March 2010
The Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival welcomes you into spring.
We are most excited about our upcoming events and hope you can join us in the wonderment and kinetic beauty found in contemporary dance. Although our main festival is still a ways away, we are thrilled to be able to provide some preview dance events to our community.
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On Wednesday March 31 Toronto’s Chimera Project will be featured in this free event. The Toronto-based company is known for their visceral and highly physical, risk-taking and fiercely contemporary work. Founded in 1999 by award-winning choreographer Malgorzata Nowacka, The Chimera Project
confronts the audience with high-octane physicality, ferocious technique and darkly gritty themes. The choreographic works are immersive and exciting journeys that assault the senses. Where? The University of Guelph, University Centre at noon.
Photo by David Hou of dancers Sean Ling, Brendan Wyatt, Malgorzata Nowacka, Amy Hampton.
The GCDF will be featuring Victoria-raised, Toronto based dancer Danielle Baskerville this year at the In the Gallery series. For the first time, the GCDF will feature a solo artist exclusively in a series. Danielle Baskerville is a tour de force on the Canadian dance scene and has frequented the GCDF seven times, often as a featured dancer with
DanceTheatre David Earle as well as with acclaimed and diverse choreographers; Kate Alton, Denise Duric, D.A. Hoskins and Lucy Rupert. Baskerville will be performing three intense and challenging works by Canadian female choreographers,
Susie Burpee, Sasha Ivanochko and Allison Cummings. All three of these powerful choreographers have been featured in past GCDF festivals and come with intense and poetic voices. In the Gallery will be premiering at a new GCDF
location, Ed Video Media Arts Centre
, building a link and a new perspective on how and where to absorb and be moved by dance. Each performance will be followed by a talkback discussion period between the artists and the audience. Don’t miss this intimate and powerful up-close experience with one of Canada’s finest dance artists. May 1 (2 p.m.) & May 2 (4 p.m.) This is a pay-what-you-can event.
Photo by David Hou of Danielle Baskerville in Hard Candy, choreographed by D.A. Hoskins.
 looking for new ways to engage, stimulate and educate our youth, the GCDF is offering on Friday, June 4th
(a PD day for many schools), a day of complete immersion into the exciting realm of contemporary dance. High schools students in the area will be offered a full afternoon of dance through the viewing of two performances (the On the Street Series at St. George’s Square as well as a sneak preview of the On the Stage series Stage B
) as well as a physically charged workshop with Vancouver’s Dana Gingras from Animals of Distinction, a talkback with Animals of Distinction and a tour of the backstage workings of the River Run. The Behind the Scenes - Youth Dance Day is offered for $20 per student. Please contact the GCDF for booking for this new and exciting event.
Photo by David Hou of Zata Omm Dance Company performing Frames.
March Break a Success!
The GCDF Arts Explosion March Break Camp (March 15th-19th) was a raging success. More than 70 campers per day ages 4-14 immersed themselves in creative explorations through visual arts with Janet Morton, contemporary & jazz dance with Julia Garlisi, Janet Johnson, Kelly Steadman & Catrina von Radecki accompanied by Adam Bowman, theatre with Daniel Poulin, music & story telling with Shannon Kingsbury and kung fu with Robin Young
. This year’s theme was hope, and the camper’s imagination and empowered selves brought this theme to light, providing all who attended the closing day’s “Celebration of the Arts” great inspiration. The
River Run’s Canada Company Hall was beautified with cardboard & tissue paper trees, paper flowers “growing” on the windows, the grounds filled with noon time skipping ropes, chalk drawings and the unmistakable sound of children’s laughter.
The GCDF Arts Explosion March Break Camp was a fantastic way for campers, staff, volunteers and parents to welcome in spring. A huge thank you to all of our talented & generous teachers and volunteers! Tickets are on sale at the River Run for the GCDF’s Arts Explosion Summer Camp (July 5-9). The summer camp’s theme is the circus arts, and features clowning, mime, break dancing, hula-hooping and more!
Photos by Simon Bell of SNAP Guelph. Back to top
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