Spring 2023 PREVIEW by The Dance Current

ONCE MORE WITH FEELING

Nath Keo, Casimiro Nhussi, Emily Cheung, Zab Maboungou

DIRECTING THE LIGHTHOUSE

Josh Murphy redefines visibility CHOSEN

KINSHIP

What does your community look like?

Display until July 5, 2023 / $11.95 ON COMMUNITY spring 2023

ON THE COVER

PHOTO ESSAY

30 Chosen Kinship

What does your community look like?

CURRENTS

WHAT’S ON?

10 Event Previews

12 Kunal Ranchod Is Staging Stories

Ballet Rarely Tells

The choreographer’s upcoming mixed program shares personal stories of immigration, love and renewal

by lucy fandel

HISTORICAL MOMENTS

13 25 Years of The Dance Current

Founding editor Megan Andrews reflects on the publication’s trajectory since its humble beginnings a quarter-century ago by clara chemtov

SPONSORED CONTENT

39 A New Name for a New Era

The School of Toronto Dance Theatre takes a bold step forward with a move to a state-of-the-art space and a new name.”

LOVE LETTER

41 I Take to the Road

Reflections on learning from communities in the field by michèle moss

POETRY

42 Finding flow with the floor

by stefanie tsabar

thedancecurrent.com 3 Volume 26 Issue 2 spring 2023 30 24 41 Artists in 2021 dancefilm Patterns / Photo by Jared Reid; Noir / Photo by Steve MacLeod (@stationdrg); Photo courtesy of Michèle Moss On the cover: Artists in Nova Dance’s Svāhā! / Photo by Dahlia Katz contents ONCE MORE WITH FEELING Nath Keo, Casimiro Nhussi, Emily Cheung, Zab Maboungou DIRECTING THE LIGHTHOUSE Josh Murphy redefines visibility CHOSEN KINSHIP What does your community look like? ON COMMUNITY 2023 DEPARTMENTS 4 Masthead 6 Digital Reads 7 Editor’s Letter 8 Contributors 9 Letter to the Editor

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Anne Dion

ART DIRECTOR Lois Kim

COPY EDITOR Cindy Brett

MANAGING EDITOR Swadhi Ranganee DIRECTOR OF MARKETING AND DEVELOPMENT Emily Pettet

FACT CHECKER Rahaf Al-Farawi

TRANSLATOR Marie Claire Forté

PRINTER Annex Business Media

EDITORIAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE Olivia C. Davies, Ralph Escamillan, Jillian Groening, Helen Simard, Lee Slinger, Nikola Steer, Philip Szporer

BOARD OF DIRECTORS FOR DANCE MEDIA GROUP/GROUPE DANSE MÉDIA

Emma Doran (Chair), Danae Li (Treasurer), Neena Jayarajan, Terry Jenkins-Bricel, Tia Kushniruk, Rachel Xie

FOUNDING EDITOR Megan Andrews

The Dance Current’s list of subscribers is occasionally used by other organizations to do one-time mailings of information our readers might be interested in. Please contact us if you would prefer not to receive these mailings. The opinions of the columnists are not necessarily those of The Dance Current. While we make reasonable efforts to ensure accuracy and safety, neither The Dance Current nor its publisher, nor Dance Media Group/Groupe Danse Média, nor any of their boards, committees, advisors or office bearers, jointly or severally, may be held liable for any loss arising from any action taken or not taken based upon information contained in any edition or issue of The Dance Current heretofore or hereafter. Any reproduction by any means is a violation of copyright unless written approval is obtained through the publisher. ISSN 1496-1415 (Print) ISSN 2561-6676 (Online) HST: 85356-1538 RT0001 CIRCULATION: PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT NO. 40048414 RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO CIRCULATION DEPT. 410 Jarvis Street, Third Floor, Toronto, ON M4Y 2G6 Email: office@thedancecurrent.com Member of Magazines Canada. The Dance Current is a Dance Media Group/Groupe Danse Média publication.

