BC dance
Ballet B.C. makes three bold leaps for 25th season opener
In a bold leap, Ballet BC celebrates longevity and the opening of its 25th season with a program of firsts for the company. Songs of a Wayfarer & other works is made up of three different ballets that have never before been performed in Vancouver. In the bliss that from their limbs all movement takes, Montreal-based [...]
Vancouver: Boing Boing for the fun of it, Exercise class also considered ‘art’
Call it an endorphin rush or an exercise high. Call it joy. It’s the moment Jane Ellison sees the face of one of her students break into a smile, the cheeks beginning their apple expression and the lips slowly parting to a grin. “The face just changes and they light it up,” she said. “It’s [...]
Williams Lake: Dance studio reopens downtown
Maureen Saunders School of Dance is moving to a bright big new studio in downtown Williams Lake that will be fit for training any top dancers in the nation. The new studio has a sprung wooden floor, topped with a 3/8-inch thick rubber mat of the same type used for the dance programs at Simon [...]
José Navas hooks up with Ballet B.C.
Ballet British Columbia has announced the three-year appointment of José Navasas its resident choreographer. Navas will maintain artistic directorship of his Montreal-based troupe José Navas/Compagnie Flak, but will set about creating a full-length work for Ballet B.C. in 2011 and a contemporary revisioning of the ballet classic Giselle for 2012. He will see a shorter new work, [...]
Developer offers charitable donation to Kelowna ballet co
A generous donation from a philanthropic developer has administrators at Ballet Kelowna dancing in the aisles this week. On Thursday, Western Star Auctions will help the school auction off furnishings valued at over $48,000 after Derek Trethewey offered up the contents of two of his own homes he recently sold to help finance the young [...]
Vancouver Ballet Society twirls out a global cookbook
Besides dance, what do Alex Wong, Chan Hon Goh and Twyla Tharp have in common? They all have recipes in a new cookbook published by the Vancouver Ballet Society. Entitled Tutus & Tarts, the cookbook has about 150 recipes from dancers, artistic directors and choreographers from around the world. Dame Antoinette Sibley, president of the [...]
Vancouver choreographer waves flag, Josh Beamish’s company Move will perform at Shanghai World Expo’s Canada Pavilion
A Vancouver dance company, headed by Josh Beamish and selected by Cirque du Soleil to represent the country’s contemporary dance scene, will perform this weekend at the Canada Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo. Beamish and five other dancers from Move: the company will perform Trap Door Party, an abstract-narrative dance that has become the [...]
North Vancouver: Dying arts B.C.’s funding cuts are pushing already precarious programs to the brink
In a white, mirrored dance studio on Capilano Road, 13 dancers stand facing the barre in perfect first positions: heels touching, feet turned out to make 180 degrees. Thirteen pairs of clear eyes look ahead, 13 necks are extended, 13 pairs of knees are pulled up straight. Typical of high-level teenage ballet students, their concentration [...]
Getting into shape, Bollywood style, SFU is the first university in North America to offer bhangra dancing as a credit course
Simon Fraser University students can now take bhangra dancing for credit. Introduction to Popular Dance is a new course offered at SFU’s new School for the Contemporary Arts at the Woodward’s building in downtown Vancouver. It is the first bhangra course for credit in Canada, and probably North America, instructor Raakhi Sinha said. In recent [...]
Arts minister Kevin Krueger spends a night at the ballet
Guess which provincial MLA made an appearance at the Vancouver City Dance Theatre’s inaugural performance of The Dali Universe at the Playhouse last night? Spencer Chandra Herbert? Wrong. Nicholas Simons? Wrong again. To the surprise of more than a few artists in the lobby, Minister of Tourism, Culture and the Arts Kevin Krueger actually showed [...]
B.C. art attack: Interview with Judith Marcuse
Judith Marcuse is the founder and Co-Director of the International Centre of Art for Social Change, a partnership with Simon Fraser University. She is also founder and artistic producer for Judith Marcuse Projects. Am Johal: The BC government restored some funding recently to the arts. To what degree does it make up for the devastating [...]
Dancer Ziyian Kwan takes her protest to the Vancouver International Airport
Dancer Ziyian Kwan [1] will take her unusual arts-advocacy protest to the Vancouver International Airport. She told the Straight that between 6 and 8 a.m. on Sunday (September 5), she will dance and talk to people about B.C. arts cutbacks in various areas of the airport. She also plans to hand out pamphlets before hopping on a [...]
Vancouver’s newest ballet company marries art and science
A group of dancers gathered in front of the ballet bar that runs the length of the airy rehearsal space above Davie Street. They chatted softly amongst one another, laughing and unfurling long limbs as they took advantage of the pause in their hectic schedule. Roberta Baseggio, Artistic Director of Vancouver City Dance Theatre (VCDT), [...]
Performer turns busker to raise awareness, Dancer Ziyian Kwan takes her concerns about B.C.’s arts funding to the street
Facing an uncertain future as a dancer in Vancouver, Ziyian Kwan decided to do what she does best. She started dancing in public as a protest against the provincial government’s cuts to arts funding. What surprised Kwan is how her very individual action has snowballed. Her two hours of dancing at Kingsway and Main on [...]
Canadian Dance Assembly calls B.C. arts cuts “scorched earth policy”
The following is an open letter, dated August 26, addressed to Premier Gordon Campbell: Dear Premier Campbell, I am writing you on behalf of the Canadian Dance Assembly in response to the recent and devastating decisions made in British Columbia in the field of arts and culture, affecting our daily mission as a national dance [...]
