Dance Central Sept Oct 2017

September/October

Dance Central

Claiming Space

Heavy Ground

A conversation with Adam Hayward

Page 2

Dance In Vancouver

The 2017 Schedule

Page 6

The Power of Dance

A conversation with Alvin Erasga Tolentino and Linda Blankstein Page 8

Welcome to Dance Central

Heavy Ground

A conversation with Adam Hayward

AK: You are the curator for Dance In Vancouver 2017 (DIV), but you are based in Christchurch, New Zealand. How did a British dance curator come to be working in what was formerly known as 'the colonies'?

AH: I started dancing when I was five, did an undergraduate degree in Drama and Music, and then a Masters at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, in performance studies with a semiotician called Dr. Susan Melros, which then took me to the Centre for Performance Research in Aberystwyth, West Wales. I worked for five years with their directors Richard Gough and Judie Christie, and then I went to New Zealand for a month's holiday. That was seventeen and a half years ago. I have been on stage for forty-one years, and I don't really know what else to do... I describe myself as a nomadic materialist, and New Zealand is a pretty good base, with its shaky isle status.

AK: Different curators describe their activity in very different terms. Coming to it the way you did, what does 'curating' mean to you?

Welcome to the Fall issue of Dance Central. This issue features a conversation with Adam Hayward, the New Zealand-based curator of the 2017 Dance In Vancouver event. The conversation centres on what dance curation means in a global context, how it is affected by the cultural and economic conditions of countries that share a colonial past, and how to challenge curatorial thinking that centres on product rather than process.

The second conversation featured in this issue is a reflection on the experiences of Alvin Erasga Tolentino and Linda Blankstein in organizing a series of Immigrant Youth Workshops that began in 2016 and will continue this fall at the Killarney community Centre and the Immigrant Services Society.

As always, we thank all the artists who have agreed to contribute and we welcome new writing and project ideas at any time, in order to continue to make Dance Central a more vital link to the community. Please send material by e-mail to members@thedancecentre.ca or call us at 604.606.6416. We continue to look forward to the conversation!

Andreas Kahre, Editor

AH: It really depends on the context. I directed a dance festival called the Body Festival for fourteen years, and there are many different hats a curator wears; acting as a conduit, a megaphone, a follow-spot operator, a myth debunker, a cut-through-the-bullshit filter. With Dance In Vancouver what happened was that I had been to Vancouver a couple of times to go to the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. When I came for the first time to Dance In Vancouver in 2015, curated by Pirjetta Mulari, I arrived three days after the trust that had been employing me to run the Body Festival had folded, and the decision had been made to stop the festival, partly for economic reasons, but there were other factors; what was interesting is that the reasons I was no longer comfortable with festivals were the reasons why Mirna was interested to have me curate DIV.

Heavy Ground

A conversation with Adam Hayward

I had delivered a polemic to a group of people on the question why we are obsessed with product? and why one of the big failings of curators globally is that there are three kinds of major obsessions which let down the arts: An obsession with time, with space, and with ego. I think that curators have fallen into a – potentially necessary – trap when they curate based on cost, on bums in seats, on the name of the choreographer and on the pressure of time to condense the work in terms of presentation. The starting point for our conversation with artists is not healthy; it's 'who are you? this is when you are doing it and where you are doing it.'

With the earthquake in Christchurch, nature removed the barrier of space. We lost all of our theatres, and in 2015, of the 27 venues we used, only 4 were recognized as theatres and 23 were spaces we activated as performative spaces which was joyous, because my conversations with artists didn't start with 'this is the theatre we have, and what do you have that fits in there?' Time became the other factor. Why am I pressuring my artists to present fully polished works? The conveyorbelt-nature of festivals brings curators to constantly asking 'what's next? What's next? What's next?' In New Zealand, it has created a cycle where process is not being invested in as much as product. How could I as a curator present process? Christchurch is a city of fewer than 400,000 people, and at its zenith 31,000 people took part in the festival. Half as active participants, and at the last festival 16,000 people attended dance performances. We had an audience that trusted what we were presenting and packaging and, therefore, we were able to begin a conversation by saying 'what you are going to see, don’t think as polished but as a stage presentation, and still worth investing in a ticket.'

