BC dance
Vancouver: Festival dances outside the box, Dancing on the Edge takes performances outdoors and into non-traditional spaces
The explosive urban dancing of Amber Funk Barton and Shay Kuebler returns to the Firehall Arts Centre as part of the opening of the 22nd instalment of the Dancing on the Edge Festival. Fresh from performances at the Canada Dance Festival in Ottawa, Barton and Kuebler bring Status Quo back to Vancouver for DoTE this [...]
National Ballet of Canada dancer Chan Han Goh to direct Vancouver’s Goh Ballet Academy
National Ballet of Canada dancer Chan Han Goh is leaving the stage to return to Vancouver this September to become director of the Goh Ballet Academy and Goh Ballet Youth Company. Goh, who has danced the leads in everything from Swan Lake to Sleeping Beauty, began her own ballet training at the academy as a [...]
Ballet BC dancers take to the small stage: Legion on the Drive will be awash in beer and ballet for three nights
For Ballet BC dancers, the stage doesn’t get much smaller than at Dances for a Small Stage. Usually, Ballet BC dancers perform on the Queen Elizabeth Theatre’s massive stage, which measures 12.8 metres by 9.1 metres (42 feet by 30 feet). At the Legion on the Drive, the stage is much, much smaller. Compared with [...]
Victoria: Fundraiser showcases city’s vibrant dance community
If you are curious about the rich diversity of dance being choreographed and performed in this city, Metro Studio is the place to be tomorrow or Saturday night when the second annual Light on Our Feet dance cabaret hits the stage. The event will showcase the talent and variety of Victoria’s dance community — 33 [...]
Prince Rupert: BC Annual gets underway Sunday
The B.C. Annual Dance Competition will be held in Prince Rupert from May 2 until May 8, with the City of Prince Rupert and several local businesses donating approximately $55,000 to the event. This year there will be two adjudicators at the B.C. Annual Dance Competition. One of the adjudicators will be Everett Smith who [...]
Ballet BC announces its 2010-2011 season
Eight world premieres, a new Nutcracker by Alberta Ballet and the presentation of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre are among the highlights of Ballet BC’s 2010-11 season. The company’s 25th anniversary season will be the first programmed by the company’s new artistic director Emily Molnar. Although Molnar will be including one of her works on [...]
Joyce Rosario heads to New Works
New Performance Works Society (New Works) has announced the appointment of Joyce Rosario as the organization’s Executive Director, effective May 17, 2010. “Having first encountered Joyce when she was a teen from East Van involved with the Turning Point project – an early project of New Works – I remember her tremendous energy” said the [...]
Ballet BC reborn
Dressed all in black and dark grey, her auburn hair folded up hastily in a big clip, Emily Molnar is guiding Ballet BC through its next steps. At 5-foot-11, the company’s artistic director is the tallest person in the studio, where she is overseeing a rehearsal of Crystal Pite’s Short works: 24. The edgy piece [...]
Rejuvenated Ballet keeps Molnar on her toes: Company’s new artistic director talks Solid Gold, Wham, Spandau Ballet
To borrow a line from fleet-footed rapper LL Cool J, don’t call it a comeback. The return of Ballet B.C. is more like a rejuvenation–part microdermabrasion, part hot stone massage–says Emily Molnar. Ballet B.C.’s interim artistic director since July, Molnar helped steer the cash-strapped company through a particularly precarious transition period filled with budget concerns, [...]
Ballet British Columbia makes Emily Molnar permanent artistic director
Ballet B.C. has announced it’s just signed a contract to make Emily Molnar its long-term artistic director. Molnar stepped into the position temporarily in July 2009, following the departure of John Alleyne and on the heels of a financial crisis at the company. Executive director Jay Rankin said her permanent hiring is one of the [...]
Surrey: ‘On the MOVE’ free workshop part of festival
Valuable info for dancers who want to go pro can be had at a free workshop held during the Surrey Festival of Dance. The “On the MOVE” workshop on April 3 is a day-long session of “professional development and personal growth” aimed at dancers age 16 and over, parents and dance teachers. An organizer of [...]
International Dance Festival puts Vancouver on the map: Thigh-slapping New Zealanders, dancing mountain climbers descend on city
The men of Black Grace slap their thighs, thump their chests and grunt. And spectators apparently love it. “Black Grace has this reputation for getting audiences all around the world on their feet,” said Jay Hirabayashi, executive director of Kokoro Dance and the Vancouver International Dance Festival. “They were recently in Hawaii and Honolulu named [...]
Nanaimo: Blues Northern David Gogo’s music career recognized by city with Excellence in Culture Award
David Gogo’s after-school job saw him rub shoulders with some of the legends in the world of blues music. Gogo grew up during a rich time in Nanaimo’s music scene, when people like Junior Wells and John Hammond played nightly in the Commercial Hotel (now the Painted Turtle Guesthouse), the Queen’s and Frisco’s (now the [...]
Ballet Kelowna’s Masters’ Play showcases Canadian choreographers
Ballet Kelowna will perform a series of influential short pieces by Canadian master choreographers that helped shape dance in Canada on Mar. 17 at the Revelstoke Community Centre. Masters’ Play includes early seminal works in Canadian choreography such as Kay Armstrong’s critically acclaimed 1949 work Etude and Nesta Toumine’s 1951 hypnotic Gymnopedies. “As we honour [...]
B.C. funding shortage sends Pite to Germany: Her dance company gets more than $776,000 from Frankfurt, which will keep dancers employed for two years
Crystal Pite and her dance company are temporarily relocating from British Columbia to Germany because the choreographer was able to secure two years of steady funding for her company from the city of Frankfurt and its regional government. Pite said that she has renamed her company Kidd Pivot Frankfurt RM in order to honour the [...]
