Presented in partnership with Vancouver Tap Dance Society

 

ETM: Double Down

 

May 15 & 16, 2020, 8pm
Vancouver Playhouse (600 Hamilton Street)

Running time: 80 min, 15-minute intermission

Speaking of Dance Pre-Show Talk 7:15pm each night in the Vancouver Playhouse Upper Lobby. Host: Andrew Nemr (Vancouver Tap Dance Society). Guest: Company representative TBA

DanceHouse One post-show event will take place after the Friday performance from the theatre. Purchase your membership here or find out more here.

Post-Show Social after the performance on Friday night in the Playhouse Salons.

 

In their second outing with DanceHouse, NYC’s Dorrance Dance serves up ETM: Double Down. Taking inspiration from tap’s history of combining sound and rhythm, ETM (Electronic Tap Music) replaces the wooden platforms of old with electronic tap boards, like drums for the feet. Mixing b-boy dance moves with the musical wizardry of Gregory Hines, the entire stage becomes an instrument, as the performers create their own percussive soundtrack that layers and loops in a dizzying atomic maelstrom.

Hyped up with choreographer Michelle Dorrance’s signature wit and sense of fun, eight dancers and three musicians spike the punch bowl with rumpus room antics and technical prowess that is one-part playground contest, two-parts collectivist exercise, and three-parts mad-tap genius!

Top photo: Dorrance Dance. ETM: Double Down © Matthew Murphy.

Co-presented with SFU Woodward’s Cultural Programs & in partnership with Vancouver International Flamenco Festival.

Fallen from Heaven (Caída del Cielo)

April 1-4, 2020, 8pm & April 5, 2020, 2pm
SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts (149 W Hastings)

Running time: 90 minutes

Speaking of Dance Post-Show Talk will be hosted on Thursday, April 2, 2020 after the performance. Host: Rosario Ancer (Vancouver International Flamenco Festival). Guest: Rocío Molina.

The enfant terrible of Flamenco, Rocío Molina brings her masterwork Fallen from Heaven (Caída del Cielo) to Vancouver. Channeling multiple incarnations – fetishistic matador, bloodied avenging angel – Molina crushes expectations, reinventing classical form with anarchic punk energy.

Since bursting onto the international stage, Molina has revolutionized Flamenco and galvanized audiences. A fearless performer, she conjures images that recall both the natural world and the ruffled beauty of the human body. In Fallen from Heaven, Molina’s mastery of contrast is on full display. Accompanied by four male musicians, she moves in thunder and stillness, powered by avant-garde theatricality, peerless technique, and a gonzo sense of humour. Molina summons the deepest stuff of life — blood and earth, ferocity and fragility — demanding audiences bear witness to her acts of radical creation.

DanceHouse is pleased to partner with VIFF to present a screening of Impulso, a documentary featuring Rocío Molina in advance of the performance. This will also include a Speaking of Dance Conversation after the screening. For more details and to buy tickets, visit the VIFF website.

    

Compañia Rocío Molina, Caída del Cielo © Simone Fratini

Ever So Slightly

March 20 & 21, 2020, 8pm
Vancouver Playhouse (600 Hamilton Street)

Running time: 75 minutes, no intermission

Speaking of Dance Pre-Show Talk 7:15pm each night in the Vancouver Playhouse Upper Lobby. Host: Pia Lo (Dance Journalist and Blogger, Globe Dancer). Guest: Victor Quijada (Artistic Director and Choreographer, RUBBERBAND)

Post-show Social after the performance on Friday night in the Playhouse Salons.

In their inaugural presentation with DanceHouse, powerhouse Canadian company RUBBERBAND kicks off with a roar. Choreographer Victor Quijada marshals the forces of ten extraordinary performers and live music from composer/DJ Jasper Gahunia and violinist William Lamoureux to take apart the mechanisms of compliance and control with near-surgical precision. One moment, the dancers look like inmates in an asylum, the next, street dance warriors in boiler-suited conformity.

As bodies jerk and flail, dystopic contests of aggression and violence are stripped away. What emerges is a path towards genuine resistance and liberation.