As for the ego thing, I went to FTA (Festival TransAmériques) and saw mille batailles, the new Louise Lecavalier work. I was shouted at by an audience member for not standing up for a standing ovation and was lambasted: 'Do you not know who she is?' and I said 'Yes, that's the problem; it's that you are standing up because of who she is and not what she is doing.' For a few years now, I have had a desire to curate an anonymous festival, where none of the artists are named and

where your ticket selection is based on what you read or what is presented about the work itself. For instance, how great would it be to present the Royal New Zealand Ballet, and an experimental puppet company from Eastern Europe, and the two productions were Swan Lake and Kafka's Metamorphosis. People would know they are coming, and their assumption about the show would be that it is the ballet in the 1400 seat theatre, and the puppets in the 100-seat basement venue, and it would turn out to be the other way around. There would be angry letters, but that would be good... So, how can we begin to explicitly challenge this way of curating? Interestingly, with DIV, the selection was done with very little knowledge of who the artists were. I had been to DIV and seen some of the artists, of course, and it is impossible to do objective curation, but at least I began from a more distanced point of view.

AK: Did you see the work in video?

AH: Yes, I looked at the description on the page, looked at links, made some decisions based on the attitude of the submittee; with some you could tell that there was an expectation that they would be in the event because of their stature in the community, but our responsibility as curator is not to perpetuate that, because you are x, you're in, because you bring bums into the seats. Some of the double bills deliberately combine artists you would not normally see together, because presenters often come to a festival and stay in their comfort zone, to see an artist they know and know they want to program, and know they can sell tickets, which is part of their job of course, and not necessarily evil, but I said if you are going to do that, I am going to make you also sit through something you don’t know.

AK: I imagine that it is one thing to curate a festival in a community where you know artists and audiences like Christchurch, and another to do it in a city where you don't. In some disciplines, especially visual art, there is now arguably an 'international' audience that migrates from Biennale to Biennale and is aware of a 'global' art scene. Vancouver has such an audience for visual art, but in dance, certainly until about ten years ago, we were quite isolated, geographically, and also in terms of a presence of international artists. It has begun to shift, but it is still not at the point, I think where Vancouver, and especially a regional event like DIV is on the radar of an international performance audience. How do you take this into account?

AH: I am very interested in the idea of de-centralization. Think of Ariane Mnouchkine’s Théatre du Soleil in les bois de Vincennes

"...there are many different hats that a curator wears; acting as a conduit, a megaphone, a follow-spot operator, a myth debunker, and a cut-through-the-bullshit filter."

The Dance Centre

Scotiabank Dance Centre

Level 6, 677 Davie Street

Vancouver BC V6B 2G6

T 604.606.6400 F 604.606.6401 info@thedancecentre.ca www.thedancecentre.ca

Dance Central is published every two months by The Dance Centre for its members and for the dance community. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent Dance Central or The Dance Centre. The editor reserves the right to edit for clarity or length, or to meet house requirements.

Editor, Art Director & Layout Andreas Kahre

Copy Editor Hilary Maxwell

Contributors to this issue:

Adam Hayward, Alvin Erasga Tolentino, Linda Blankstein

Photography: Angel Lynne (cover), Linda Blankstein, Carol Brown

Dean McKenzie Cooper, Adam Hayward

Dance Centre Board Members

Chair Ingrid M. Tsui

Vice Chair Josh Martin

Secretary Margaret Grenier

Treasurer Matthew Breech

Past Chair Beau Howes, CFA

Directors

Carolyn Chan

Eve Chang

Jai Govinda

Anndraya T. Luui

Starr Muranko

Dance Foundation Board Members

Chair Linda Blankstein

Secretary Anndraya T. Luui

Treasurer Jennifer Chung

Directors Trent Berry, Kimberley Blackwell, Praveen K. Sandhu, Janice Wells, Andrea R. Wink,

Dance Centre Staff:

Executive Director

Mirna Zagar

Programming Coordinator

Raquel Alvaro

Marketing Manager

Heather Bray

Digital Marketing Coordinator

Katrina Nguyen

Venue and Services Administrator

Robin Naiman

Development Director

Sheri Urquhart

Lead Technician

Chengyan Boon

Accountant

Elyn Dobbs

Member Services and Outreach Coordinator

Hilary Maxwell

Member Services and Development Assistant

Anna Dueck

The Dance Centre is BC's primary resource centre for the dance profession and the public. The activities of The Dance Centre are made possible bynumerous individuals. Many thanks to our members, volunteers, community peers, board of directors and the public for your ongoing commitment to dance in BC. Your suggestions and feedback are always welcome. The operations of The Dance Centre are supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Province of British Columbia, the BC Arts Council, and the

