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 Café. 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!!