme Grant (2015), and a Harry Ransom Fellowship at the University of Texas at Austin (2013). She is on the Board of Directors of the SDHS, the Executive Committee of the SDR, and is the Reviews Editor for Dance Research.
Iris Lau is a dance artist. She was born and trained in Hong Kong. She received her MFA at Simon Fraser University. She has performed in professional dance and theatre communities in Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Canada and Paris. She is currently shifting her practice to dance-theatre, a unique performance style that blends everyday experience with the abstract of dance and narrative of theatre. She re-stages various human activities and everyday movements in choreographies. Her choreographic works include: dance-theatre ReCall, Twenty-Fourteen and Definition of Time. She also works as movement collaborator and dramaturg for several theatre productions. She directed her first play Flesh and Blood, Disintegrate in UBC’s Brave New Play Rites Festival 2016. She hopes to bring a new perspective to theatre and introduce the hybrid of dance-theatre to audiences.
Miriana Lausic Arratia holds a PhD from York University, Toronto, as a recipient of the Ontario Trillium Scholarship and the Provost Award. Her work, “Transgression in Flamenco and Tauromaquia: Choreographing Dance Studies with Philosophy” (2016) is situated in the field of dance studies in collaboration with visual arts and explores a multidisciplinary engagement with the fields of ethnography, philosophy and critical theory. Miriana completed her MFA in Choreography at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a degree in History from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. She has presented her current research at: Derrida Today at London Goldsmiths; The World Dance Alliance in Angers, France; Arts in Society at the University of Sapienza, Rome; Canadian Society for Dance Studies/Society of Dance History Scholars; and York University’s Centre for Research on Latin America
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and the Caribbean. Her choreographic work has been presented at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, The Barns at Wolf Trap, the Lincoln Theatre, and Carter Barron Amphitheatre.
Leah B. Lewis teaches at Memorial’s Faculty of Education within the counseling psychology program. She makes use of arts based methodologies in the areas of psychology and education. Her current projects make use of art, videos, and performance, as ways of reporting outcomes.
Xuemei Li is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education, Memorial University. Her research interests include identity issues in cross-cultural contexts, English-as-a-second-language writing and methodology, and newcomer integration. Her SSHRC-funded projects investigate language and social support for immigrants and refugees in Newfoundland. She publishes, teaches and supervises in these areas.
Zihao Li has a BFA (Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts) BEd, PQP, MA (York University, Canada), PhD (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto). He is a dancer, educator, and author. He has performed with the Guangdong Modern Dance Company, Hong Kong Dance Company, and the Hamburg Ballet in Germany. He has taught at different institutions and professional dance companies including Beijing Dance Academy, Tokyo Arts Center, York University, and the University of Wisconsin – Madison. He frequently leads workshops and master classes at schools, teacher training venues at local, national, and international conferences. His research spans dance pedagogy; cross- cultural studies; gender and masculinity; to technology in dance. His book on adolescent males in dance was recently published by the University of Toronto Press. Currently, he is serving on the Faculty of Education, while directing the University of Macau’s Dance Troupe. He is currently looking at how social media communities (WeChat and Facebook) and technologies (Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality) impact dance creation and dance education
Catherine Limbertie is a PhD candidate in the Dance Department at the School of Arts, Media, Performance and Design at York University, Toronto. She is a practicing teacher, dancer, folklorist, and historian. She has presented her research at many conferences; most recently at the WDA-America’s Conference in Puebla, Mexico in 2016. Her work is published in Dance Education around the World: Perspectives on Dance, Young People and Change (2015). Prior to entering the academy, she was executive director of the Community Folk Art Council of Toronto, an organization formed by members of Toronto’s many cultural communities to further the interests of maintaining multiple identities through dance.
Andrea Luján received her BA with honours in Art History from Columbia University in 2011. She was raised in the southwestern United States, a formative experience that sculpted her passion for the arts. wsssShe has performed professionally as a Mexican folklorico and modern dancer, and in a myriad of indigenous theatrical productions. Luján choreographs a hybrid movement in NYC and is pursuing an interdisciplinary MA degree in the Study of the Americas at CUNY.
Caroline Lussier worked for various arts organizations for 25 years before being appointed Head of the Canada Council’s Dance Section in 2011. Over the years, she has acquired extensive experience working with independent artists, dance companies, presenters and festivals in both the dance and theatre scenes in Montreal and in Quebec. She was program officer for the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and a member of the Board of Directors of many non-profit organizations. As Head of the Dance Section, she co-chaired the Canada Dance Mapping Study, a vast and multi-layered initiative to map the variety of dance activity, both professional and non-professional, that shape the landscape of dance in Canada. A specialist of Slavic culture, Caroline holds a Master’s degree in Slavic languages and literature.
Anwesa Mahanta is a noted dance exponent and researcher from Assam specializing in the field of Sattriya Dance. Her research dwells on the exploration of the sociological perspectives of culture inherent in the movement practices and performance narratives of North Eastern region of India. She did her PhD work from Delhi University in the area of Performing Arts and Oral Traditions. She is Artist in Residence at the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati and teaches Dance Aesthetics in their Centre for Creativity. She is a recipient of the Charles Wallace India Trust Fellowship 2015-16 to pursue research in Queen’s
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University, Belfast and has several publications to her credit. She has been a research fellow of the National Academy of Performing Arts in India to work on the Intangible Cultural Heritage traditions of Assam. She has been awarded with the national honour from SangeetNatakAkademi for her contributions.
