If you tend a garden, what new life would emerge

... to dance alongside the delicate and interconnected eco-system of our regional dance landscape?

This week, Mocean Dance had embarked on a new professional development opportunity for emerging dance professionals called Emerge. Despite the snow fall we had this week we are tending the soil of creativity to help contribute and cultivate a rich multi-generational eco-system for professional dance in our region.

The Emerge program offers a three-week paid work period for four young dance professionals and this pilot program is supported by The Nova Scotia Department of Culture, Communities and Heritage and the RBC Emerging Artist Foundation.

The group will have the opportunity to cultivate skill development in choreography, partnering work, interpretive skill, and career management while co-authoring the creation of a new work under the mentorship of Mocean's Artistic Associate, Sara Coffin. The accumulation of the group's studio research and new creation will end in a presentation at the Kinetic Studio's Open Studio Series on February 21 and 22 at DANSpace-on-Grafton.

The inaugural participants this year, selected from a pool of 12 applicants are:

Georgia Skinner                              Olivia Aubrecht

Vivika Ballard                              Sarah Hopkin

Over the next three weeks the Emerge participants will be sharing their thoughts and creative work via the Mocean Blog, so please stay tuned and join us digitally during this exciting creation!

The Emerge Program is supported by: 

the Province of Nova Scotia Department of Communities, Culture & Heritage,

RBC Emerging Artist Foundation and Kinetic Studio. 

  
 

Oscillating between Strength and Vulnerability

Pushing on we reach, we reach within ourselves and beyond the stretch of our fascia.
We fall, run in circles inside our head and within our canvas of activity.

I feel the resistance of an open porous heart press into me.
My bones stack like a wall and I absorb her power.
We are five. An ensemble of accidents and searching for the unknown. 

Open waters I float, electricity,  and weighted boots

 

Thick is my home. Rooted, emergent forms of merge and separate. A welcomed meditative trance.

Searching for a clue, taking in the room, I search for the mean white cat but really I imagine that I have slipped inside a Jaque Tati film. For a moment I am French.

 

 

 

The reeds bend, an early season sprinkler. My fascia extends to meet the room.

~ Sara C.

Second Week Post Rehearsal Reflection

Dec. 8th, 2014 - Bennathan creation


first day of the second week and already my calves are burning

running in circles
falling
the ground beneath our feet is not solid
we are pushed around
and slam into ourselves

we have to surprise ourselves
we have to dig deeper
erasing all that we have built up in order to find something essential

i am searching for my essence
it is fleeting
it cannot be held, or figured out, or accomplished

it must be demanded

we are not dancing in space, we are space

i feel powerful and weak
humbled by my own limitations
trying to grasp the ungraspable

how do we move together but not the same
in unison but not identical?

can we move together?
can we (this group) overcome the lines that define us?
can we break down the walls
ride the wind
wings batting, batting, tumbling, falling , crashing into one another

surveying our place
we are held back by invisible fences

our strength is only strong in relation to our vulnerability
how soft can we be?
how strong?

erase, erase, erase


- Susanne Chui

Widening the moment of action

What ghosts surround you?
What images penetrate your thoughts and pierce your soul?

Floating between the earth and the sky supported by water. Suspended on a liquid bed.
Going through a thick forest and riding a train through the mountains, a journey so profound but fleeting.

Dancers: Sara Coffin, Rhonda Baker, Susanne Chui, Jacinte Armstrong and Gillian Seaward-Boone.

How long can you linger in each moment, arrive at the consequence of each action?

It is day 2 in the studio with Serge. I feel refreshed and feeling alive being on the inside.
I am enjoying discovering the strata between my fascia and flesh.

I feel at home following the sensation of impulse. Feeling the weight of my bones and harnessing the fullness of self speaks to me. I happily erase the lines of any preconceived schema.

I notice myself anticipating each accident and smudging my impulses into one.
I need to practice my printing – my hand writing is illegible. This continually haunts me, so I take this opportunity to practice through the medium of the body.

Widening the moment of action, I strive to arrive in the consequence of every accident. I feel an improvement from yesterday and I am further intrigued by the poetry of our lingering ancestors.

I continue to remind myself not to blur or smudge my edges, but to finish each whisper so that a story of existence can linger.

.... maybe I should unpack my bag so that my transient self can feel grounded. How do you suspend time when you feel time compressed?

It is never to late to practice one's printing.

~Sara

Upsurge

We are thrilled to welcome Serge Bennathan to Halifax, to begin a new ensemble creation with the company.

