JOY OF DUSK DANCES
Outdoor festival celebrates the joy of movement by inviting ordinary Hamiltonians to join in
Meredith Thompson wants you to get on board. The dancer-choreographer who has danced with several major contemporary dance companies has been performing and touring with Dusk Dances since 2007.
She’ll be in Hamilton with this outdoor dance festival and performing “Get On Board” choreographed with Kate Franklin. It’s a tap dance piece and it’s the sort of dance work audiences adore.
It’s just one of four works being performed in this populist dance evening. And you don’t have to know a tap shoe from a tutu to enjoy this quartet of audience-friendly works.
“I found everything about it so accessible,” says Thompson. “For one thing it takes dance out of the theatre and puts it outdoors. You don’t have to worry if you’re wearing the right clothes. Finances are not a barrier. It’s like taking baby steps toward enjoyment of dance.”
Thompson likes the fact choreographers can be totally creative with what they make for this sort of event.
“Incandescent,” the second piece she and Franklin have made for the Hamilton performance, is a real departure.
“It’s about meeting people, about forging communities, about dancing together. There are professional dancers who start things off and then the piece builds with local people who have joined in during several rehearsals. The youngest performer is nine. The oldest is over 70. Once, when we performed this piece, we had a newborn baby balanced on his mom’s lap. It’s all very intergenerational.”
Workshops were held at the Hamilton Public Library and the Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts. So far there are 30 people involved and Thompson is hoping by the time the event takes place there will be up to 50.
She admits things are a tad female-dominated at the moment, but she hopes more men and boys will get involved.
“The piece is about light,” she says. “It’s about playing with light physically and emotionally. It’s inspired by the lyrics to Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem.” He says, “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
Thompson calls the work, “structured improvisation.”
“I guess it’s experimental,” she laughs. “Maybe it’s the very future of dance. I mean here is dance created partly on people who are nondancers, people who don’t have years of training. It’s about taking out the dancer and finding the person.”
“Incandescent” has been performed several times before at Dusk Dance festivals but this will be its Hamilton première.
Thompson says, “More boys are beginning to take an interest in all dance forms but of course it’s not as big as sport. Europe is different, but in North America dance has not received the same sort of funding and participation.”
When Thompson isn’t dancing or choreographing she’s on the faculty of George Brown as well as Toronto’s Contemporary Dance Theatre where she is the director of the young apprentice program.
In addition to “Get On Board” and “Incandescent,” Hamilton’s Dusk Dances Festival will feature “This is How We Love,” a première by Susie Burpee, danced by Sylvie Bouchard and Brendan Wyatt and “Carousel” by Bouchard and David Danzon, danced to French accordion music.
Dave Gould provides the opening band for the evening and Nina Gilmour is your hostess.
Bring along a sweater, bug repellent and an open mind. Who knows? You may discover dance is your secret passion.