Loss exposes us and demands we find a way back to each other
Dancemakers’ Artistic Director Michael Trent re-imagines a dance from the Company’s 100-plus repertoire, a body of work amassed over its 38-year history and created by noted Canadian and international artists.
Wanting something other than a traditional remount, Trent creates a new dance piece in response to choreographer Mitchell Rose’s 1974 Following Station Identification, a ‘satirical dance on middle-American values’ set to music by Luciano Berio and Lukas Foss.
Choreography by Michael Trent
Created with and originally performed by
Robert Abubo, Amanda Acorn, Kate Holden, Benjamin Kamino and Simon Renaud
Composer: Christopher Willes
Musician: Thom Gill
Lighting Designer: Kimberly Purtell
Costume Designer: Vanessa Fischer
Artists
Michael Trent
Michael Trent was the Artistic Director and Resident Choreographer of Toronto’s Dancemakers from 2006 – 2014.
Amanda Acorn
Amanda Acorn is a dance artist, researcher and choreographer currently based in Toronto, Canada.
Rob Abubo
Robert Abubo was a member of Dancemakers since September 2008.
Benjamin Kamino
Benjamin Kamino was a company dancer under the direction of Serge Bennethan and Michael Trent. In 2014, he transitioned into the role of Co-Curator alongside Emi Forster.
acCessibilIty
Is the venue wheelchair accessible?
Yes, the venue is wheelchair accessible including ramps into the building, elevators and wheelchair accessible washrooms.
Will the event be ASL Interpreted?
All live events will offer ASL interpretation (upon request). Please contact us to request ASL Interpretation.
Will the event be described for Blind and low vision audiences?
This performance does not include audio description.
Loss exposes us and demands we find a way back to each other
Rarely finding creative motivation in the events from his personal life, in this work Michael Trent takes the time to look at the bodily affects of love and loss.
It is often said of love and of loss that there are stages, which change and grow, suffer setbacks and make great leaps forward. These stages are what we understand only after; in the middle – in the experience – there is meeting and parting, finding stability or barely balancing on our own or with loved ones.
Loss exposes us and demands we find a way back to each other and to ourselves by moving in ways that avoid the paralysis of sadness and missing. Because in missing so much it makes us reach, throw our bodies just to see if we can still catch ourselves. It makes us stop and start again to be sure we are not lost in the thousand-yard stare that sees everything and nothing.
Visible and exposed from all sides, loveloss asks the performers to imagine and sense, to improvise their way through states of activities and states of being as they move into love and into loss, out of love and out of loss.
Choreography by Michael Trent
Created with and performed by Robert Abubo, Amanda Acorn, Ellen Furey, Simon Portigal, Simon Renaud
Composer Christopher Willes
Dramaturge Jacob Zimmer
Lighting Designer Kimberly Purtell
Costume Designer Vanessa Fischer
Artists
Michael Trent
Michael Trent was the Artistic Director and Resident Choreographer of Toronto’s Dancemakers from 2006 – 2014.
Amanda Acorn
Amanda Acorn is a dance artist, researcher and choreographer currently based in Toronto, Canada.
Ellen Furey
Ellen Furey is a performer, choreographer, facilitator, spiritual psychic and death doula.
Rob Abubo
Robert Abubo was a member of Dancemakers since September 2008.
acCessibilIty
Is the venue wheelchair accessible?
Yes, the venue is wheelchair accessible including ramps into the building, elevators and wheelchair accessible washrooms.
Will the event be ASL Interpreted?
All live events will offer ASL interpretation (upon request). Please contact us to request ASL Interpretation.
Will the event be described for Blind and low vision audiences?
This performance does not include audio description.
Using the Rite of Spring as a jumping off point
In Hi-Fi, the Dancemakers company dancers and their collaborators – Nick Andison, Xenia Benivolski, Marianna Rosato, Christopher Willes and Jacob Zimmer – come together in a different way.
In response to the extremely successful presentation of Lo-Fi, An Evening of Works-In-Progress in 2012, Dancemakers Artistic Director Michael Trent has relinquished his fall season and handed it over, along with all the authority, to the resident company dancers.