ONGOING NOVEMBER 22 - 25

10am-9pm Film Screening: F-O-R-M @ DIV

Scotiabank Dance Centre, Level 7

Dance Histories Project installations (animated 7-8pm)

Scotiabank Dance Centre lobby Level 1

WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 22

10-11.30am Event: Working ClassDance In Vancouver Special Delivery

Professional contemporary dance class open for viewing (Training Society of Vancouver)

Scotiabank Dance Centre

4-5.30pm Discussion: Why Shrink the World?

Scotiabank Dance Centre

8-9.15pm Performance: Wen Wei Dance Dialogue

Scotiabank Dance Centre

8-9.15pm Satellite Performance Company 605 In Circulation

Shadbolt Centre for the Arts

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 23

10-11.30am Event: Working ClassDance In Vancouver Special Delivery

Professional contemporary dance class open for viewing (Training Society of Vancouver) Scotiabank Dance Centre

1.15-2.30pm Event: Foolish Operations/Julie Lebel + Shay Kuebler Radical System Art, SFU Woodwards Atrium

3-4pm IndigeDIV Keynote: TBA

Vancouver International Film Centre

4-5.30pm IndigeDIV Conversation: Building Meaningful Relationships

Vancouver International Film Centre

Dance in Vancouver 2017 Schedule

5.30-5.45pm Event: Olivia C. Davies/Home: Our Way Collective. Gathering the Fire, Vancouver International Film Centre

7-7.30pm Event: Boombox (Off-site)

8-9.15pm Performance: Double Bill

Meredith Kalaman Femme Fatales (excerpt)

Ziyian Kwan/dumb instrument Dance Kwan Yin Scotiabank Dance Centre

8-9:15pm Satellite Performance

Vanessa Goodman/Action at a Distance Wells Hill

SFU Woodwards

8-9.15pm Satellite Performance

Company 605 In Circulation

Shadbolt Centre for the Arts

9-10pm + 10pm-late Satellite Event

plastic orchid factory Digital Folk, Left of Main

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 24

10-11.30am Event: Working ClassDance In Vancouver Special Delivery

Professional contemporary dance class open for viewing (Training Society of Vancouver), Scotiabank Dance Centre

3.15-4pm Discussion: Why Do You Curate?

Scotiabank Dance Centre

4-6pm IndigeDIV Confluence: Film Screening + Conversation: Value-Guided Practice, Vancouver International Film Centre

7-7.30pm Event: Boombox (Off-site)

8-9.15pm Performance: Double Bill

Karen Jamieson/Karen Jamieson Dance & Margaret Grenier/Dancers of Damelahamid light breaking broken

Lesley Telford/Inverso Spooky Action at a Distance (Phase One)

Scotiabank Dance Centre

8-9:15pm Satellite Performance

Vanessa Goodman/Action at a Distance Wells Hill

SFU Woodwards

8-9.15pm Satellite Performance Company 605 In Circulation

Shadbolt Centre for the Arts

9-10pm + 10pm-late Satellite Event

plastic orchid factory Digital Folk Left of Main

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 25

1-2pm Performance: Mixed Program

Julianne Chapple + Mahaila Patterson-O’Brien + Marissa Wong + Shay Kuebler/Radical System Art, Scotiabank Dance Centre

12- 1pm IndigeDIV Sharing: Denise Brisson, Olivia C. Davies, Margaret Grenier, Jeanette Kotowich, Jessica McMannMichelle Olson, and Michelle Olson, KW Studios

4-5.30pm IndigeDIV Conversation: Indigenous Creative Process KW Studios

6-6.30pm Event: Boombox (Off-site)

8-9.15pm Performance Double Bill Aeriosa Second Nature (excerpt)

