NDH TAKES STREAM OF DANCE ONLINE FOR THE FIRST TIME
New Dance Horizons is bringing its “tiny world’s fair” to the web.
Unable to present its Stream of Dance festival in person because of COVID-19, the Regina-based dance company NDH has moved online for a month-long, virtual celebration of dance, movement and tiny objects.
Artistic director Robin Poitras was inspired by the concept of a world’s fair for this festival.
“They’re always about, oh, the huge, the big, the fast, the excessiveness of what humans make and do, and I wanted to look at the other end of that spectrum and look at the tiny things,” said Poitras.
Also inspired by gardens and new life — NDH has an annual Secret Gardens Tour combining art and nature — Poitras wanted “to invite makers and artists and dancers to consider the infinitesimal, the tiny, the small, and the transformation from little to big that goes on in the natural world.”
Moving online meant cancelling events — including art exhibitions, film screenings and performances — at the Art Gallery of Regina and Regina Performing Arts Centre.
“We’ve revisioned our programming, to see how many of the artists we can engage that were already engaged and trying to support people that we’ve made commitments to,” said Poitras.
Ed Finch and Dick Moulding are among those who have created tiny worlds, which are meant to inspire audience participation.
“We’re also inviting the public; anybody can make their own little world and that might be going into your backyard and videotaping the first plants that come up, or getting a picture so it can be a found world or a constructed world,” said Poitras.
“We’re all in our tiny worlds right now. So it’s kind of weird timing that a tiny world opened and here we are in our tiny worlds.”
The site will be up until
June 1.
New Dance has adapted other programming for
COVID times.
Its dance teachers are offering Zoom classes, said Poitras, and summer school will be online.
“It’s like doing a radio show for dance — which we’re also doing,” said Poitras.
NDH is CJTR community radio’s Plain A.I.R. artist in residence for May.
Each Saturday, NDH artists will broadcast at 3 p.m.
“The radio shows are going to include some somatic education, so you’ll be guided through like a 15 (to) 20 minute exercise as part of the radio show. The first one we’re doing is on Cinedanse, which is dance on film. And we’re looking at the history of dance and film, which is fascinating. A lot of people don’t realize that cinema itself, the whole film industry, starting with the Lumiere brothers and people like Edison, really began with a connection to dance.”