Lubna Marium, Artistic Director, “Shadhona: Center for Advancement of Southasian Culture,” is a dancer/researcher/writer. She has traveled from her early training in an avant-garde style of dance to later training in Manipuri. She has also taken up the study of aesthetics and dramaturgy in Sanskrit. For the last two decades she has been promoting music and cultural practices, folk and urban, of Southasia through Shadhona. Lubna has produced and directed some major dance productions. Recently, through Shadhona, she has started a Feminist Dance Project. She is, also, presently engaged in translation of a major medieval Buddhist Vajrayana text of Bengal from Sanskrit to Bangla. Through Shadhona, she is engaged in preserving several performative folk practices, designated as intangible cultural heritage.
Lynn Matluck Brooks holds the Arthur and Katherine Shadek Humanities Professorship at Franklin & Marshall College. She founded the F&M Dance Program in 1984 and was awarded the Bradley Dewey Award for Scholarship and the Lindback Award for Teaching. She holds degrees from the University of Wisconsin and Temple University. A Certified Movement Analyst and dance historian, she has held grants from the Fulbright/Hayes Commission, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Brooks was NEH fellow and faculty member in the Aston Magna Academies, and was an invited participant at the International Council for Traditional Music Symposium on Musical Iconography (Burgos, Spain). Brooks has authored books and scholarly articles, and served as performance reviewer for Dance Magazine, editor of Dance Research Journal and Dance Chronicle, and writer and editor for thINKingDance. Her research focuses on the social history of dance.
Caren McCaleb (Editor) is an Emmy winning editor and filmmaker. With a deep love for visual communication, Caren came to filmmaking from a background in painting, photography and dance. www.carenmccaleb.com.
Heather McLeod teaches art in the Faculty of Education, Memorial University. She pursues a critical research agenda and is interested in arts-based methodologies. As well as the Open Studio project, other recently-funded research projects include a parents and poetry project and an examination of the process of becoming a researcher.
Skylar Miller is a college senior at Beloit College, Wisconsin. She is deeply interested in the repetitious nature of the world, the connection between the physical environment and human existence, and the translation of heartbreaking beauty and the vastness of the world into performance spaces.
Mocean Dance, based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, creates and performs athletic, vibrant contemporary dance. Led by Co-Artistic Directors Susanne Chui and Sara Coffin, Mocean commissions Canadian and international choreographers to create dance that is highly physical, collaborative, and technically and emotionally rich. Founded in 2001, Mocean Dance is nationally recognized as a leading company from the Atlantic region. The company is committed to its home base in Nova Scotia, contributing to the province’s dance and arts community by providing opportunities for creation, performance, collaboration, development and education. www.moceandance.com
Shannon Mockli is an Associate Professor of Dance at the University of Oregon with an emphasis in choreography and performance. Shannon has danced with choreographers such as Stephen Koester, Harry Mavromacalis of Dance Anonymous, Doug Elkins, Brent Schneider, Eric Handman, Abby Fiat, Tandy Beale, Lisa Race, Pamela Geber, Satu Hummasti and Brad Garner. She has performed and presented work regularly throughout the Northwest US, and nationally at the La Mama Theater in New York City, White Wave Dance Festival in Brooklyn, New York Dance Alliance 50th Anniversary, and at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Theater in Salt Lake City. International presentations include the Physical Theatre Lab in Slovenia, and the Festival Internacional Danza al Borde in Tijuana, Mexico. Her dance film, “Fluctuating Frequencies” was one of three highlighted at the World Dance Alliance Americas Assembly at the Universidad de las Americas Puebla 2016.
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Megan Morrison is a PhD Candidate in Community Health & Humanities, Faculty of Medicine at Memorial University of Newfoundland. She also has a Master's of Women's Studies from Memorial University. Megan engages in the arts in her personal life as a singer-songwriter, a painter and mother. Megan's research interests include arts-informed research methods, healthy aging, caregiving and dementia.
Louise Moyes performs docu-dances, shows she researches, choreographs, and performs, working with the rhythm of voices, language, and accents like a musical “score.” She studied at Studio 303 in Montreal and now lives in her native St. John’s. She has performed throughout Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada and in Germany, Italy, Iceland, New York, Australia, France, and Brazil. She is currently researching working with people on the autism spectrum, storytelling and dance, with mentor Lee Saunders, thanks to a research grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. Louise is the recipient of the Canada Council for Arts Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award 2016 for Innovation in Dance by a mid- career artist.
Julie Mulvihill has recently completed a PhD in Dance Theory and Practice from Texas Woman’s University (graduation May 2017), with a research focus on dance making within groups. She has been on the faculties of Georgia College and State University, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Elon University, Peace College, and other dance and theatre programs, teaching various dance and movement courses. Julie has danced and shown work with Hidden Entropy Movement Project, Crossover Movement Arts, Rainbow Dance Company, Even Exchange Dance Theater, and most recently at the curated Monterey Bay Choreographer’s Showcase. She holds a teaching certification in the Alexander Technique from Chesapeake Bay Alexander Studies and serves as Workshop Planning Chairman for Alexander Technique International. She is currently a guest artist at Antelope Valley College.
