NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020
PANDEMIC DANCEFILMS A look into COVID-19 creations
CHRONIC PAIN
Experts talk about the healing powers of dance
EMPTY SEATS AT THE TABLE The lack of support for artist-parents
Display until January 6, 2021 / $8.25
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Athletic Art
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That’s a Wrap
To cap off 2020, we are celebrating the persistence of dance communities across Canada and showcasing some of the dancefilms created during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Empty Seats At The Table
Tracey Norman writes about how the absence of artist-parents during the pandemic will affect the future of dance and how the current times have magnified the lack of support for these parents.
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Let’s Talk About Chronic Pain
Sima Chowdhury talks with three experts about how dance can help chronic pain patients.
On the cover: Meghann Michalsky, Nicole Charlton Goodbrand and Tania Alvarado in Linnea Swan’s Made Up / Photo by Alexander J. Slobodian This page: Dana Michel (Empty Seats At The Table p.32) / Photo by Richmond Lam
features
by ainsley hawthorn
VOLUME 23, ISSUE 6 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020
Shae-Lynn Bourne is a three-time Olympian ice dancer from Chatham, Ontario, who now works as a choreographer. The unexpected career change has led Bourne to find more joy within skating, now that she no longer competes.
thedancecurrent.com
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FRONT OF HOUSE 6 Editor's Letter Featured Contributors 8 Online
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WARM-UP 9 Movers Heath V. Salazar: Manifesting politics into drag
by emily latimer
Gurdeep Pandher: During the pandemic, videos of the bhangra dancer have gone viral by saad rajper
12 Awards 13 Check It Out
in every issue
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A dancefilm a day on Instagram @danceprompts by anne dion
14 Inspire
Dance artists predict what they think 2021 has in store by patricia allison
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16 The Inspired List Guinevere Last of Halifax Circus 17 Body
The difference between mobility and flexibility by erika mayall
18 Practice
Nova Bhattacharya and Louis Laberge-Côté’s partnership avoids the fetishistic guise of “fusion dance” by brannavy jeyasundaram
BACKSTAGE 44 Audition Directory 48 Event Previews 50 Poetry
Serenade
by kendra guidolin
Salazar / Photo by Sly Pereira Laberge-Côté and Bhattacharya / Photo by John Lauener Pandher / Photo by Mark Kelly
the dance current NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020
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photo essay
THAT’S A WRAP
Dancefilm, as an art form, is by no means a new medium, but after theatres were shut down and choreographers and dancers found themselves without a stage, an impressive amount of dancefilms were produced. So, to wrap up the year, we are celebrating the persistence of dance communities across Canada and showcasing some of the dancefilms created during the COVID-19 pandemic. You can find more dancefilms online >> thedancecurrent.com/news-article/thats-wrap
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the dance current NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020
Dancefilms created during the COVID-19 pandemic
Sommaire La cinédanse n’en est pas à son premier tour de piste comme forme d’art. Mais avec la fermeture des salles de spectacles, les chorégraphes et interprètes se sont trouvé.e.s sans scène. S’ensuit la réalisation d’une quantité impressionnante de productions en cinédanse. Pour clore l’année, nous célébrons la persistance des communautés de danse au Canada et mettons en vedette certains films créés pendant la pandémie de COVID-19.
thedancecurrent.com
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Empty Seats at the Table For artist-mothers, the pandemic has magnified the lack of support by tracey norman
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the dance current NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020
Students of York University in class with Norman and her daughter Pearl / Photo by Raphael Roter
feature
Author’s Note: I wish to acknowledge the large group of artists I spoke to for this article, especially those whose specific voices there isn’t space for here. I wish to also hold space for the mothers who couldn’t find the time to talk or write, and those whom I couldn’t find time to reach out to. I’ve made the choice to focus this writing through the lens of motherhood but wish to acknowledge the parallels for all caregivers. Thank you to the artists who contributed: Meryem Alaoui, Kate Alton, Megan Andrews, Tanya Berg, Jennifer Bolt, Blessyl Buan, Susie Burpee, Justine A. Chambers, Emily Cheung, Susanne Chui, Allison Cummings, Alison Daley, Jennifer Dallas, Jesse Dell, Lisa Emmons, Marie France Forcier, Jenn Goodwin, Kate Hilliard, Kate Holden, Neena Jayarajan, Suzanne Liska, Sarah Lochhead, Diana Lopez Soto, Dana Michel, Sally Morgan, Caroline Niklas-Gordon, Bee Pallomina, Jillian Peever, Sara Porter, Natasha Powell, Kathleen Rea, Jessica Runge, Lucy Rupert, Takako Segawa, Liisa Smith, Heidi Strauss, Anisa Tejpar, Melissa Templeton, Sandrine Vachon, Elena Vazintaris.
