Welcome Kicking Horse Culture in Golden, BC

Made in BC welcomes Kicking Horse Culture as the newest member of the MiBC network!  Bill Usher sent us this account of their International Dance Day celebrations...

With support from Made in BC, KHC created a 3 day outreach residency with the Golden community that led to the creation of 30 minutes of theatrical movement/dance performance for an audience of 280 as an opening act to Motus O’s Circus Terrifico on April 8. Workshop leaders were Kat Single-Dain and James Croker along with the three other dancers of Motus O. The combined workshop leaders delivered a total of 12 hours of engagement with approximately 75 children, youth and adults.

We partnered with passionate teachers and administrators at three SD6 schools: Lady Grey Elementary School, Nicholson Elementary School and Golden Secondary School. In addition we partnered with the 15 member youth/adult A-Muse Troupe collective to spread the word and populate the workshops. 

We benefited from tremendous buy-in from the local schools and the adult A-Muse Troupe collective. This buy-in facilitated tremendous word-of-mouth outreach to the general population and put 280 in to the seats to see both the community opening act and the Circus Terrifico performance.

Motus O’s James Croker is very experienced and skilled at inspiring and leading the community groups to explore their own creativity while developing a basic understanding of movement skills, stage craft and theatrical performance. There was no flagging interest and joy pervaded all of the workshops and culminated in a spectacularly enthusiastic performance by the locals on the final night.

Much professional development was “left behind” in the community once the 5 dancers had left town. We found that about a half dozen of the youth/adult A-Muse Troupe came to learn and participate in the afternoon student workshops as “group” leaders under James’ leadership and direction. So, not only were they learning the “what” they were also learning from James “how” to lead and inspire so many students towards a collaborative and creative effort. The youth and adults of the A-Muse Troupe collective also found a soulmate in Kat Single-Dain of Dusty Flowerpot Cabaret. Kat’s professional skills and theatrical experience along with a youthful affinity with the artistic vision of A-Muse Troupe generated a wealth of activity and professional development for our locals.

Altogether, this outreach dramatically and successfully built upon the groundwork we have been building in Golden these past few years and will support us immensely as we work to build further on these successes.

Salt Spring Island flashmobs the market on International Dance Day

Anna Haltrecht sent this note from Salt Spring:

The Salt Spring Lobby Dancers performed their FlashMob in two Salt Spring Ganges downtown locations; Salt Spring Coffee Company Café and the Saturday Market on Saturday April 30 in Honour of International Dance Day 2011. It was a hoot to dance in the small space of the café amongst the pleasantly surprised coffee drinkers.

In the Market, one of the dancers began to sing and play his guitar in the busker’s spot, and as he finished his song, the sound technician hit the start button and we danced to our recorded music. An audience member happened to have his camera with him and he put his video up on youtube.

Comments from dancers: “Thanks so much for this experience - I really enjoyed it!!!  You are a great teacher!!”

I received another note from one of the dancers, a mother of a 10 year old girl who had joined the group. The mother joined after sitting and watching a couple of rehearsals. It seemed to make more sense to dance than remain sitting!

 “Thank you for all your dance enthusiasm. I had never taken any dance class EVER and was initially intimidated. I am totally inspired now. Thank you for encouraging us to dance.”

We need to dance together to transform our lives, to be active and have fun while doing so. And thereby keep dance alive in our community. This project did just that!
- Anna Haltrecht

Another fun dance event on Salt Spring sponsored by ArtSpring, The Dance Centre and Made in BC-Dance on Tour.  This FlashMob was originally performed in February as part of BC Spirit Festival.

Wen Wei Dance on Salt Spring

This just in from MiBC outreach coordinator Anna Haltrecht... Thanks Anna!


"International Dance Day came early on Salt Spring. On Tuesday April 27, I showed the recent works of Wen Wei Wang on film and talked about his life growing up and studying dance in China. There was no admission charge for this event. I chose to do this for IDD as his company, Wen Wei Dance, was scheduled to perform his newest piece “Cock-Pit” at our local art centre, ArtSpring, the following week. I was thrilled that George Sipos, executive director of ArtSpring, chose to present Wen Wei Dance as part of ArtSpring’s 2009/10 dance season. Salt Spring was the last stop on the dance company’s cross country tour.

The company was presented without the financial assistance of Made in BC – Dance on Tour. The whole event was a success. Forty people attended the film evening which I am sure contributed to a sold out audience for the performance and 15 participants for the community workshop. Wen Wei Dance’s manager graciously sent me DVDs of recent Wen Wei Dance work. I chose excerpts to show plus I found 2 clips on you tube of the “White Haired Girl” and the “Red Detachment of Women”, two iconic ballets from the Cultural Revolution, the period of time that Wen Wei studied dance in China. I researched Wen Wei’s life on-line, finding lots of interesting material to use as a source for my talk. To set the scene, while the audience entered the theatre, I showed a slide show of Wen Wei Dance photos. I started the evening with the story of Wen Wei growing up in China and his love for dance beginning with seeing a performance of the “White Haired Girl”. I then showed the clips of the 2 Chinese ballets to demonstrate Wen Wei’s dance roots.