Jessica Murphy is a teaching artist with an interest in collaboration. She is currently a 2017 MFA in Dance candidate at Texas Woman’s University. Previously she completed her MA and BA in dance and elementary education at Sweet Briar College in Virginia. Jessica has taught throughout Virginia and Texas to students with ages ranging from 3 years to 90+. Recently her choreography has been showcased at Living Art’s 7 Stories/7 Doorways Event, Big Rig Dance Collective’s Dance Co-op Festival, The Bell House’s EXCHANGE Choreography Festival, and Brave Productions’ Brave Arts Dance Festival. To check out more of her work visit www.sylvestrewilde.org.
April Nakaima has worked as a choreographer and dance teacher in high school, university, studio and outreach programs with participants aged 1 to 92. In the recent decade she has worked in health research and evaluation, currently at the Evaluation Centre for Complex Health Interventions in Toronto, Canada. She has developed health promotion programs featuring dance activity for several health centres, community groups, and York University. She received an MFA in Dance - Choreography from the University of California Irvine, BA in Theatre Arts - Dance from the University of California Santa Cruz, and completed sciences coursework at UC Davis while working in patient care in acute and complex continuing care hospitals and in home care. April has choreographed over 40 concert works with several commissions from universities in the USA. In 2008 her seniors class group was chosen to perform for Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall in Scotland.
Abena Omenaa Boachie is a doctoral student in the Faculty of Education. Abena holds a BA in Communication Design (Graphic design) and a MA (Philosophy in Art Education) from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, Ghana. Her research interests include studio pedagogy and art criticism.
Rebecca Pappas makes dance that addresses the body as an archive for personal and social memory. Her choreography has toured nationally and internationally, and has received residencies from Yaddo and Djerassi, and support from organizations such as the Mellon Foundation, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, and CHIME. She currently creates work in Los Angeles, and Indianapolis, and is an Assistant Professor of Dance at Ball State University. www.pappasanddancers.com
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Hannah Park is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Dance Program and the Residential Dance Ensemble at Iona College, NY. She has served as educator, performer, choreographer, movement specialist, and researcher in various settings both, the public and private sector and institutions. Her expertise and research interests encompass contemporary dance, creative processes, somatics, arts integration in K-12 and Higher education and community arts. She has presented papers and workshops both nationally and abroad. She holds a PhD in Dance Education and Dance Studies from Temple University, and a MFA in Dance from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, BFA from SUNY at Purchase and is a certified Laban/Bartenieff movement analyst and somatic practitioner.
Eliecer Perez Leyva trained at the Escuela Ballet Nacional de Cuba in Havana, graduating with certificates as both a professional dancer and teacher. He joined the Ballet Nacional de Cuba in 2006 and was promoted to coryphée in 2011. He performed in many classical ballets including Coppelia, Don Quixote, Giselle, The Nutcracker and Swan Lake. He also danced in contemporary works by Balanchine and Cuban choreographers Alicia Alonso, Eduardo Blanco and Alberto Mendez. He toured internationally with the company to Australia, Canada, China, England, France, the United States and many Latin American countries. He also taught dance classes for young children
Candice Pike is a dance maker-researcher-teacher whose work is rooted in building community. Her performances are devised by responding to heartbeats, poetry and inherited objects to create work based on intergenerational memory. In recent years she has used her multi-disciplinary approach to develop several large-scale performances including two site-specific community collaborations at the Corner Brook Museum and the Public Library in 2016. Candice has presented a series of site-specific, durational pieces at events across Canada and has recently presented her newest duet, couerPulse, throughout Atlantic Canada. Candice has facilitated classes and workshops using her unique approach to creativity education in public, private, and post-secondary educational institutions since 2004 Candice is the 2014 winner of the Roberta Thomas Legacy Award and part of the team that won Arts Event of the Year in Corner Brook, NL. She is the president of DanceNL and sits on the National Council of the Canadian Dance Assembly.
Tiffany Pollock is a PhD Candidate in Gender, Feminist and Women’s Studies at York University. She holds a Bachelor of Music and a Masters of Arts in Ethnomusicology. Tiffany has spent much of her life dancing and making music in various cities in Canada and Thailand. Her current research interests surround embodiment, movement, affect, and how dance mediates intercultural communication and social difference. Tiffany’s dissertation project examines how fire artists in Southern Thailand labour to embody and produce particular affective experiences of “Thailand” for tourists.
Katie Prowse grew up in St. John’s, and began dancing at the age of 4. She trained in ballet, jazz, tap, and contemporary for over 18 years. Her love of teaching led her to the Teacher Training Program at Canada’s National Ballet School, where she studied the Cecchetti and Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) ballet syllabi, as well as music, anatomy, conditioning for dancers, and dance history. Katie is accredited with the Cecchetti society of Canada, Canada’s National Ballet School, and with the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing. Since her return to Newfoundland, she has been teaching at a number of studios, and has co-established the “Dancing for Life with Parkinson’s” project through Parkinson NL.
Colleen Quigley is the Acting Head and Manuscripts Librarian (Performing Arts Collection) at the Archives and Special Collections at Memorial University. Colleen holds a Masters of Information from the University of Toronto; a BFA in Dance from York University and an English major from Memorial. She has worked as a performer, dance instructor and choreographer in St. John’s, Toronto, and Maine (USA), as well as in Amsterdam and Nijmegen, the Netherlands. From 2009-2010 Colleen served as the first institutional archivist at Canada’s National Ballet School. She has participated in Canadian think tanks, panels, and exhibitions on the preservation and promotion of dance and other aspects of the performing arts. She was also on the team responsible for Memorial’s Dancer-in-Residence program. She is an active member of the Canadian Society for Dance Studies; Association of Newfoundland & Labrador Archives; DanceNL; Kittiwake Dance Theatre, Newfoundland and Labrador Library Association, and SIBMAS.
