Thursday, November 25, 2010

And from Kelowna...

Thanks to Margaret Gobie from the Rotary Centre for the Arts in Kelowna for this!
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The 605 Collective and the re
sponse. were in Kelowna at the Rotary Centre for the Arts on Oct 15 & 16. Amber Funk Barton and Josh Martin lead a community workshop on the Friday evening and had 17 enthusiastic students ranging in age from 14 to 40 (see photos) Two days before the workshop we only had 2 students signed up, but the word went around and many of the students came from the performance program in the Creative and Critical Studies Department at UBC Okanagan. One of these students marveled later “His (Josh Martin) body is so fluid – he has no physical blocks at all.” There was a real appreciation for the skill and athleticism of the dancers. Some members of our audience in Kelowna were seeing this kind of dance for the first time.

After the Performance on Oct 16, we had a talk back session with the dancers in the Theatre. 38 people, out of 121 total audience members, stayed for the chat, including members of the dance community – three teachers, an administrator, and most of the students from the workshop, who also brought their friends. Amber started the Q&A while the 605 group caught their breath and a drink of water. We had dancers and dance teachers in the audience who picked up the questioning rather quickly asking everything from the dancers backgrounds to details on their daily training.

An audience member, who was in the front row with her friend, told the dancers that she’d never seen contemporary dance before and that she had loved the show. All in all a great success for us and a real opportunity to give Kelowna audiences a look at what is happening just down the road in Vancouver and in contemporary dance.


And the word from Salt Spring...

Thanks Anna Haltrecht for this report!

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The dance performance of The 605 Collective and the response. on Salt Spring was fantastic! The local young dancers from the high school in the Gulf Islands School of the Performing Arts were the curtain raiser.

Sonia Langer, the high school teacher choreographed the dance with the dancers. They called it “Heartbeat” and set it to music by Electric President. The local dance reviewer wrote: “…it was the tightest, most well-rehearsed high school dance number seen on Salt Spring’s stage”. It was a great match having the high school dancers do the curtain raiser. It supports these young dancers and they are very appreciative to be able to dance on the same stage as the professionals. The piece was both strong and fluid, and it really helped sell seats, 99 youth tickets were sold out of 243. Our theatre holds 265 so we nearly had a sold out house.

This was a fun dance performance to promote. It was great to have so much wonderful material to use - striking posters and cards, effective video clips on youtube and informative press kits. I found I just had to say the words - new, young, fresh, energetic, & everyone was ready to go.

The dancers were very generous with their time. Josh and Amber did a phone interview with the local journalist who wrote a preview article. Shay and Amber did a live phone interview with the local radio station just after their arrival on the island. They taught 3 workshops at the high school and an evening workshop for the community. I especially love the mixed age community workshops, they are always so special, this time the ages ranged from 8-66 years and all the dance teachers attended plus some keen high school dance students. The next morning we had a “meet the dancers” at the Salt Spring Coffee Company CafĂ©. Only a few fans came out but it was a lovely hospitality event for the dancers.

I facilitated the post-performance chat and then the dancers, tech crew and a few fans went out for food and drink which is always a fun way to close the evening, casual and relaxing.

The dance review, which appeared in the following week’s paper, was excellent with a photo of the local curtain raiser dancers featured.

Once again Made in BC-Dance on Tour helped put contemporary dance on Salt Spring’s map!!


The word from Courtney...

Pam Brown, acting GM at the Sid Williams Theatre, sent us this update:
On November 4th and 5th, 2010, 180 audience members and 32 students from local dance studios in the Comox Valley in BC experienced Fused. This contemporary dance event with 605 Collective and The Response Dance Company was successful in educating and entertaining students and audience members alike. Thanks to Made in BC the Sid Williams Theatre Society and Gemini Dance Studios were able to host 2 workshops, a pre and post show chat and a cutting edge contemporary dance performance. Many thanks to all the people to attended and worked hard in making this event successful.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

605 and the response Residency in Smithers

Made in BC tried out something new this season: a trial residency in Smithers, with the touring companies the 605 Collective and the response. Miriam Colvin (who has just started a new residency project of her own, which I hope we'll get to hear about soon) sent us these photos and a description of what they got up to.
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Amber Funk Barton, Shay Keubler and Josh Martin remained in Smithers for a 4 day Residency. During the day, the artists worked on their own choreography and explored the natural landscapes of the Bulkley Valley. In the evenings, they led skill-building and dance-making workshops for 7 members of the community. On Thursday, October 7th we hosted a studio showing featuring exercises we had explored and a structured dance composition. Participants enjoyed the highly physical experience and the chance to gain insight into these artists' creation processes.





Wednesday, November 10, 2010

605/the response in Kitimat

Thanks Anna-Marie Carstens, MiBC Dance Outreach Coordinator in Kitimat, for this!

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The 605 Collective and the response. came to Kitimat on September 27th for their “Hero and Heroine” and “AUDIBLE” performance on Wednesday, September 29th. On the afternoon of the 27th, Josh Martin and Shay Kuebler already led a workshop with dancers from Dance Kitimat. The dancers enjoyed the “cool moves” and did their best to get it right. Dwight Magee from fineartsgrafics (http://www.fineartgrafics.com/ ) stopped by to take pictures of the workshop in progress. After the workshop they had an informal chat with the dancers.

Tuesday morning, Lisa Gelley and Maiko Myauchi worked their magic with Rick Jones’ high school musical theatre class. This group of 30 or so aspiring young actors will be performing the Wizard of Oz in January 2011. The students found this workshop very useful, because they will have to learn some choreography for the show and many are non-dancers. Some students were a little shy, but the majority had a blast and a few demonstrated astounding moves that even the experienced dancers hadn’t seen before!

The Wednesday evening of the performance, I was a little worried, because it had been decided that this contemporary dance show would fall outside of the regular Kitimat Concert Association Season as en “Extra”, in other words, we could not count on the 70 or so Season Ticket holders to attend. The final count was 120 which was not bad. It constitutes about 1.5% of the total population of Kitimat, but Michael Jeffery from the KCA said he definitely prefers weekend shows, as the turnout is always much better on a weekend.

Everyone enjoyed the performance, even those who had never been to a dance performance before. You know it was good when a 16-year old guy says to you after “Hero and Heroine : “Wasn’t that kinda short?”, even though it was about a 40 minute performance. For him and many others, this was their first exposure to contemporary dance and they were impressed. The highly demanding and very energetic “AUDIBLE” was definitely also a hit. The audience was very impressed with the dancers’ skill and stamina.

After the ball was set rolling for the post-show chat, members of the audience asked questions directly to the dancers. A marathon runner, clearly impressed with the dancers’ level of fitness, wanted to know how many hours per day they trained. “AUDIBLE” also sparked discussion about modern day impersonal high-tech communication and how different it was from ways of communicating in the past. It became clear that this type of communication came quite naturally to the under 20 crowd while older people still found it strange.

After the post-show chat, the dancers and crew attended a post-show reception with members of the Kitimat Concert Association. This is a KCA tradition with lots to eat and drink and a great opportunity to interact with performers in a social setting.

It was great to have the dancers in Kitimat. Like the previous MiBC tours, they helped to blaze the trail for future contemporary dance shows in Kitimat. We are looking forward to the next season and outreach planning has started already.