This new work in the making is set to premiere in April during our home season mainstage production.  Mark your calendars and get ready to make your way to Dartmouth this spring! We are planning a full force poetic and physical ground swell April 30-May 2, 2015 at Alderney Landing Theatre. 

The new creation includes dance artists Susanne Chui, Sara Coffin, Jacinte Armstrong, Rhonda Baker, and Gillian Seaward-Boone.  We welcome the return of Mocean co-founder Sara Harrigan who will be rehearsal directing during the project.  And finally, we are also pleased to offer support to emerging artist Kathleen Doherty as she understudies the new creation.

As we work this week in the studio, we have also come to realize this creation marks an upsurge within the community; the force of the tides are shifting and we are thrilled to acknowledge a gathering of strength within Mocean and our larger community context.   We are witnessing and experiencing a strength in artistic grounding for each of the individual artists involved in the project, a strength in artistic grounding and a renewed articulate visioning for the company (aptly so as we prepare for the next CC deadline), and a renewed strength in our community activities as a whole. You all better book your flights to Halifax now and join in on our party!

 

Even before winter has started, there has been comment in the studio that a new thaw and exciting ground swell of people, projects, and activity is circling back around, shaking up the sometimes quiet town of Halifax. 

As we work with Serge, we can't wait to see how the work will unfold. One thing is certain though, we will pass through many layers of our own personal depth and many layers of depth will also be added to our bay.  Halifax is known as a nautical city with the world's deepest natural harbour. You will not want to miss crossing the harbour for our mainstage production this spring, we guarantee that witnessing the seismic shift of emotional depths in performance will be worth your ferry wait.

~Sara

Community, Commitment and Communication

Susanne and I are currently in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador at the 39^th Labrador Creative Arts Festival.   

Today is our last day of the festival, so sadly later today we will part ways with the 16 visiting artists that we have bonded with during the seven day festival. During our time here we have had the pleasure of sharing stories and trading teaching tricks with an incredibly inspiring group of individuals/artists.   

After the festival closes tonight Susanne and I will stay on to continue working with Let’s Dance, a local dance school in the HVGB area, so stay tuned for a post on this portion of our outreach and education activities later! 

The morning view at our billet's house

About the Festival (aka: the logistics of a committed and inspired community)

At year 39, the festival is Canada’s longest running Children’s Art Festival.  Since we arrived, it has been a whirlwind of teaching, sharing stories, and experiencing the Labrador hospitality.   This year the festival invited 18 artists from across Canada to share their artistry and professional practice with students from across Labrador. The range of invited artists includes theatre, puppetry and voice, singer songwriters, interactive media and music integration, visual artists, a cartoonist, a contortionist, a children’s writer, costume designer, a food writer and two dance groups! (Our friends Calla Lachance, Andrea Tucker, and Tammy MacLeod are here!)

The festival itself is centred around the nightly student plays which are written, directed, performed and produced by the students themselves. Each night we pour into the Lawrence O’Brien Art Centre to witness the hard work, dedication, and the inspired imaginations from students up and down the Labrador coast.  The students prepare their plays in September-October, and they also fundraise and/or get assistance from the festival to travel to Happy Valley-Goose Bay to perform their plays and take part in the workshops and festival experience.

In the daytime the artists are busy teaching workshops at the local schools, for the various adult and education centres, and for schools in the surrounding communities. We were also teaching workshops at the community North Cross Church (the larger rental venue) for the visiting coastal students who are in town sharing their plays  ­­– these students are also billeted around the town, therefore they really get to share in a full community experience making new friends with the other kids and families in the town.

The festival also prioritizes giving accessibility to the arts for all Labrador students by providing workshops up and down the coast for those who can’t make it to Happy Valley. Some of the lucky visiting artists get to the remote coastal communities to deliver their workshops, stay the night or fly back in time to see the nightly plays. The coastal communities who participated this year include: Nain, Hopedale, Makkovik, Postville, Rigolet, Cartwright, Black Tickle, Port Hope, and Mary's Harbour.

Map of Labrador

Behind all these logistics is the Labrador Creative Arts Festival committee and a community army of volunteers. Volunteers drive the artists to all the different regions in “the big land” of Labrador, volunteers to make lunches, to billet the visiting artists and coastal students, fundraise, and volunteers are in the theatre to support the students backstage so that the “heart of the festival” ­– the student plays can be shared with the community on a nightly basis. 