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Alysia Ramos is an Assistant Professor of Dance at Oberlin College. Prior, she worked as a dancer, choreographer and teaching artist in New York City for over a decade. Her work focuses on hybrid, intercultural and transnational contemporary movement practices. She holds an MFA in Dance from the University of Utah.
Jane Rutherford has been dancing, calling and teaching with folk dance groups for over 30 years and has performed across eastern North America. She was the principal author and dance consultant for “Traditional Dances of Newfoundland and Labrador: A Guide for Teachers,” published by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador in 2007. She has been a staff member with Vinland Traditional Newfoundland Music Camp since 2005, and in recent years has coordinated the dance program at the Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival. She is an active collector of traditional set dances from Newfoundland and Labrador and has worked with several communities in the province to revive dances that were close to being lost. Jane has presented workshops and papers on Newfoundland Set Dance at national and international conferences such as ICTM and SEM. Jane is currently working on a MA in Ethnomusicology at Memorial University of Newfoundland.
Gabriela Sanchez Diaz holds a Master’s degree in Music (percussion) from the University of Ottawa. Besides school, she has participated in numerous workshops and festivals. Gabriela has played professionally with several orchestras and ensembles in Mexico and Canada. As a licensed teacher of Body Mapping, a somatic method for musicians, Gabriela has reinforced her commitment to musical education. She teaches Body Mapping privately and in workshops. In 2016 Gabriela completed a Master’s degree in Gender Studies at Memorial University. In her research, she analysed how the characteristics that define femininity affect the body and its movement and how Body Mapping impacts the performances of women classical musicians. Her project included the creation of a workbook. Based on this research, Gabriela has created a dance and music performance in collaboration with Corie Harnett. She has also created “Your Body on Stage”, a class for women musicians to explore their bodies and reflect about their experiences in music making.
Melissa Sanderson is a dance artist whose work takes the forms of choreography, performance, and dance film. Her choreography has been presented through the WDA International Young Choreographers Project in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, at Ponderosa in Stolzenhagen, Germany, Austin Dance Festival, Texas Dance Improvisational Festival, American College Dance Association, and Big Rig Dance Collective's Co- op. Sanderson has performed in a variety of festivals in the USA, Switzerland, The Netherlands, and Germany. Her dance films have been presented by international dance film festivals in the USA, Italy, Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, and France. Currently, Sanderson is an Adjunct Professor at the University of North Texas, Eastfield College and Tarrant County College, Co-chair of the Creation and Presentation Network of the World Dance Alliance-Americas, and company member of Jordan Fuchs Company. She holds a BFA in Dance from San Diego State University, where she received the 2014 Alumni to Watch Award, and a MFA in Dance from Texas Woman’s University.
Bala Sarasvati is a Certified Movement Analyst (CMA) specializing in the application of movement theory to dance training and performance. Her dance choreography and movement training approaches have been presented throughout the US, at international conferences, festivals and concerts including the John F. Kennedy Performing Arts, Centro Coreográfico da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Laban Centre, London, Beijing International Arts Festival, National le Danse, Paris, France and Scotia Dance Center, Vancouver, BC. Bala served as a graduate faculty member for Nacionale Universidad de Costa Rica and most recently taught as a dance specialist in somatic theory application to dance training for the Danza Universitaria dance company, and for Programa Danza Abierta at the University of Costa Rica. She has developed and integrated film with aerial dance in contemporary dance productions for sixteen years, utilizing lyra, slings, silks, trapeze and bungee.
Urmimala Sarkar Munsi is an Associate Professor at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, specializing in Social Anthropology and Dance Studies. Her research interests consist of Dance, Body and Society; Gender and Performance; Performance and Politics. Her recent publications include “Mediations around an Alternative Concept of ‘Work’:” “Re-imagining the Bodies of Survivors of Trafficking.” Lateral 5.2 (2016); “Challenges of Praxis: ARM of Care and Kolkata
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Sanved,” Janelle Reinelt, María Estrada-Fuentes, and Urmimala Sarkar Munsi. Lateral 5.2 (2016); “Precarious Citizenship: Performative Presence Versus Social Absence of Nachni,” Samyukta - A Journal of Gender & Culture (2016); “Many Faces of Purulia: Festivals, Performances and extremist activities,” University of Limerick (2013). She is the Vice-President, World Dance Alliance – Asia Pacific and the co- editor of the online peer reviewed Journal of Emerging Dance Research (JEDS) with Linda Caldwell.
Kahoru Saruta is a Master course student at the Rikkyo University, majoring in sociology. She is a dancer and choreographer for MACOBA Dance Company. She has learned classic ballet for thirteen years from childhood till eighteen years old. She performed main roles in a number of performances, for example, Swanilda (Coppelia), Sugar Plum Fairy (The Nutcracker), and Kitri (Don Quixote).
Lee Saunders works internationally as a choreographer/dancer, composer/singer and naturopathic doctor. Born and raised in Canada, her voice and movement work is based on discerning studies and experience in the visual, performing, martial, healing and educational arts. With more than fifty years performing and teaching, Lee creates a form of Dance Theatre she calls “dance opera.” Critics describe her work as: “Hot Naturalism; Absurdist dance; demanding every sense of the body; Primitive and cerebral, mysterious.” An award winning and published artist/educator, Lee transforms her “body of knowledge” into the healing arts through her work as a Naturopathic Doctor and ISMETA-Somatic Movement Educator/Therapist. Her students range in age from newborns to seniors, at all levels of ability. Meeting the person where they are, rather than where we think they should be, Lee facilitates wellness and primitive reflex integration, through touch, dance, voice, play and life activities.