I continued talking about how he came to Canada and founded his own company, followed by an excerpt from his solo, “One Man’s…”. After telling about Wen Wei’s inspiration for “Unbound”, I showed about 30 minutes of this excellent dance. I then explained about “Three Sixty Five” and showed one excerpt from this piece. The evening ended with comments from the audience and the impressive “Cock-Pit” trailer, with a reminder of the date of the upcoming performance, and the community workshop Wen Wei was teaching. I had a great time, I could have talked all night!

Many of the people that came to the evening already had their “Cock-Pit” tickets, but many others did not and used this showing as an indicator that this dance performance was not to be missed. One gentleman came up to me after the dance performance and said that he had previous plans for that evening but cancelled them on attending the film night, and he certainly was glad he did.

To promote the Wen Wei Dance events, I made a flyer which ArtSpring made into a post card, I wrote 2 press releases one each for the film night and workshop, I sent several emails to my extensive list as well as to the local and provincial politicians. I posted the information on all the local calendars, put up the flyers and distributed the cards, arranged for the local paper to do an interview with Wen Wei and dance review, and arranged company workshops with the high school. As well, ArtSpring put advertisements in the paper, and sent promotion by email and regular post.

I believe all this work had a very positive effect; it got a buzz going on the island. People came to the performance that had never been to a dance performance previously; over 30 high school students came and many artists as well as our loyal dance lovers. Half the audience stayed for the post-performance chat which I facilitated. There was incredible interest in this remarkable choreographer and his fabulous dancers. Many thoughtful questions were asked, Wen Wei was very gracious in his answers and explanations. I also mentioned that Josh Martin would be returning in the fall as part of the Made in BC – Dance on Tour performance of his company, 605.

Wen Wei Dance helped grow our contemporary dance audience, people are still talking about it. The film evening I led, the workshops and the wonderful performance of “Cock-Pit” all contributed. As written in the local paper, the Driftwood: “It seems that ArtSpring, at long last, has found its contemporary dance audience and one only hopes that Tuesday night’s crowd will remember this performance and return to sample the dance fare on the ArtSpring menu in the 2010-11 season.”

Yes, Salt Spring is well on it’s way to putting contemporary dance on the map, however, we know that we can not falter, we still need to continue our work and we still need financial support from our provincial and federal art funding organizations, Made in BC-Dance on Tour, BC Arts Council and Canadian Heritage."

*****
The IDD Wen Wei Dance film and talk evening event was sponsored by: ArtSpring, Made in BC-Dance on Tour, The Dance Centre, Dancer Transition Resource Centre-BC Office and the Canadian Alliance of Dance Artists/BC Chapter.
*****
Photos of Wen Wei Dance courtesy of Wen Wei Dance

Photo of Anna Haltrecht courtesy of Anna Haltrecht

Dance USA - Audience Engagement Study

I recently found this study quite interesting for a getting a sense of what's going on out there in the land of audience engagement, beyond the Made in BC network. It's from the perspective of members of Dance USA.

http://www.danceusa.org/engagingdanceaudiences

Salt Spring Island Lobby Dancers have a new piece up!

Anna Haltrecht, Salt Spring Island's MiBC dance outreach coordinator, writes about the Lobby Dancers' summer adventures with visiting artist Danny McCusker....

"It looked like my dream was about to come true – to have the Salt Spring Lobby Dancers perform on stage with a professional dance company. triPOD dance collective, from Victoria, is the first Made in BC sponsored dance company for the 09/10 ArtSpring season.

One of the community dancers, Robbyn Scott, is a member of triPOD. Robbyn and I organized a week long workshop with Danny McCusker (from Boston), to create a piece of choreography for dancers from both groups to be performed in the September 26 performance.

We began the creation process on Saturday, May 9. Danny gave us different sources to use for creating choreography in duets. As a community Lobby Dancer, it was fun to be paired with a triPOD professional dancer. At the end of the week we had created a 17 minute dance called “Keep Talking”, which we performed at an informal studio showing for friends and family. We were 10 dancers.

Throughout the summer Robbyn and I taught a weekly class where we also rehearsed the piece. Then we learned that triPOD could not have the piece be part of the September performance as their show was already very long. We were disappointed, but we asked the next Made in BC company, MovEnt and Tara Cheyenne if we could be their curtain raiser and they enthusiastically agreed. The bonus is we have more rehearsal time, the performance is November 5.

I will have to wait a little longer to have my original dream come true however what is important is the Salt Spring Lobby Dancers are dancing together and having a super time.

Project sponsored by Made in BC - Dance on Tour, ArtSpring, Salt Spring Coffee Company, Cats Pajamas Studio, Antler Ridge Studio.