A Week of Celebration: how does your world come to life with dance?

Its spring, I am finally starting to feel it in the air. There is  potential budding everywhere. 

These past two weeks have been filled with hustle and excitement for Mocean Dance, here in the city and nationally. With Canada's first ever National Dance Week, dance organizations from across the country came together to voice our love and express the necessity for dance in one loud clear weeklong manifesto. That International Dance Day reminds us of the necessity for take part or experience rich artistic expressions of dance, the necessity to simply acknowledge the wonder of the human body and the necessity to savour the small day-to-day dances that happens daily all around us. 

Amongst the International Dance Day Celebration was Mocean's first ever intermedia dance party: ReVeRb.  

A fusion of dance, site-specific performances, intermedia installations, beautiful film imagery of Mocean Dance and a dance floor no one could ignore.  DiJi Dale and DJ Adham Shaikh filled the room with their incredible energy and undeniable beats that made everyone move.

Celebrating the power of moving together, the inner dance pulse and the beauty of movement was on our menu card. The event was a huge success and I was so happy to interconnect with NSCAD University, DJ Adham Shaikh and of course our audience, fans, and patrons of Mocean Dance.

ReVeRb: dance players in the sonic playground installed in the Pacifico's Crave Lounge

Now for this week its National Youth Arts Week! 

This menu card is for serving up celebrations to acknowledge 

engaged, connected and creative youth.

Gen Y performs at the AGNS on May 1

Not wanting to watch from the wayside, the dance youth of the HRM jumped right in and shared their talents as part of the celebrations. Mocean's Gen Y Project performed as party of the National Youth Arts Week Launch Party at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.

 

Taking part in the National Youth Arts Week showing their skills and expressive selves through movement!

On Tuesday May 1 the Nova Scotia Art Gallery was a buzz of activity and the creative energy was flowing all around. The Gen Y dancers did an excellent job performing in the packed lobby and held the crowd with their intention and investment to the choreography.

How rewarding it was to watch a whole evening dedicated to engaged and creative youth! To celebrate that their medium for connectivity and exchange is through the arts, and witness them revel in their artistic platforms which serves as a channel to express their personal and collective thoughts and desires.

Where would these youth be without the arts, without their artistic practices and pursuits.  Alone?

That thought alone makes my heart sink.
On Tuesday night every youth present at the Launch party felt like they belonged to something greater, they oozed with pride and ownership, their knowing of themselves and learning who they want to be was a results of their connections to the arts. I was witness to a room full of potential and that acknowledgment of their potential was empowering and liberating for all involved.

Like young buds on a tree, nurturing and acknowledging what each has to offer is the greatest gift we humans can offer.

Mocean's Gen Y Project is supported through the Nova Scotia Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage Cultural Opportunities for Youth Program and the RBC Emerging Artist Program.