editor's letter
There is always one major question when putting together a magazine: Is this going to be relevant in two months?
The production cycle starts months before the issue goes out for delivery. Stories get assigned; writers get to work; then Cindy Brett, our copy editor (who hates false titles, so I made sure not to do that here) and Lois Kim, our art director, jump in.
When the world is going as planned, the “relevancy” question is easier to answer. But with everything so uncertain, it’s much harder. I am certain, however, that our feature story by Ravyn Ariah Wngz will never be irrelevant. Wngz asked several dance artists to respond to the phrase “I don’t see colour; we are all the same.” The answers point to how “not seeing colour” is profoundly harmful.
Written by Brannavy Jeyasundaram, our feature profile showcases Bageshree Vaze, a kathak dance artist and artistic director of Pratibha Arts in Toronto. This year, the company’s production A Hidden Princess was nominated for three Dora Mavor Moore Awards: Outstanding Production, Outstanding Performance by an Individual and Outstanding Original Sound Composition.
Our “In Conversation” feature is an extension of Patricia Allison’s online column “Welcome to Our World: Can digital innovation during COVID-19 be leveraged in a post-pandemic world to make dance careers more accessible?” Allison spoke with Justin Mii-Sum-In-Iskum Many Fingers, Jordan Sangalang and Kelsie Acton about whether the flexibility and speed at which dance communities adapted during the pandemic can be applied to disability arts.
Finally, our photo essay features Nichole Leveck (on the cover) and her daughter, Nazarene Pope. The duo are fancy shawl and jingle dress dancers who began a maskmaking operation, providing more than 1050 face masks across Turtle Island since July. In the interest of transparency, the photographer is my partner, Jonathan Elliott.
My instinct now is to sign off by hoping that everything goes back to “normal” (even though there are things that we may want to let go of). But even if The Dance Current newsroom remains spread across our team’s homes, you can be sure that you will still get your issue.
Cheers,