2017/18
The Music Gallery and Dancemakers present A DOUBLE BILL FEATURING
AMANDA ACORN'S multiform(s)
&
Open Fortress
The Music Gallery has a long history of presenting innovative combinations of music and dance. We shared our home at the Great Hall (1984-91) with Danceworks and since then, not a season has gone by without some element of dance gracing our venue. 918 Bathurst is particularly suited to dance presentations, and in this season of new beginnings, we are proud to present a new collaboration with Dancemakers, one of the city’s most fearless contemporary dance organizations, Emerging Artist-in-Residence Amanda Acorn who will expand her incredible work multiform(s).
““(Amanda Acorn) creates intimate, sensorial encounters presented in both traditional and non-traditional spaces. She dips into the inexhaustible energy of movements repeated ad infinitum… multiform(s) hypnotizes. A vibrant, moving tableau inspired by the vivid pigments of Mark Rothko’s paintings, Acorn manages by means of a subtle, complex dialogue of bodies to create a moment of rare beauty”. – Elsa Pepin, Festival Trans-Ameriques”
Driven by questions surrounding habitual ways of seeing and researching the abstract body, Acorn created the solo work multiform, which has developed into a piece for five dancers and two live musicians. multiform(s) premiered in Toronto in 2015, receiving critical and audience acclaim and the Canadian Stage Award for direction.
multiform(s) featured artists Jonathan Adjemian, Meryem Alaoui, Lori Duncan, Germaine Liu, Kate Nankervis, Ann Trépanier, Kathia Wittenborn.
Opening both nights of multiform(s) was Open Fortress, a collective of dancers organized by Allie Blumas, Anna Mayberry, Lee Gelbloom and Jolyane Langlois, featuring the music of David Psutka (aka Egyptrixx). Open Fortress aims to support its members by encouraging collaboration and sharing space, as well as creating and showing physical performance in non-traditional “Dance World” settings.