THANK YOU TO OUR FUNDERS:

an Ontario government agency un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.

We would like to acknowledge funding support from the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada. Nous reconnaissons l’appui financier du gouvernement du Canada.

The Dance Current gratefully acknowledges the support of Tips column sponsor Geneniève Renaud, Photo essay sponsor The Fifth Dance, Feature profiles sponsor L’École de Danse de Québec, Love letter column sponsor The Shoe Room at Canada’s National Ballet School, Body column sponsor JFu Chiropractic and education sponsor York University Department of Dance.

4 the dance current SPRING 2023 | CELEBRATING 25 YEARS

Once More With Feeling

Artists formerly profiled in The Dance Current revisit the ideas they last spoke about five, six, nine and 20 years ago

by serena lopez, candice pike, dylan schoenmakers, grace elliott

feature profile

This page:

Zab Maboungou

/ Photo by Kevin Calixte; next page: Photos by Kevin Calixte Zab Maboungou

Zab Maboungou is a pioneer of modern African dance in Canada. She established her artistic career through the ’80s as a newcomer to Montreal, at a time when widespread awareness of Africa’s various dance forms did not exist in the local dance community. Since then, she has garnered several achievements including, most recently, the 2021 Governor General’s Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award.

Maboungou established her company, Compagnie Danse Nyata Nyata, in 1987 as a space to explore questions of life, body and being through African dance forms. As she started to work with dancers, she realized that many Canadians, especially those of African descent, had not benefited from the training she had received over the years and that they consequently did not understand connections between movement and African diasporic histories. She spent the next 30 years trying to bridge this gap of knowledge as her contribution to the dance community and young people of African descent, finding motivation in her role as an intermediary: “Everything I do basically relates to that. It’s making sure that things are passing through you; they do not stop at you nor do they start with you.”

In 2003 – the same year The Dance Current initially profiled her –Maboungou secured funding to launch a new program, called The Professional and Artistic Dance Training and Education Program (PEFAPDA), offering intensive structured training and mentorship in both movement and music. Artists came to the program from across all disciplines, solidifying Maboungou’s insight that dance is interdisciplinary: “The art of movement,” she says, “is not just related to dancing as we perceive it in the West.… It’s relating to storytelling … literature … to masquerade, to paint, colours, all [of] that.”

While Maboungou’s choreographic work has received local and international acclaim, the Montreal-based Franco-Congolese artist shows no signs of slowing down. Wearing many hats today as a dancer, teacher, writer and philosopher, Maboungou uses dance to encourage audiences to question and confront social issues. Her new work Hâltérité, a piece not yet promoted within Canada, focuses on human zoos and questions the limitations of people of colour within contemporary society. Her life and career are also the subject of a documentary directed by Philip Szporer and Marlene Millar, titled Maboungou: Being in the World, which premiered at the 41st International Festival of Films on Art on March 18 and is currently available on the festival’s website.

Thinking back on her journey, Maboungou says that she has reached a point where she can firmly stand behind her work’s necessity in an evolving dance ecology, especially as new generations of young dancers interested in learning African dance forms turn to reclaiming their history.

Recalling the time when African dance was an anomaly within Canadian society – when she was, as she says, “still something strange” – Maboungou adds that it took time for her message to take root and for Canadian communities to support African dance artists.

“I spent my life not hoping but doing. I make my hopes real. Something I keep telling [my] students [is], Do not wait for anything. A dancer does not wait.”

18 the dance current SPRING 2023 | CELEBRATING 25 YEARS

once more with feeling

It’s making sure that things are passing through you; they do not stop at you nor do they start with you.

– MABOUNGOU –

Serena Lopez is a Toronto-based journalist and The Dance Current’s regional reporter for Ontario.