The company dancers and their collaborators are using the Rite of Spring as a jumping off point for Hi-Fi. The current Wikipedia entry for the Rite of Spring reads: “[in] various primitive rituals celebrating the advent of spring, a young girl is chosen as a sacrificial victim and dances herself to death.”
A possible future Wikipedia entry for Dancemakers’ Hi-Fi might read: “[in] various contemporary rituals celebrating the advent of something new, nine young people consented to sacrifice themselves into a history of sorts.”
With the presumption of roles removed, the consensual mutiny can begin! In, with and through Hi-Fi, the artists can question authority, criticize the mandate of the company that engages them, and push their own physical boundaries in a safe and supportive environment.
Throughout the unorthodox creation period, the artists surrender to the work: dancer becomes dramaturge, costume designer becomes dancer and dancer becomes musician in order to explore the conundrum of contemporary living.
Made and Performed by:
Robert Abubo, Amanda Acorn, Nick Andison, Xenia Benivolski, Ellen Furey, Benjamin Kamino, Simon Portigal, Christopher Willes and Jacob Zimmer
Lighting Design: Nick Andison
Stage Manager: Marianna Rosato
Artists
Michael Trent
Michael Trent was the Artistic Director and Resident Choreographer of Toronto’s Dancemakers from 2006 – 2014.
Amanda Acorn
Amanda Acorn is a dance artist, researcher and choreographer currently based in Toronto, Canada.
Benjamin Kamino
Benjamin Kamino was a company dancer under the direction of Serge Bennethan and Michael Trent. In 2014, he transitioned into the role of Co-Curator alongside Emi Forster.
Ellen Furey
Ellen Furey is a performer, choreographer, facilitator, spiritual psychic and death doula.
Rob Abubo
Robert Abubo was a member of Dancemakers since September 2008.
acCessibilIty
Is the venue wheelchair accessible?
Yes, the venue is wheelchair accessible including ramps into the building, elevators and wheelchair accessible washrooms.
Will the event be ASL Interpreted?
All live events will offer ASL interpretation (upon request). Please contact us to request ASL Interpretation.
Will the event be described for Blind and low vision audiences?
This performance does not include audio description.
Forty years of Dancemakers
Celebrating Dancemakers 40th anniversary, this new work mines all the ways we encounter ourselves and others in our pursuit of being human.
Working through the production of continuous and non-repeating image-making in groups of 1 to 10, the artists create a series of successive encounters between bodies, the environment and sound.
Through a process of emergence and dissolution, they reveal a space for the viewers’ imagination to take flight.
Choreography and set design by Michael Trent
Created with and performed by
Robert Abubo, Amanda Acorn, Ellen Furey, Lee Gelbloom, Andrew Hartley, Benjamin Kamino, Jolyane Langlois, Anna Mayberry, Simon Portigal and Riley Sims
Sound Score by Christopher Willes
Dramaturgy by Jacob Zimmer
Lighting by Kimberly Purtell
Costumes by Vanessa Fischer
Artists
Michael Trent
Michael Trent was the Artistic Director and Resident Choreographer of Toronto’s Dancemakers from 2006 – 2014.
Amanda Acorn
Amanda Acorn is a dance artist, researcher and choreographer currently based in Toronto, Canada.
Benjamin Kamino
Benjamin Kamino was a company dancer under the direction of Serge Bennethan and Michael Trent. In 2014, he transitioned into the role of Co-Curator alongside Emi Forster.
Ellen Furey
Ellen Furey is a performer, choreographer, facilitator, spiritual psychic and death doula.
Rob Abubo
Robert Abubo was a member of Dancemakers since September 2008.
acCessibilIty
Is the venue wheelchair accessible?
Yes, the venue is wheelchair accessible including ramps into the building, elevators and wheelchair accessible washrooms.
Will the event be ASL Interpreted?
All live events will offer ASL interpretation (upon request). Please contact us to request ASL Interpretation.
Will the event be described for Blind and low vision audiences?
This performance does not include audio description.