Interview with
Amy Bowring by Dr. Carolyne Clare Over ten years ago, Dance Collection Danse's Executive and Curatorial Director Amy Bowring and I visited an aging dancer’s home because the dancer was not well and she wanted to give DCD her collection of dance books. I was struck by the dancer’s isolation and her gently masked grief. I also saw how Bowring was able to take on the role of caregiver, offering solace and meaning to a sick person, as if the dancer were family. Since that day, I have seen Bowring as being more than an archivist. For dance, she is also like a trustee, or a trusted person who has been given the authority to administer a deceased person's effects. Or perhaps she is more like a spiritual leader who skillfully provides comfort to grieving communities by enacting rituals, opening honest discussions and checking in to ensure that people's basic needs are met. Either way, her work takes courage. Our backdrop, a global pandemic, invites me to think about Bowring’s role in dance as being related to caregiving and grief. The pandemic has raised discussion about the positive impact of the arts on mental health, and other discussions about how caregivers, usually women, have been especially burdened by the pandemic. While I offer no analysis of labour and equity here, I am compelled to flag Bowring as a bit of an unsung hero for dance,
Amy Bowring © Michael Ripley
as she carefully works with performance, at the cusp of being, passing and recollecting.
A Dancing Ghost... CC: Amy, you have worked with deceased dancers’ stuff for almost 30 years. Have you ever seen a ghost dancing in the archive? AB: No, I haven’t seen a dancing ghost. I did get to visit Toronto’s Eaton Auditorium before it was renovated, which originally opened in 1930. It’s a storied place that I never thought I would get to see, even though I knew it was still there, locked away at the top of a shopping centre. When I walked onto the stage, placing my feet where many great dancers had
Dance Central Spring 2021
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