Directing the Lighthouse

Josh Murphy revisits his Winter 2022 feature, “Dragged Home,” examining the work of East Coast drag artists in order to redefine what we think of as visibility

by josh murphy

feature

Murphy for OutTV / Photo by Krissy Breen

Three East Coast drag artists were given the opportunity to showcase what we do, and what we do well, on two Canadian reality TV drag competitions: Irma Gerd, Mya Foxx and yes, dear reader, me, Newfound Lad. When I wrote “Dragged Home” in the fall of 2021, calling for greater visibility and acknowledgement of the East Coast drag scene, I couldn’t have imagined I would be one of three artists thrust into this position I had been advocating for. Was having my art showcased on reality TV everything I ever dreamed it would be? In short, absolutely not. But the experience did leave me with several new queries. Last year I was calling for visibility, and this year we got it. Does this visibility have an impact, individually or more broadly? What does the increased visibility of drag let people access? Whether it’s televised or not, what is drag giving to people in the arts that they weren’t attaining otherwise?

Before I attempt to explore all of that, let’s get some background on what actually happened to me on TV. In late April and early May of 2022, I shot Season 2 of OutTV’s Call Me Mother, a new take on the televised drag competition format that accepts all genders and all styles of drag. This show puts the focus on chosen family, mentorship and working with potential. I went in with all the confidence in the world – albeit slightly delusional – and was resolutely turned around, knocked on my ass and eliminated in the first week of competition. The dream I’d manifested in writing during 2021 was over before it had even truly started. I was shocked, disappointed and worried I’d let down everyone in Newfoundland, every artist who does the kind of gender-bending drag I do and, worst of all, myself. But this moment was only a fraction of the journey, and I’m only a fraction of the representation we got this year. Even though I went home first, there was another East Coast contestant

pushing ahead, gaining that much soughtafter visibility, Halifax’s very own Mya Foxx.

In her words, “Mya is based on late ’90s/ early 2000s R&B artists: Mya, The Pussycat Dolls, Janet Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, all of the divas from that era.” When Foxx struts onto a stage, you know you’re about to get a God damned show. “Dance is probably the tool I use most in conveying my art,” says Foxx. Every show is filled with dance and choreography, hitting those beats. The artist behind Foxx, Dillon Ross, started dancing as an adult. Getting hooked at the age of 24, Ross went from drop-in classes to the spotlight with ease. Through connections in the Queer community, he started backup dancing for some local queens. Then, during the pandemic, once bars reopened in Halifax, the Haus of Rivers approached him with a spot in a show. They offered to do everything for him – makeup, costume, hair; he just had to go out, lip-synch and dance. Thus, Mya Foxx was born. The birth of Foxx’s drag persona comes directly from the Queer community making space and giving opportunity, letting her use her knack for dance and movement to access an exciting new world. Foxx’s rise to prominence on the East Coast drag scene was quick, and before she knew it, she was flying to Ontario to compete alongside me on Call Me Mother

Some context: when you compete on a show like Call Me Mother or Drag Race, you sign a non-disclosure agreement saying you will tell no one what you’re doing until the show is publicly announced months after filming. When you’re filming, they take away your phone, laptop, anything with a WiFi signal that would let you contact the outside world. Potential contestants travelling to set from various hometowns are not allowed to

thedancecurrent.com 25

—

“I think it’s high time the drag happening here on the East Coast gets a shot on the biggest stage because the work is good; it just needs to be seen. Give us that visibility, by’s, and we’ll put on one hell of a show.”

Josh Murphy, January 2022, “Dragged Home,” The Dance Current Winter Issue Murphy / Photo by Kassie Abbott Lukeman

Well, by’s. It finally happened.

Finding flow with the floor

by stefanie tsabar

in my breath from my core never rushing, slow and steady balance, presence, how my body listens, lessens, lets my limbs

follow feelings to the brim of what my cells believe

are true, express with care, obsession to touch a heart beyond my skin—

universal suffering, and love and beauty all to share.

Humanity, how much we bear.

Stefanie Tsabar is a poet and ballet dancer based in Toronto.