My Festival Reflection (aka: my attempt to articulate the open heart)

The theme for the 39^th Labrador Creative Arts Festival is Communication. The students presented their community school plays centred around this tying theme, and each night Susanne and I witnessed truly wonderful stories, interpretations, and reflections of how communication and communication devices effect their daily lives and world around them. 

You could tell it was comforting for the students to be on stage talking about the positive and negatives of social media and texting. This topic is ripe in their minds and is a key driver in the teenage tool for communication. 

Yet ironically, in contrast to my accessibility, these students are coming from tiny schools where the student population range is 2 students to 60 (no exaggeration here), from communities with limited road and internet access, and where flying in and out is the only means for communication with the outside world.  So the range and intimacy of their perspective was incredibly heart warming.  Honestly though, I am somewhat envious of the space and pace that this situation fosters in both the people and their artful reflections. The Labradoreans really have mastered the zen quality of “ma”.

Seeing the students work on stage together was also incredibly powerful to witness.  The people of Labrador are especially grounded, “serving it with nothing added,” understated, open-hearted, and are extremely exceptionally when it comes to just being yourself.   

On top of this, the plays’ presentation or performance styles all have a special sense of family or community about them. There is a natural wild and naive spirit that dances alongside the students as they perform their plays.  It is a spirit that can’t be rehearsed no matter how skilful one may be at drama, yet it is still extremely evident due to the reality that the students have known each other their whole lives, or they likely are a cousin of someone on the stage with them, or a whole family for that matter - literally and metaphorically, it is a spirit that only the culture and the landscape of “the big land” can foster.   

I am incredibly thankful to have witnessed such tender and introspective student plays.

Getting some office work done during our airport delay

Saying goodbye to the "Big Land" from the airplane

~Sara 

Taking the town by STORM

Our season’s opening activity is taking place in the Annapolis Royal, where we are performing our beloved Canvas 5 x 5 (by Tedd Robinson) at the Festival of Dance Annapolis Royal(FODAR). FODAR is a new summer contemporary dance festival produced by Randy Glynn, which coincides with the town’s nine-day ARTSUnleashed summer festival, a festival that allows the region’s artisans and local and visiting performing artists to shine!

Performing in FODAR has been a delight! Randy, a seasoned figure in the Canadian Dance scene, laughs and comments how preposterous it is to organize a dance festival in a town of 450. But FODAR has taken the town by storm and is successfully proving any sceptics wrong. So far the festival has attracted two packed houses. The audience is enthusiastic, supportive, awestruck, and they are leaning in with every step that graces the stage.

The festival features Randy’s two community works Teen Angel and his wildly popular senior piece Dancing in the Third Act, Mocean Dance’s Canvas 5 x 5 and two works (A Mark and Army of Barbie) from JD Dance, a dance company from Toronto.

Not only is this the inaugural season for the Festival of Dance Annapolis Royal which is exciting to be apart of and to contribute to the success of the festival, this cycle of performances by the company are revelling a few nostalgic moments and circling of accomplishments.

Randy Glynn has been a summer resident of the Annapolis Royal for 25 years and he has been infusing the community with the joys of dance for quite some time. Initially, he ran a summer school for dance featuring an intimate training setting in an old church in Granville Ferry. Artistic Director, Susanne Chui attended this program in 2001 as a student while she was training at the School of Toronto Dance Theatre. Now Susanne returns to Annapolis Royal as Artistic Director of Mocean Dance and graces the stage with her clarity and generosity as a performer in Canvas 5 x 5.

Our bagpiper Robert Hyslop has close personal family memories tied to Annapolis Royal and he found himself in an impromptu performance while practicing on the hills of Fort Anne and paying homage to those who are close to him. 

Our opening night performance was the 10^th performance of Canvas 5 x 5, and we are thrilled to re-visit our critically acclaimed piece, a piece in which our dancers Jacinte Armstrong, Rhonda Baker, Susanne Chui, and Ruth Ellen Kroll Jackson received a Dora nomination for best ensemble performance last summer in Toronto.

And finally in this cycle of performance, I, Sara Coffin am able to join the company as Artistic Associate and Rehearsal Director as my first company activity since returning home from Massachusetts after completing my MFA in dance at Smith College. I am thrilled to be re-joining the company to share my perspective and expertise with the company, to be part of the leadership team with Susanne, and to also celebrate the fruits of our seasoned performers and share in the region’s wealth in contemporary dance.

We have one more performance tonight, I know the power of a shared community will be felt on stage and in the audience tonight. It is something beautiful to witness and to be a part of. 

~Sara