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
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