Rebecca Sharr, Eastern Owl's only member from St John's, started her passion for the drum thirteen years ago at the tender age of 13. It was at this time that she first became a member of the St. John's Native Friendship Centre, where she also began her prestigious career as a Fancy Shawl Dancer. Since then, the drum has become a very important part of her life. She spent grades 2 to 12 in school choirs at IJ Sampson, Holy Cross and Booth Memorial and was thrilled to learn drum songs once she began her volunteer work at the Friendship Centre. Rebecca currently works as a Youth Coordinator with SJNFC and has partnered with Arts Smarts programs to introduce indigenous song and dance to school age children. She has been dancing hard at pow wows and has collaborated with Memorial University to help them create their first on campus indigenous drum group.
Amy Sheppard is a PhD student at Memorial University in Newfoundland and Labrador and a social worker with Stella’s Circle, a local non profit. She works with women who have been involved in the criminal justice system, providing group and individual counseling and social support. Amy loves mountain biking, contemporary dance and thinks that St John’s is a great place to do both.
Barbara Snook is a professional teaching and research fellow at the University of Auckland. She is currently engaged in researching the use of an arts-rich pedagogy in primary school classrooms. Barbara was the Caroline Plummer Fellow in Community Dance at the University of Otago in 2008. She is a successful author of dance textbooks widely used in Australia and New Zealand and was the recipient of an Osmotherly Award for services toward the development of dance education in Queensland Australia in 2007. Her early career was as a High School teacher of drama and dance.
Manuela Sosa is an interdisciplinary artist dedicated to developing the power of live performance. As a Venezuelan-American raised in Vancouver, Canada, she is inspired by theatre that explores cultural identities and provokes social action. With her passion for collaborative creation, Manuela has helped numerous emerging and established playwrights in the development of new works. She spent a summer learning traditional West African music and dance at the University of Ghana, and another summer with SITI Company training in Suzuki and Viewpoints at Skidmore College. Manuela holds a BFA from Simon Fraser University with a double major in French and Theatre Performance, and is currently working towards an MFA in Acting at Columbia University.
Amanda Sowerby received her MFA in Modern Dance from the University of Utah and her BFA in Dance from the California Institute of the Arts. She worked for several years with the Gary Palmer Dance Company in California's Bay Area and assisted in setting new and repertory pieces on the National Ballet
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of Peru and the National Ballet of Chile, as well as implementing outreach programs in dance for Bay Area community members. She has performed with the National Ballet's of Chile and Peru, Enrico Labayen's Lab Projekt USA, Yasmin Mehta's California Contemporary Dancers and Todd Courage. Amanda's own choreographic work has been presented at Dance Theatre Workshop (New York), Theatre Artaud (San Francisco), Diesel Cathedral (San Francisco), Dance Mission (San Francisco), and The Rose Wagner Theater (Salt Lake City). While completing graduate work Amanda co-founded Paradigm Dance Project; a non-profit dance organization designed to foster arts education for underserved populations. In addition to her faculty position at WSU Amanda serves on the board of the Utah Dance Education Organization as President and served as the Higher Education Representative from 2007- 2013.
Cheryl Stock, PhD, has a career spanning four decades as a dancer, choreographer, director, educator, researcher and advocate. Cheryl is Director of Post Graduate Studies and Head of Cultural Leadership at NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Art) and Adjunct Professor in the Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of Technology where she previously held positions as Head of Dance and Director of Postgraduate Studies. Founding Artistic Director of Dancenorth, Cheryl has created over 50 dance works as well as 20 collaborative exchanges in Asia. Her publications and practice encompass interdisciplinary and interactive site specific performance, contemporary Australian and Asian dance, and practice-led research. Cheryl is a recipient of the Australian Dance Award’s Lifetime Achievement and in 2014 was awarded an Order of Australia. Publications: http://eprints.qut.edu.au/view/person/Stock,_ Cheryl.html Personal website: www.accentedbody.com.
Carolyn Sturge Sparks is the coordinator of the Aboriginal Health Initiative at the Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Clinical Assistant Professor in the Division of Community Health and Humanities. The primary mandate of the Aboriginal Health Initiative is to recruit Indigenous students from the province into medical school. In her professorship role, Carolyn implements curricular experiences to both undergraduate and post-graduate students about Indigenous Peoples and their wellbeing. The aim of these sessions is to nurture awareness of how to provide culturally safe health care to Indigenous patients, their families and communities. Carolyn is also a trained musician and holds the post of organist and choir director at George Street United Church in downtown St. John’s.
Ashoka Suri, Artistic Director of Limitless Productions (www.limitlessproductions.ca), is an award- winning established dance artist that uses performance art and story-telling as a tool for social change. Ashima is trained in Bharatanatyam and contemporary dance. Based in Canada, Ashima has toured her work to places such as Japan, France and London. She is an active performer and choreographer always seeking out ways to break down societal barriers through powerful use of story-telling. Some of her performance themes include bullying, sexuality and abuse. Ashima has choreographed and performed at the Toronto Fringe, TedX conference and WE Day. She has also performed for WDA in Vancouver and taught at the WDA Global Summit in Angers, France. She has been mentored by Canadian artists such as Tedd Robinson, Hiroshi Miyamato and Takako Segawa. She has launched several projects including Bolly Yoga and Cha & Chai, a project to empower women leaders in the arts.
