summer 2021
I AM PRIDE
Five dance artists from Canada’s Queer communities
THE ROAD OUT Do artists need to live in major cities?
DANCE CRITICISM Perceptions, challenges and the future
Display until October 6, 2021 / $11.95
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contents
Red Sky Performance's Mistatim / Photo by David Hou; Christine Friday / Photo by Gerry Gooderham; Painting by Anne Dion; On the cover: N9ne Louboutin Margiela / Photo by Angie Choi
Volume 24 Issue 3 summer 2021
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DEPARTMENTS
CURRENTS
FEATURES
4
Masthead
W HAT’ S O N ?
RURA L REPORTING
6
Your Notes
9
31
7
Editor's Letter
8
Contributors
Event Previews
FO R THE K ID S
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What Kind of World Do We Want?
Red Sky Performance’s Mistatim, in collaboration with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, is a story of reconciliation for kids by robyn grant-moran
CRITICS + A RTISTS
Dance Criticism: Perceptions, Challenges and the Future
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13
Excerpts from our panel featuring dance artists Jera Wolfe and Nova Bhattacharya and critics Jenna Shummoogum and Deirdre Kelly
The new program, which will fund individuals, collectives and organizations, launches this summer by anne dion
POSTSCRIPTS
R E S E A RC H S P OTL IG HT
SPONSORED CONTENT
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Checking In With Artists’ Mental Health
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Findings from three surveys highlighting the decline in artists’ mental health during the pandemic
The company has become Newfoundland and Labrador’s primary source of professional contemporary dance
S HO RT STO RIE S
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C HEC K IT O U T
Toronto Arts Council’s Black Arts Granting Program
ON THE COVE R
The Road Out
Do major cities need to play a role in a successful dance career? by candice irwin
Neighbourhood Dance Works Turns 40
SPECI AL FE AT U R E
19 I Am Pride
Five dance artists from Canada’s vast Queer communities curated by ralph escamillan
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The Career Chronicles Part 2
Dance artists find unique ways to boost their income by emily pettet B O DY
18 summer 2021
Soften Up
Self-massage to combat a hypervigilant nervous system, caused by the chronic fear of catching COVID-19 by blessyl buan
Dance Collection Danse’s Hall of Fame
The third annual induction ceremony will be available online TIPS
The Winding Staircase to a Safer Place 47
Learning to make a studio safer by giulia tripoli F IRST PERSON
I AM PRIDE
Five dance artists from Canada’s Queer communities
THE ROAD OUT Do artists need to live n major cities?
DANCE CRITICISM
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Into a Malleable Flame
I started flamenco classes when I was 28, but my spark didn't fully ignite until I found Esmeralda Enrique by jérema hewitt
Perceptions, challenges and the future
POETRY
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The Reciting Body
by emma morris thedancecurrent.com
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special feature
I Am Pride Five dance artists from Canada’s vast Queer communities
Escamillan / Photo by Ben Owens
curated by ralph escamillan
thedancecurrent.com
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i am pride
CURATED BY RALPH ESCAMILLAN, the founder of FakeKnot and
creating safe spaces for Two-Spirt and trans Indigenous dancers
Van Vogue Jam, these profiles are meant to show the power
to express themselves.
of dance today, and its past and present relationship with the QTBIPOC community, as Pride celebrations roll out across Canada. “It was important for me to catalogue the vastness of Queer
Kushniruk, hailing from Edmonton, is expanding the idea of a dance practice. Her work, which she describes as interdisciplinary, includes digital paintings and films. But she believes that all
communities around the country, specifically featuring the work
dance artists are multi-faceted because the definition of a dance
and activism of artists and allies,” Escamillan writes. “I hope the
practice goes beyond just dancing.
readers find these profiles as catalysts to learn more about people
Wirtanen has built an impressive resumé dancing with big names.
in their own communities and how to support them in the work
But that’s not the most important part of his work to him. After years
they are doing.”
of experience, he stresses the importance of understanding the
The following pages feature five artists from these vast Queer communities: N9ne Louboutin Margiela, Jessica McMann, Tia Ashley Kushniruk, Ross Wirtanen and Jossua Collin Dufour. Margiela (featured on the cover) is the mother of the kiki House
elements and history of dance styles, especially when those styles were created by marginalized QTBIPOC communities. Collin Dufour, based in Montreal, has danced various styles including burlesque and contemporary. In his work, he wants to
of Louboutin’s Toronto chapter. After moving to Toronto and
break the stereotype of “the troubled gay kid” narrative. And
finding ballroom, she has been able to turn her feminine energy
although he is seeing Queerness appearing in commercial dance
into a source of power and strength.
culture, he hopes it’s not just the “flavour of the month.”
