Preservation and facility issues brought to light in St. John's

>> by Naomi Brand
In response to the lack of office, studio and rehearsal space in St. John's, the Artists Infrastructure Committee (AIC), a sub-committee of the city's Arts Advisory Committee, has held focus groups and conducted a survey to further clarify artists' needs. Among the AIC's next steps is to develop a conceptual plan, funding strategy and governance plan for the construction of a centre for the arts. In related St. John's news, preservation issues have been brought to light in a report that summarizes discussions from The Dance Heritage Think Tank – a gathering of dance professionals who met February 21, 2009. The report identifies needs and goals related to dance preservation in Newfoundland and Labrador and makes key recommendations.

Made in BC announces 2010/11 touring group

>> by Cynthia Brett
Made in BC - Dance on Tour announced that the companies selected for its 2010/11 tour are the 605 Collective and the response. The program, FUSED, will feature repertoire from each company and will showcase the work of three emerging choreographers: Amber Funk Barton, Shay Kuebler and Josh Martin. On the current 2009/10 tour are Lola Dance and Tara Cheyenne Performance/MovEnt. Special projects include triPOD Dance Collective, Dancers Dancing and Moving Dragon.

Les Grands finishes historic Middle East tour

>> by Cynthia Brett

This summer Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal travelled to Israel for its historic first tour of the Middle East. On June 1st and 2nd the company performed two of its signature pieces, Noces and Cantata, to audiences in Tel Aviv as part of the city's 100th anniversary celebration as well as the 60th anniversary of bilateral relations between Canada and the State of Israel. The same bill was also performed in Jerusalem and Cairo, Egypt, which marked the first time a Canadian dance company has performed in Cairo in almost fifteen years.

Recent awards in dance

>> by Cynthia Brett
Miriam and Lawrence Adams won the What's the Big Idea Parasol Award from the Dance Umbrella of Ontario ... Sara Coffin won the Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award from The Dance Centre ... Margie Gillis received an insignia of the Ordre nationale du Québec from Premier Jean Charest ... Sylvie Bouchard of BoucharDanse received the 2009 K.M. Hunter Artist Award for Dance ... Kaeja d'Dance received its second Caring Connections Award from the Toronto District School Board ... the film 40 Years of One Night Stands, about Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet (RWB), by executive producer and former RWB dancer Patti Ross Milne with director Jeff McKay, won three awards at Winnipeg's Yorkton Film Festival including Best Documentary in Arts and Culture.

New features on Dance Collection Danse website

>> by Naomi Brand
This summer Dance Collection Danse (DCD) announced the launch of its new online column "Dance Historian of the Month" featuring interviews with celebrated Canadian dance historians and writers. Other website additions include a "Page in History" on Linda Stearns, who worked with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens from 1961 to 1989 as dancer, ballet mistress and artistic director, and an "ENCORE! ENCORE!" exhibit titled "Jeanne Renaud: Interdisciplinary Innovation", which looks at the career of Renaud, founder of Le Groupe de la Place Royale and a pre-eminent figure in Canadian dance.

Vancouverites Goh and Holmes return home to stage Nutcracker

>> by Naomi Brand
Chan Hon Goh, former principle dancer with The National Ballet of Canada, has signed on as artistic coordinator for the Goh Ballet's production of The Nutcracker by Anna-Marie Holmes. An open audition is set for September 13 at the Goh Ballet Academy. Dancers will work under Goh and perform alongside current principal dancers from The National Ballet of Canada. Goh retired from the National Ballet in May; before her departure, she established a bursary fund to assist students at Canada's National Ballet School.

CDA executive director announces resignation

>> by Naomi Brand
Shannon Litzenberger, executive director of the Canadian Dance Assembly (CDA), will be resigning from her position as of November 30, 2009 in order to pursue artistic activities. Since she began working with the CDA in 2004, Litzenberger has contributed to the development of the Assembly and to shaping policy on behalf of the arts and culture community. The CDA will strike a search committee within the month to lead the process of identifying a new executive director.