Gina T’ai has been creating and crafting performances, dances, and spectacles for the better part of 20 years. She earned both her BA and MFA from Hollins University. She has been on faculty at Beloit College in Wisconsin since 2009. Her work has been presented at Performatica, World Dance Alliance- Americas, The American Dance Festival (ADF), Center for Performance Research (CPR), Richmond Dance Festival, Milwaukee Fringe Festival, and beyond. She has presented research at the National Dance Educators Organization (NDEO), the Congress on Research in Dance (CORD), and in Contact Quarterly (CQ). She is one half of Distance Dances (DistanceDances.org) along with fellow Hollins alum, Susan Honer.
Mary Beth Taylor started dancing more than 25 years ago in her hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. Her love of Irish culture led her to Dublin, where she pursued an MA in Irish Literature at University College Dublin, and became a TCRG (Registered Irish Dancing Teacher), with An Coimisiún le Rincí Gaelacha. After moving to Ireland, Mary Beth began learning sean-nós, (‘old style’) Irish percussive dancing, whilst recovering from a knee injury. She is now Director of Irish & Sean-Nós Dance Dublin, where she teaches
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learners of all ages and skill levels. Mary Beth has taught all over the world, including workshops in Ireland, the USA, Russia, Oman, New Zealand, Mexico, Germany, France, Sweden, and Denmark. A two-time recipient of the Arts Council of Ireland’s Deis Recording Award, she is the creator of two popular instructional DVDs, Sean-Nós Dance for Everyone (2011) and Sean-Nós Jigs for Everyone (2012).
Toronto Heritage Dance is a repertory company focusing on heritage works, most often from the 1960s through the 1990s and beyond, and on new creation by our heritage artists. Co-directed by Nenagh Leigh and Mary Jane Warner, our choreographers include Patricia Beatty, David Earle, Danny Grossman, Peter Randazzo, Nenagh Leigh, Carol Anderson, Robert Desrosiers, Holly Small, and Terrill Maguire. Our goal is to remount and perform important works to keep alive the key works that define our heritage. Michael Crabb in his “Notebook” column comments on a Toronto Heritage Dance performance stating “time would be well spent observing dances—new works and revivals … that were variously sensuous, clearly structured, emotionally charged and, dare I even use such a decadent word, at times achingly beautiful?” (Dance International Winter 2011). This year, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of Toronto Dance Theatre.
Tony Tucker started playing drum kit at the young age of 10 alongside his parents who played piano and organ. Throughout his teens he recorded and toured with diverse bands ranging from rock, traditional and folk including ECMA nominees The Danette Eddy Band and Potbelly. In the mid-nineties Tony began studying Flamenco, West African, Middle-Eastern and Latin percussion. In 1997, Tony joined the group El Viento Flamenco and perfected the complex Flamenco hand clapping and has added Cajon, Bongos, Darbuka and udo to the groups sound. El Viento has released three cd's, one of which has won the 2007 ECMA for Roots/Traditional Recording. The group has played with Symphony Nova Scotia, the Quebec, Thunder Bay, Edmonton and Victoria Symphonies, as well as the Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival, Atlantic Festival of Lights, PEI Folk and Jazz Festival, The Atlantic Film Festival and the prestigious Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival. Tony's passion for West African music has led him to study under master djembe players Famoudou Konate, Mohamed Kalifa Kamara, Mamady Keita and M'Bemba Bangoura. He's performed and traveled with fivepiece drum ensemble Fola specializing in Guinean percussion. The group has played at the annual Victoria Day Festival in Bermuda, The Atlantic Jazz Festival, The Multicultural Festival and Drum Festival in Halifax, NS. Tony is the founder of DUNUNGBEwhich includes local talented percussionists.
John Utans is an Australian choreographer, performer, installation artist and teacher. John has worked with many leading Australian and International artists, companies and independent projects including: the West Australian Ballet Company, Australian Dance Theatre, Human Veins Dance Theatre, the Queensland Ballet Company, Expressions Dance Company, Leigh Warren and Dancers, Dance Works, Hong Kong Opera Company, Milwaukee Ballet Company, Ryrie Woodbury Dance Company, Traverse City Dance Project, Michigan USA. Plus, teaching and choreographing for: The Victorian College of the Arts, Australian Ballet School, Queensland University of Technology and The AIT-Arts Adelaide. He is part of the judging panel of Jumping Frames: CCDC dance video competition. His choreographic works have been performed throughout Australia, Europe and Asia. His works created for HKAPA have been performed in London, Monaco, Brussels, Berlin, Frankfurt, Vienna, Amsterdam and Taiwan.
Cylene Walker-Willis is an Oklahoma dance educator, choreographer, and artist with a passion for facilitating community dance projects. In 1998 she helped build Second Man Ministries, a local liturgical dance and drama company and became its director in 1999, directing and producing plays, musical dramas, and dances until 2003. For the past four years Walker-Willis was an Artistic Director for Stillwater School of Performing Arts and The Art of Dance Company along with working as ballet coordinator and instructor for Dance Star Productions. Through her company, Brave Productions, she produced an annual community wide version of The Nutcracker as well as performing at City of Stillwater events including “Reading Flash Mob” sponsored by the public library. Most recently she performed in the 2015 Oklahoma Contemporary Dance Festival. She is currently pursuing her MFA in dance at Texas Woman’s University.