McMann is a Two-Spirit Cree contemporary dancer, choreographer and musician based in Calgary. Her work includes
Read more about the work of these five artists.
N9ne Louboutin Margiela For this ballroom member, femininity and Queerness are power
N
9ne Louboutin Margiela slinks across the floor of Toronto’s Museum of Contemporary Art, swinging her hips, commanding the audience’s attention in a way the gallery’s typical exhibitions never could. Dressed in a bra, thong, leather garter and knee-high laceup boots, Margiela eases from a backward roll into a middle split, showing off to the judges of the Freedom Ball that kicked off Toronto Pride 2019. While it would be understandable to feel vulnerable, Margiela doesn’t get nervous when she walks the Sex Siren category. The ballroom stage is one of the few spaces in her life where being a Queer, racialized femme means having all the power in the room. “Sex Siren is … something I believe has lived inside me my entire life,” she says. She previously dabbled in adult entertainment to find a safe space to express her sexuality but says the predominantly cisgender, heterosexual male audience environment felt “parasitic.” 20
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SUMMER 2021
Margiela’s relationship with ball culture, meanwhile, is mutual and replenishing. Rooted in Harlem, ballroom was shaped by Queer and trans Black and Latinx communities who created safe spaces for unapologetic self-expression. Decades later, the culture continues to celebrate the Queerness of folks like Margiela. The 31-year-old artist trained in ballet and jazz as a teenager before getting into the hip-hop scene in Vancouver. She then moved to Toronto in 2014. While she enjoyed the competitive nature, she felt at odds with her femininity and Queerness. Hip hop’s battle tactics demanded her movement be masculine. When she found ballroom in 2016, it allowed her to surrender to the divine feminine energy she had within her, turning it into a source of power and strength. Now she moves like water, flowing in tandem with the curves of her body, touching her body often to communicate self-worship, even emulating the dynamics of intercourse. When walking
by catherine abes
Margiela / Photo courtesy of Margiela
rural reporting
The Road Out Since July 2019, a record number of people have left Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. With COVID-19 driving out more, do major cities need to play a role in a successful dance career? by candice irwin
Photo courtesy of Pixabay
S
urrounded by six artists, I sit on the floor of one of The National Ballet of Canada’s expansive studios in Toronto with the morning light washing over my face. It’s the end of February 2020, a few weeks before the first COVID-19 lockdowns. We are getting ready to jump into Day 1 of my new choreographic work. For the next two weeks, we will be physically investigating the impact language in health care has on the healing body. It has taken me three years of application writing, fundraising and research to get this project going. Usually, this moment is one of my favourites; we’re on the edge of diving into something new. Today though, I feel like I have nothing to give. Over the past two years, my inspiration has seeped out of my body. It’s not the first time I’ve felt this way, but it’s the first time I’m able to name the feeling: emptiness. Fast-forward three weeks; it’s the first week of lockdown. I was meant to be nestled in a cottage, far away from the city. Instead, I’m sitting at my dining room table staring down at a chocolate cake with the number 30 spelled out in raspberries. I remember a conversation with my mother the week before. “I’m looking forward to just not caring about what other people think in my 30s,” I told her. But right now, all I can think is “Please get me out.” During the first six months of COVID-19, I can’t escape feeling drained, like I don’t care and like I want out. But I realize that none of these thoughts are new. They are just harder to avoid now that leaving the apartment isn’t an option. I’m not running between multiple gigs in a day, trying to make ends meet. I’m no longer spending my nights cramming to get applications in on time. Most of the professional things I’ve been frustrated with the last few years aren’t there anymore. But I’m still not
happy. In the stillness of COVID-19, I realize that I don’t want to be in Toronto anymore. My husband and I had been contemplating moving away from the city for a while, but fear held us back. How would the move impact our arts careers? We didn’t know how we could live in an environment that was comforting and authentic for us while being able to work full time as artists. I was worried about becoming invisible. As I watched continuous pandemicrelated closures devastate the arts sector, my worries about progress within my career didn’t seem that important anymore. So in October 2020, we moved to Manitoulin Island, Ont., the largest freshwater island in the world, with a year-round population of fewer than 14,000 people. We weren’t the only ones choosing to leave. In January, Statistics Canada reported that from July 1, 2019, to July 1, 2020, a record 50,375 people left Toronto and 24,880 left Montreal for smaller cities or towns.