Production Sponsor
Anndraya Luui

Top photo: RUBBERBAND, Ever So Slightly © Marie-Noëlle Pilon.

Dança Sinfônica & Gira

February 28 & 29, 2020 | 8pm
Vancouver Playhouse (600 Hamilton Street)

Running time:
Dança Sinfônica – 42 minutes
Intermission – 20 minutes
Gira – 40 minutes

Speaking of Dance Pre-show Talk 7:15pm each night in the Vancouver Playhouse Upper Lobby. Host Janet Smith (Georgia Straight) will moderate a discussion with Pedro Pederneiras (Grupo Corpo Co-founder).

The first DanceHouse One pre-show event will take place on the Friday night in Playhouse Salons B & C from 7pm to 8pm. Purchase your membership here or find out more here.

Post-show Social after the performance on Friday night in the Playhouse Salons.

In their third presentation with DanceHouse, the Brazilian juggernaut Grupo Corpo channels the metaphysical with their new work Gira. Choreographer Rodrigo Pederneiras has infused his style with movement idioms inspired by Afro-Brazilian rituals. The company’s deep research into the cosmology and rites of Umbanda (the most widespread Brazilian-born religion) creates a new kind of performance aesthetic, possessed by a ripe sensuality and cathartic power.

With music from São Paulo band Méta Méta, the dancers invoke a state of near-transcendental ecstasy, opening up a pathway from one plane of existence to the next. The corporeal world melds with the divine in a transformative journey of rare exaltation.

While in Vancouver, the company will offer masterclasses on Thursday, February 27.

Production Sponsor

With Support From

Grupo Corpo. Gira © Jose Luiz Pederneiras.

Co-presented with The Cultch

Unikkaaqtuat (The Old Stories)

January 22-25, 2020, 7pm & January 25, 2020, 2pm
Vancouver Playhouse (600 Hamilton Street)

Running time: 90 minutes

Speaking of Dance Post-Show Talk on stage after the performances except January 25, 7pm. Hosts: Michelle Olson (Raven Spirit Dance Artistic Director) and Olivia C. Davies (O.Dela Arts Artistic Director). Guests: Guillaume Saladin, Alex Arnatsiaq, Levy Tapasiak, Terence Urayak, Christine Tootoo, Charlie Gordon, Marjorie Nantel, Charlotte Qamaniq.

Post-Show Social after the performance on Friday night in the Playhouse Salons.

A multidisciplinary production led by Artcirq, The 7 Fingers and Taqqut Productions. Inspired by Inuit founding myths, this unprecedented creation will celebrate Inuit culture, its traditions and vision for the future, through a hybrid, collaborative and mutually respectful creative process.

In an atmosphere shaped by video projections and a world of shadows, actors, live musicians and acrobats will transport the audience to an ancient world when life had not known death, days had not seen light, and where Inuit had not met white people. Until…

Unikkaaqtuat © Alexandre Galliez

In partnership with Dancers of Damelahamid

Spirit

October 25 & 26, 2019, 8pm
Vancouver Playhouse (600 Hamilton Street)

Running time: 75 minutes

Speaking of Dance Pre-show Talk 7:15pm each night in the Vancouver Playhouse Upper Lobby. Host: Starr Muranko (Artistic Associate, Raven Spirit Dance). Guest: Stephen Page (Artistic Director, Bangarra Dance Theatre).

Post-show Social after the performance on Friday night in the Playhouse Salons.

Drawn from 65,000 years of culture, Australia’s Bangarra Dance Theatre presents foundational work, seemingly pulled from the very land itself. In their first visit to Vancouver, Bangarra brings a selection of their extraordinary 30-year repertoire that weaves together totemic storytelling, performance and rich musical scores.

A key part of the resurgence of Indigenous dance making, the company is committed to sharing the cultural heritage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with audiences around the world. Tracing an unbroken song-line, Spirit gives voice to a cosmos of plants, animals, and ancestral medicine, laid down one step at a time. Dance becomes a form of ceremony and celebration between the people, the land, and creation itself.

Bangarra Dance Theatre © Susannah Wimberley