Hilary Walsh founded œros Aerial Dance Company with Keely Whitelaw in 2016. The company's mandate is to explore movement fully, integrating both strength and grace. Coming from strong dance and gymnastics backgrounds respectively, Hilary and Keely find aerial arts to be a new and exciting outlet
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form which to explore movement in a new and creative fashion. Together they bring strength and grace to the air by spinning, swinging, wrapping and dropping in aerial hammocks within the context of contemporary dance ideology. The experimentation with contemporary movement styles through the integration of the dance and aerial arts is intrinsic to the company’s creation process and mandate.
Mary Jane Warner (PhD) is the current President of the World Dance Alliance Americas. She taught in the dance program at York University (Toronto, Canada) for many years, serving as chair of the Dance Department and director of the Graduate Program. Her current research focuses on the development of dance in Canada prior to the founding of professional dance companies, and the preservation of the Canadian dance tradition through the remounting of Canadian contemporary dances by the company Toronto Heritage Dance that she co-directs with Nenagh Leigh. Her recent research concentrates on the teaching methodology of the Cuban National Ballet School.
Weidancecompany is a young professional contemporary dance company and was founded in 2013 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The company focuses on international cooperation and bringing new artists to Kaohsiung. Director Huang Cheng Wei graduated from Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA) and has been working with other contemporary dance companies such as Cloud Gate 2 and Century Contemporary Dance Company. The company worked with Claude Aymon, the director of c2a dance company, in Marseille, France in 2014 and 2016 and is searching for new collaborations with artists from around the globe.
Sonia York-Pryce’s life has been consumed with all forms of dance. She trained extensively in classical ballet and contemporary dance in the UK. Since migrating to Australia, she has merged this lived knowledge into her film-making and photography. Sonia has gained invaluable experience through artist residencies photographing dancers in Beijing, London, Birmingham, Stockholm and Australia. She holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts and Bachelor of Digital Media (Hons). In 2014, she commenced studies for a Master of Visual Arts with her research Ageism and the Mature Dancer. In November 2014 the research was upgraded to PhD. In September 2015 her film won the Gold AWARD for the inaugural Pavilion Dance South West " Joie De Vivre," short dance film competition documenting older dancers. Please see Interprete/Inappropriate Behaviour with 8 dancers responding https://vimeo.com/136466421. In March 2017, Sonia will be a Keynote speaker at The Age on Stage International Meeting Point in Stockholm. http://new.jusdelavie.org/?p=2238.
Judy Yiu is an international dance artist, gymnastics coach, and a yoga teacher. She received her MFA in Dance at Hollins University in 2015, with a full scholarship supported by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Music and Dance Fund. Her thesis film Place in Motion was selected for The 34th International Festival of Films on Art, Montréal, Canada (2016), American Dance Festival’s International Screendance Festival (2015) and Detroit Dance City Festival (2015). Her 3D dance movie Inspiration was selected into the 6th Jumping Frames International Dance Video Festival and the 1st Greensboro Dance Video Festival (2014). She won the Emerging Artists Scheme (2013) and Jockey Club Performing Arts Venue Subsidy Scheme (2013), both awarded by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. Judy majored in Choreography in the Contemporary Dance Bachelor of Fine Arts program at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA).
Shiu-Chin Yu holds a BFA in choreography from Taiwan's National Institute of the Arts (1991) and an MFA in dance from Sarah Lawrence College (1993). She has been the recipient of a J. William Fulbright scholarship and several commissions, and has been a guest teacher and choreographer in Europe and Taiwan. She is the founder of the dance company “The Somatic Theater Company.” From 1997 to 2009, she resided in Germany where she worked as a choreographer and dance teacher, as well as a critic. Throughout her career, she has choreographed more than 50 dances. Since August 2009, she has been a fulltime Assistant Professor for the Department of Performing Arts at Shu-Te University. Shiu-Chin Yu has thirty years of teaching experience, and has taught master classes in many different countries, such as the USA, China, Russia, Germany, France, Korea, and Taiwan.
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
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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 the Americas, Europe, North Africa, Central and Western Asia, and Middle East, promoting cultural dialogue through intensive fieldworks, residencies, performances, and creative collaborations. In 2011, he received the honorary titles of Master of Dance from Uzbekistan State Institute of Choreography in Tashkent as well as Honorary Faculty Member at this institute for his work and contribution to dance in Uzbekistan in 2011. In 2012, Sashar Zarif was awarded a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.
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KITCHEN PARTY
The original Kitchen Party took place in houses across Newfoundland as neighbours gathered regularly on a Saturday night to provide their own entertainment in the kitchen or other suitable space, combining good conversation, food and drink, music and step dancing. The music was Celtic based but eclectic, featuring traditional jigs and reels, sea shanties and ballads, but now incorporating other genres from country and western, to rock and roll and the latest styles. Although the tradition of household entertainment still happens within the family home, Celtic music has grown into an important part of the province's music industry, with musicians performing in nightclubs, pubs, concert halls as well as recording studios.
St. John’s has a vibrant music scene but it really gets going around 10:30 pm. Come celebrate the conclusion of the WDA Global Summit by joining both old and new friends at The Ship Pub in downtown St. John's for a traditional kitchen party.
Our party will feature musician Larry Foley who plays music and sings songs in St. John’s Newfoundland. He is a founding member of The Punters, a Celtic band with six albums and almost twenty years to their credit. He also performs as bass player for the Juno award winning group, The Irish Descendent. On Sundays he programs Potluck, a radio show dedicated to the roots music of Newfoundland and Labrador. Foley has performed across Canada, the eastern United States and Europe. His band will begin playing at 10:30 pm, the normal time for the St John's music scene.