Le Groupe Dance Lab to close

>> by Susan Kendal
After 43 years, one of Canada's oldest dance companies will close. The board of directors of Le Groupe Dance Lab in Ottawa announced on July 31st that the company will not re-open in the fall of 2009; dancers had been laid off since the end of January 2009. Board Chair John Manwaring stated in a press release that "Many factors, financial and otherwise, have led to this extremely difficult decision." He described the transition from the lab's founding artistic director, Peter Boneham, to new artistic leadership as difficult and cited this situation as a contributing factor to the company's closure. Le Groupe's financial stability was shaken in late 2008 when the City of Ottawa proposed severe cuts to municipal arts funding; however, these cuts never materialized. According to funding results announced in June 2009, compared to last year's funding cycle Le Groupe's subsidy from the Ontario Arts Council was cut by more than $45,000 and the company shifted from multi-year operating grant status to annual operating grant status. Le Groupe Dance Lab began in 1966 as Le Groupe de la Place Royale in Montreal and was founded by Jeanne Renaud; Peter Boneham was a charter member of the group and played a significant role in the company's development. When Renaud left the company in 1971, Boneham became artistic director. He was co-artistic director with the late Jean-Pierre Perreault from 1972-1980 and then sole artistic director until he was succeeded by Tony Chong in 2008. Boneham and Perreault moved the company to Ottawa in 1977. The shift in the company's mandate from a modern dance company to a choreographic lab occurred in 1988.

Developments at Ballet BC

>> by Christa Lochead

Ballet BC’s board of directors has named long-time company dancer and choreographer Emily Molnar as interim artistic director of the Vancouver company. The announcement was made July 6th, one month after John Alleyne, artistic director for sixteen years, announced his departure. Molnar takes the helm during a rough year for the company. Last fall, Ballet BC came close to folding after insufficient ticket sales and approximately $600,000 of debt forced the organization to put itself into receivership and temporarily lay off all thirty-eight dancers and staff. While a combination of donor aid and credit restructuring saved the company, Molnar will be faced with the challenge of producing the upcoming season with fewer dancers and significantly less resources. In addition, Executive Director Andrew Wilhelm-Boyles has confirmed he will be leaving the company but will remain until his successor is identified. Wilhelm-Boyles's exit is not unexpected as he had joined temporarily last February to guide the company through its financial crisis, yet it makes the second high-profile departure from the company in two months. Alleyne’s departure was marred by a disagreement with bankruptcy trustee E. Sands and Associates, who handled the company’s restructuring process. Alleyne argued that, based on the terms of his employment contract, the company’s list of debts should include nearly $143,000 compensation owed to him as a result of his termination the previous fall, despite the fact that he was eventually rehired. In June, Madam Justice Carol Ross of the Supreme Court of British Columbia ruled in favour of Alleyne.
Emily Molnar / Photo by Michael Slobodian

Aboriginal Summer Dance Events

>> by Christa Lochead
This summer saw the launch of two new contemporary Aboriginal dance events and the return of an Aboriginal arts festival. In June, the Banff Centre for the Performing Arts hosted Canada's first International Indigenous Choreographers Summit, a two-week dance residency that brought thirteen dancers from Canada and Mexico together with four international choreographers for an intensive collaborative process. The program included a three-day summit with an additional fourteen Aboriginal choreographers. Final works were presented as part of the 2009 Banff Summer Arts Festival. In August, Kaha:wi Dance Theatre held its inaugural Summer Aboriginal Dance Training Intensive in Toronto. The three-week program offered classes in ballet and contemporary dance as well as traditional Aboriginal performing arts. According to Kaha:wi Artistic Director Santee Smith, the program was created in response to an "overwhelming need for professional development of the Aboriginal dance form." Also in August, Planet IndigenUs, a multi-disciplinary festival of Aboriginal art, was co-presented by Toronto's Harbourfront Centre and Brantford's Woodland Cultural Centre. The festival featured performances, workshops, and community collaboration projects by Indigenous artists from Canada and around the world. Initially presented in 2004, this was the festival's second year.
Kaha:wi Dance Theatre dance workshop / Photo by Sarah Palmieri, courtesy of Centre for the Arts Brock University

Pearl Remounts Earle's Sacra

>> by Amy Bowring
David Earle's masterwork Sacra Conversazione received its first performance in July after almost twenty years since its last staging. Originally created in 1984 for the Banff School of Fine Arts and subsequently set on Toronto Dance Theatre (TDT) in 1986, the work had not been seen since the early 1990s in part due to the cost of remounting it with its minimum cast of thirteen. The reconstruction project was spearheaded by Kenny Pearl who was artistic director of TDT when the company first performed the work. Pearl, a renowned teacher in professional training programs, brought together recent graduates of Ryerson University and the School of Toronto Dance Theatre along with a student from each of the National Ballet School and Canadian Children's Dance Theatre to participate in a three-week dance intensive that culminated in the remount of Earle's acclaimed work about mortality and grief set to Mozart's unfinished Requiem Mass. Earle aided in the remount, as well as former TDT company members such as Karen Duplisea. Final performances were held at Canadian Children's Dance Theatre in Toronto July 2nd and 3rd. Sacra Conversazione has been recognized as a Canadian masterwork by Dance Collection Danse.
Dancers for The Sacra Dancer Transition Project in Sacra Conversazione (1984) by David Earle (1984) / Photo by John Lauener