Discover Dance! LINK Dance

Dance collides with science in Experiments, Gail Lotenberg’s exciting new work for her company LINK Dance. A collaboration with four ecologists – specialists in the study of movement and behaviour – the work combines fluent dancing with sound, light and video, to investigate how two separate disciplines embrace logic, experimentation and creativity. In this special presentation for the Discover Dance! noon series, Lotenberg introduces excerpts from the work and leads a dialogue with the audience around the concepts which drive it.

Thursday November 25, 12 noon at Scotiabank Dance Centre, Vancouver. Tickets $10/$8 from www.ticketstonight.ca Info www.thedancecentre.ca.

Note: the full length production Experiments can be seen at Scotiabank Dance Centre November 25-27 at 8pm. For details visit www.linkdance.ca or www.thedancecentre.ca.
Photo: Peter Eastwood

Discover Dance! Goh Ballet Youth Company

The exciting young dancers of the renowned Goh Ballet Youth Company perform a rich selection of classical ballets for the October edition of The Dance Centre’s Discover Dance! noon series. The company is comprised of senior students from Vancouver’s internationally-renowned Goh Ballet Academy, which has produced five generations of notable dancers and international prize winners since its inception in 1978: its graduates dance with leading companies across North America, Europe and Asia. The program will feature excerpts from Anna-Marie Holmes’s critically acclaimed Nutcracker as well as original contemporary choreography, the signature Red Ribbon Dance and other works ranging from the classical repertoire to modern works by the choreographers of today.

Thursday October 28 at 12 noon at Scotiabank Dance Centre, 677 Davie St, Vancouver. Tickets www.ticketstonight.ca Info www.thedancecentre.ca

Photo by David Cooper

New work by Helen Walkley October 1-2

One of Vancouver’s most distinctive and compelling dance artists brings an evocative new work to the stage this week. Helen Walkley’s How is sleep beautiful? is a richly-textured memoir which explores wishes and dreams, love and aspiration, family and confusion, and death as a transformation. In a career spanning three decades, Walkley has become known for creating original and deeply felt works, and for her extraordinary stage presence and eloquent, supple dancing. Created in collaboration with composer James Maxwell, lighting designer John Webber and sculptor John Noestheden, How is sleep beautiful? is her first full-length work since 2006.

Fri-Sat October 1-2 at 8pm at Scotiabank Dance Centre, 677 Davie St, Vancouver. Tickets $28/$20 from 604.684.2787 http://www.ticketstonight.ca/. Info http://www.thedancecentre.ca/.

Scotiabank Dance Centre Open House September 25, 2010

From tap, contemporary and bellydance to flamenco, salsa and classical East Indian dance, the annual Scotiabank Dance Centre Open House offers a host of dance styles in a day of open classes, studio showings and events. Highlights include open rehearsals of works in progress by leading Vancouver companies Kidd Pivot Frankfurt RM and Co. ERASGA; introductory open classes with Lava (bellydance), Jennifer Bishop (tap), Eleonora Acuña (flamenco), Shiamak’s Bollywood Jazz, Dance 4U (salsa), and more; a ballet master class with former National Ballet star Rex Harrington, streamed live on the internet from Toronto; a screening of dance films from the Festival Transatlantique Montreal/Quartiers Danses, part of an ongoing exchange with the Festival; and Lift, a photographic essay by Lynne Spencer documenting the work of ballet dancer and choreographer Simone Orlando. Admission is free: all welcome.

Saturday September 25, 11am-5pm at Scotiabank Dance Centre, 677 Davie St, Vancouver. Full schedule and details: http://www.thedancecentre.ca/

Photo: Mandala Arts and Culture/Sudesh Solanki

Arab Latin Fiestas

Back from a 3-year hiatus, the Arab Latin Fiestas were created by female business owners Chen Lizra of Latidos Productions and Mona Chaaban of Mona's Fine Lebanese Cuisine, to stimulate the senses of diners and spectators with the sounds, smells, and tastes of the sensual Middle Eastern and seductive Latin worlds. The events were attended by 300 people each night during the event's 3-year run in 2005-2007. The 5th and 6th edition of the events will be on Friday, May 14, and Friday, June 18.