The Ship Pub serves traditional Newfoundland fare. If you want to experience a full meal, get there before 8:00 pm, but snacks and drinks are available throughout the evening.
If you purchased your ticket to the party just show it at the door. If you didn’t purchase a ticket in advance, you can purchase one at the The Ship, subject to space availability.
See you at THE SHIP PUB 265 Duckworth Street Phone: 705 753 3870
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WORLD DANCE ALLIANCE
Global Executive
Secretary General Mohd Anis Mohd Nor
Past Secretary General Cheryl Stock
Linda Caldwell Julie Dyson Urmimala Sarkar Munsi Yunyu Wang Mary Jane Warner Jin-Wen Yu
WDA Americas Area Vice Presidents: East Asia – Anna Chan (Hong Kong) President - Mary Jane Warner (Canada) South East Asia – Bilqis Hijjas (Malaysia) Past President – Jin-Wen Yu (USA) Pacific – Anton Carter (Aotearoa/New Zealand) Area Vice Presidents: North America – Linda Caldwell (USA) Secretary – Julie Dyson (Australia) South America – Alba Vieira (Brazil) Treasurer – Jeff Hsieh (Taiwan) Central America/Atlantic & Caribbean Islands – Alejandra Garavito Network Chairs: (Guatemala) Creation & Presentation – Joelle Jacinto (Philippines) Secretary – Tanya Evidente (Canada) Education & Training – Ralph Buck (New Treasurer – Karl Gossot (USA) Zealand), Jeff Meiners (Australia) Research & Documentation – Urmimala Board Members: Sarkar Munsi (India), Stephanie Catherine Limbertie Burridge (Singapore) Zihao Li Support & Development – Bilqis Hijjas (Malaysia) Network Chairs: Creation & Presentation – Falon Baltzell & Melissa Sanderson (USA) Europe is in development under the leadership Education & Training – Ann Kipling Brown of Fiona Bannon (United Kingdom) (Canada) & Sara Murdock (USA) Research & Documentation – Linda Caldwell & Evadne Kelly (USA) Support & Development – Jilissa Cotton (USA)
WDA Asia-Pacific
President – Yunyu Wang (Taiwan) Vice President – Urmimala Sarkar Munsi (India)
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Convenors Kristin Harris Walsh Workshops and Master Classes Evadne Kelly Committee Mary Jane Warner Ann Kipling Brown Tanya Evidente Program Committee Mary-Elizabeth Manley Falon Baltzell Michele Moss Linda Caldwell Sara Murdock Kristin Harris Walsh Suhasini Venkataramani Evadne Kelly Ann Kipling Brown Translation Melissa Sanderson Miriana Lausic Arratia Mary Jane Warner Catherine Limbertie
Scholarly Presentations Review Social Media Committee Emma Doran, Kristin Harris Walsh Fiona Bannon Lynn Matluck Brooks Performance Printed Programs Stephanie Burridge Miriana Lausic Arratia Linda Caldwell Lucinda Coleman Website Luke Forbes Wendy Limbertie Catherine Limbertie Ann Moradian Technical Assistance: Ilana Morgan Kiattipoom Nantanukul Cook Recital Hall Lourdes Pelaez Peter Stanbridge - Concerts and Facilities Urmimala Sarkar Munsi Coordinator Jeannette Soria Rich Blenkinsopp – Music Technologist Bethany Whiteside Kassandra - Anne Demers – Stage Manager Holly Winter - Lighting and Sound Performance Committee Seika Boye LSPU Hall Linda Caldwell Aaron Kelly - Production Manager and Carolyne Clare Lighting Designer Cristina Goletti Suzanne Mullet - General Manager Kristin Harris Walsh Mike Hammond - Box Office Facilities Evadne Kelly Manager Nenagh Leigh Robert Gauthier - Technical Director Zihao Li Pat Dempsey, Phil Winters - Technicians Shannon Mockli Aaron Kelly - Festival Lighting Plot Design Colleen Quigley Crystal Laffoley – Stage Manager Melissa Sanderson Emily Carrigan - Administrative Assistant Joanna Stone Danielle Hamel - Marketing and Melissa Templeton Communications Officer Megan Yankee Faculty and Staff, Memorial University of Digital Concert Committee Newfoundland and Labrador Ilana Goldman Kristin Harris Walsh – Education Specialist, Shannon Mockli Centre for Collaborative Health Melissa Sanderson Professional Education Natalie Beausoleil - Professor of Social
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Science and Health Mary Garnier, Conference Manager Kim Simms - Program Assistant, St. John’s and broader Newfoundland Conference Centre Community Yuri Gidge -Residence Coordinator Candice Pike, President DanceNL Peter Stanbridge, School of Music Calla Lachance, Neighbourhood Dance Carolyn Sturge Sparks - Coordinator, Works Aboriginal Health Initiative Corie Harnett Harris Berger, Director of MMaP Antonia Francis, Volunteer Coordinator Margaret Sleet, Dean, Faculty of Medicine Peter Rompkey, Operations Manager, Beverley Diamond - Professor Emerita St. John’s Arts and Culture Centre Ian Sutherland, Dean, School of Music Cyrena Eddy, Destination St. John’s Staff at School of Music Staff at Faculty of Medicine
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