I
t’s three weeks into the COVID-19 pandemic and I’m already exhausted as the main caregiver of two small children during the day, while working all hours of the night to complete the dance courses I’ve been teaching at York University, now moved online. I want to do a solid job for these students; I’m also about to get the last paycheque I’ll receive for some time. Carrying my younger daughter downstairs following her afternoon nap, I feel a wave of dizziness before missing the last four steps, tripping and landing with some toes facing the wrong direction. My daughter is safely bound to my chest. After multiple hospital visits, I begin the long journey to heal two fully dislocated toes and an avulsion fracture. I get around the house on a wheeling office chair while playing with my two-year-old and five-year-old, cancelling projects, and grading papers, sometimes all at once. For months I don’t allow myself to mourn a lost show opening and cancelled projects but instead focus on the kids. Collective anger and sadness are all around us and I don’t feel any right to speak to personal loss. The grief hits me in early July when I learn that over half of my regular teaching contract for the fall has been reallocated. Times are scarce — I get it. But this was the moment I knew we could no longer afford even our part-time, subsidized childcare for the coming year. I am an artist, that’s the lens through which I view the world, but practicing art feels less attainable than ever. Around the same time that I found out I was losing work, I came across a Facebook post by Kathleen Rea, a Toronto colleague of mine. A mother of two who wears multiple hats in the community including producer, choreographer and performer, Rea has been incredibly active in galvanizing the community via social media. In her post, she wrote about the absence of artist-mothers since the onset of the pandemic, “It should be a major concern with specialized support yet it is not being talked about. The people who would bring up this topic are likely not there at the meetings because they are taking care of children. It is especially hard for those such as myself who as a female choreographer faced the systemic uphill battle of trying to get our careers going.” The multitude of mothers who
responded to her post inspired me to write this piece. I was raised on a farm in southwestern Ontario in a multigenerational household. Choosing to live in Toronto for my work as a dance artist and my partner’s work as a television producer means we live without familial support. This is true of many artists. In times past, I felt connected to my dance community, but this has been strained since having children, and even more so during the pandemic. I began extensive research for this article in August, calling on forty artist-mothers, many of whom I know in some context. I spoke with artists in Calgary, Halifax, Montréal, Toronto, Vancouver and various rural areas. Ranging in age, they represent different dance forms and backgrounds; most identify as mid-career and have children under fourteen-years old. Our conversations focused on the future of dance, who might be leading the way, artmaking models that are congruent with parenting, and how this pandemic has magnified the lack of support for artist-parents. While my discussions with mothers were situated in this pandemic period, it’s clear that the obstacles that exist have always been present and that the act of choosing to be both an artist and mother is subversive. “Over the last two years, I have become aware that (in most instances) I am the only person who will defend or take care of my motherhood within our work culture. The pandemic and its slowing down, its pause, has put me in a position where, for a period of time, I don’t have to defend or advocate for it and it’s a relief to function without that tension,” says Justine A. Chambers, a Vancouver-based choreographer, dancer, teacher and mother of a five-year-old, via email. Many artists also acknowledged the notion that once we re-enter the fold after having children and engage with a community made up of mostly non-parents, we not only need to reach the level of engagement we were previously at, but prove our commitment even more so. Many of our narratives include feeling pressured into rushing back to work after meeting our children for the first time, an early sign of incongruence. As a first-time parent, I found myself in production for a DanceWorks Mainstage show on thedancecurrent.com
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poetry
Serenade
by kendra guidolin
Lay yourself down to breathe with watery lungs. An astringent soak drowns sweat stains. Seeps through darkened cotton outlines. Inhale to hold it all in; don’t let your skin’s wetness spread. My arid lips meet yours onstage, and my tongue backstage. Peel off layers to let them air-dry, to save your skin from wrinkling, losing its taut elastic. Tape up those burst blisters with liquid skin. Spritz mint Biotène. Wash it all down with nitrogen and tonic. Watch for the cue
Photo courtesy of Unsplash
and leave the shower running all night to steam out the kinks in the crinoline.