The event schedule is as follows:

7pm-9:30pm - Dinner (fixed menu, reservations required)
9pm - Hookah room opens
9:30pm - Show #1 (Karen Flamenco May 14, Belly dancers Shivaun Corry & Lana Gabor June 18)
10-11pm - Music and dancing
11pm - Show #2 (Belly dancers Shivaun Corry & Lana Gabor May 14, Portal a Tango June 18)
11:30pm-2am - Music and dancing

Location: Mona's Fine Lebanese Cuisine, 1328 Hornby Street, Vancouver
Tickets: $7 with purchase of $30 fixed menu dinner, or $15 for shows only. Minors welcome.
Purchase at www.latidosproductions.com/services_private_lessons.php or call 604-708-2170.
Dinner reservations at 604-689-4050.

Links:

Latidos Productions: www.latidosproductions.com
Mona's Fine Lebanese Cuisine: www.lebanesecuisine.shawbiz.ca
Karen Flamenco: www.karenflamenco.com
Portal a Tango: www.portalatango.com
Arab Latin Fiesta promo video: www.latidosproductions.com/nowplaying.php?p=2&videofile=ArabLatinF320&vw=320&vh=255
Past Arab Latin Fiesta photos: www.latidosproductions.com/photo_gallery.php


Event information and photos provided courtesy of
Sandra Garcia
Publicist, Middle Child Marketing
sandra@middlechildmarketing.com
604.721.0030
www.middlechildmarketing.com

International Dance Day

From contemporary to flamenco and salsa to hula hooping, Vancouver celebrates International Dance Day with a series of free and ticketed events at Scotiabank Dance Centre on Thursday April 29. Initiated in 1982 by UNESCO, International Dance Day is marked annually on April 29 with events across Canada and around the world. The date commemorates the birthday of Jean-Georges Noverre (1727-1810), regarded as the founder of modern ballet.

Each year The Dance Centre hosts events which celebrate the art form: this year participating companies include Spanish Passion Productions, Co. ERASGA, MovEnt, Pixie Hoops, No Hitting Collective, Dance 4U, SYS Style and more. For a full schedule of events please visit http://www.thedancecentre.ca/.

Photo: Spanish Passion Productions by Jasmin Nguyen Phuoc Hoang Trang.

Discover Dance! Flamenco Rosario March 25

The Dance Centre's popular Discover Dance! noon hour series returns in March to showcase the brilliant footwork and breathtaking virtuosity of flamenco, with an exhilarating performance by Flamenco Rosario. Flamenco Ayer Y Hoy (Flamenco Then and Now) traces the development of this dance form with a program of traditional and contemporary flamenco, introduced by Artistic Director Rosario Ancer and Musical Director Victor Kolstee and performed by company dancers. www.flamencorosario.org

Thursday March 25 at 12 noon at Scotiabank Dance Centre, Vancouver. Tickets $10/$7 from http://www.ticketstonight.ca/ 604.684.2787 Info http://www.thedancecentre.ca/

Dance with Chutzpah!

This year is the 10th anniversary Chutzpah! Festival. In additional to an impressive line-up of international theatre and music performances this year, the Festival is renowned for bringing cutting edge contemporary dance companies to Vancouver and it looks like this year is going to be no exception. Aszure Barton & Artists will be returning to Chutzpah! with her full company of nine dancers for a breathtaking and explosive repertoire show (presented with The Dance Centre). Gallim Dance with opening guest company Sidra Bell Dance New York, both based in New York City, make their Vancouver company premieres.

Aszure will be presenting two works. Busk (2009) The word busk comes from the Spanish root word buscar, meaning "to seek"; buskers literally seek the fantasy of fame and fortune. Busk retains Aszure's signature style of precise whole-body expression inflected with an intense and intimate awareness of the fine line between humour and sadness. Blue Soup (2009) is a bubbling mosaic drawn from Barton's notable past creations. This work celebrates distinct personalities and hyper awareness of body, spirit, and sound. Defying the idea of dance as simple spectacle, Blue Soup invites the audience to visit a self-contained, deeply textured and bizarre universe. This choreography has been hailed by the critics and the public internationally.

The work Gallim Dance will be presenting, I Can See Myself In Your Pupil, is a suite of dances set to the vibrant music including the Israeli band, Balkan Beat Box (also appearing in concert at Chutzpah! March 18 at 8pm, The Venue on Granville St). In bundles of outrageously combustive energy the dance exposes the accursed but ever-present awkwardness of attempting physical intimacy.

Opening for Gallim Dance is Sidra Bell Dance New York. The company's repertoire features pieces that are simultaneously haunting, emotionally transporting, complex, dynamic, articulate, sensual, highly physical, risky, elegant, fantastical and darkly romantic.

Tickets, more info about all the shows and a downloadable copy of the Program Guide are available on the Chutzpah! Festival website chutzpahfestival.com