Similar trends were also reported in Vancouver. For someone who has always identified as a “city girl,” I never thought I’d be planting roots in a small community. Within the first weeks of moving though, I notice my creative drive returning. I’m slowing down and listening more to the birds calling, the wind in the trees and the water lapping against the shore. I catch myself moving just for fun again and dreaming up new projects. As my desire to move and make work returns, I can’t stop wondering how I can be an artist outside of a big city. This thought leads me on a search to connect with other artists based in smaller communities and ask them about their experiences. What these eight artists showed me is that a fulfilling and successful arts career isn’t so much about where you are; it’s about how you choose to relate to your surroundings and how your environment can expand your definition of success. thedancecurrent.com
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the road out
Edwards and McDermott in their dancefilm SHIPWRECK / Cinematography by Simon Alteen
Jenn Edwards and Philip McDermott were based in Toronto before they moved to Labrador City, N.L., in September 2019. Edwards, originally from Vancouver, had moved to Toronto after spending three years touring Europe with Vienna’s flowmotion dance company. McDermott moved to Toronto from Newfoundland to attend The School of Toronto Dance Theatre in 2014. After graduating three years later, he performed in various pieces including the Dora Mavor Moore Award-nominated works The Thirst for Love and Water by Sharon B. Moore and Jusqu’à Vimy by Laurence Lemieux. Despite this success, McDermott says, “It was honestly very difficult to afford rent in Toronto. I felt like I was working the joe jobs more than I was wanting to dance.” So when he was asked to run a dance school in Labrador City, he decided to make the move. “I thought it would be a good opportunity and I always wanted to move up north somewhere and teach dance to kids that wouldn’t necessarily have the opportunity,” he says. The lower cost of living helped McDermott save money, and he had more 32
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SUMMER 2021
time to rehabilitate from knee surgery. The couple are now the only professional dance artists in town. For Edwards, the move was a chance to experience something new. “I’ve never lived in a small town and I like doing things that I’ve never done. … I needed a break from the city, and it was a new adventure,” she says. This new adventure has actually made their work easier to do, especially during the pandemic. Because there have been minimal cases in the couple’s area, they can teach in person and create work together. They’ve had funding to work on a new duet called ForceField, and McDermott is developing a solo, BIGTHINGSmallthings. The couple also created the film SHIPWRECK, which won Best Experimental Film at the Experimental Dance and Music Film Festival based in Toronto and Los Angeles. Edwards describes the past year as “having a residency the whole year.” Kristy Janvier also moved to a small town after a busy career abroad. After 15 years of performing internationally with Disney, she moved back home to Flin Flon, Man. “I just didn’t know it was possible to be a dancer
Edwards and McDermott / Photo by Mattieu De Careye
poetry
The Reciting Body by emma morris
I stand on my knees tripping over vocal chords wringing out bones gifting the smell of lavender defining my oath by how I hand my hands to your hands that grasp with the sophistication of a newborn holding onto someone else’s trust at the mercy of swallowing words that describe how I lost pouring salt onto truth bending guts into the frayed edges of a rope, hold on to the familiar ghost that remembers the taste of honey that forgets how to wait for the water to dissolve when you dissolve like a liar and my body a lilac field, still moving, holds on.
Emma Morris is an emerging dance artist, who also choreographs words, in Montreal.