Co.ERASGA Tracing Malong

Scotiabank Dance Centre

8-9:15pm Satellite Performance

Vanessa Goodman/Action at a Distance Wells Hill SFU Woodwards

8-9.15pm Satellite Performance Company 605 In Circulation

Shadbolt Centre for the Arts

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 26

2-3:15pm Satellite Performance

Vanessa Goodman/Action at a Distance Wells Hill

SFU Woodwards

Power of Dance

A conversation with Alvin Erasga Tolentino & Linda Blankstein

The Power of Dance: Youth Engagement Program is a unique opportunity for youth to work with a team of professional artists from diverse backgrounds. The workshops are designed for youth who would not normally have access to Canadian arts and cultural opportunities, and will provide a nurturing and supportive entry way into using the performing arts as a means of self expression to assist in developing new life skills and knowledge of their new Canadian homeland. Four 2-hour sessions, based on dance, movement exploration, creative writing, theatre techniques and games.

AK: Watching some of the video material that emerged from the Power of Dance: New Immigrant and Refugee Youth project, the participants look like they have become active, engaged youth. Have they overcome their traumatic experiences?

LB: We work with all kinds of youth at different levels of their settlement journey. The ones you saw in the video have already been in Canada one to two years, but this summer we worked with youth at the Welcome Centre, through Immigrant Services Society, which means they have been in Canada only between one and three weeks, and they were a lot more confused and stressed. Some youth, like those Alvin is going to do a workshop at the Killarney Community Centre, are part of the Vancouver School Board Settlement Program and have to fulfill certain status requirements in Canada.

AK: How did the project start?

LB: Before I started with The Dance Centre, I worked at Made in BC - Dance on Tour. The BC Arts Council announced the Youth Engagement Program and I thought 'Why don't we apply for something and get artists that are interested in working in a diverse manner?' Made in BC is a touring organization, and lots of times artists are asked to do a variety of community outreach activities while on tour, so I wrote the grant, with the concept to combine co-facilitators with different skills, so they could learn from each other and then try to place them with groups of youth that were more challenging to work with than regular dance students. We worked with indigenous youth, single teen moms, refugee and immigrant youth, and when I joined The Dance Centre I reapplied, fine-tuned the focus, and brought Alvin Erasga Tolentino in because he was one of the people that really got into the project with Made in BC. It is very important that the facilitator resonates with the process.

POWER OF DANCE POWER OF DANCE

THE POWER DANCE THE POWER DANCE

AK: What are the challenges? What is different compared to a regular youth workshop?

LB: One of the biggest challenges as we bring other facilitators to the project and expand it and Alvin works with them, is the inconsistency of the youth’s attendance. This year we are shortening the workshop and we are trying to get the youth to commit to all four sessions, but it is hard, as often the demands of their family are very high as the youth we work with may be the only one in the family who speaks English, and they are really relied upon, or they are working, or their focus has to be school, so to get them to find four free hours a week for ten weeks was a lot. That was our first project. It was really great because we really got to know the youth.

AET: The first year really was a period of trial and error. What is our relationship to the youth, who are they, where are they, and as Linda said, some have been here two years, some have been here only two weeks. How do we adapt to that? and that learning curve and phase gave us a chance to think about how to move forward, how to provide an actual creative space where they can go to play and be together as youth. We are working on how to make it more fluid in terms of our relationship with them and The Dance Centre.

LB: The first year really was about exploring the workshops, the youth and techniques for the facilitators, and this year for me, it was more a way to use our funding as a platform to ensure the program becomes embedded into The Dance Centre's programming, which means it needs to be affordable and manageable within our means, which are fairly confined, so it's about taking the time while we have the financial support to find appropriate community partners, such as Immigration Services Society, which are also under development and just last year got a full-time person focusing on youth programming, which has helped a lot. We are working with them trying to embed what we do into their focus, so it continues and we don't start from scratch each year. Same with SWIS — Settlement Workers in Schools, which we partnered with in the summer, and again in the fall of this year, and are hoping to do fall and spring workshops every year moving forward. I hope to get the administrative work done and community partners in place so that it can be twice a year in various places; this year was about developing facilitators and working with a variety of artists.

AK: You are working not only with contemporary dance but also with other dance forms?

AET: This past summer we worked with five different artists from the dance community ranging from contact improvisation to flamenco, and hip-hop to vogueing so that we could explore a variety of artistic practices to integrate it into the youth’s dance experience.

AK: Is there anything that you found particularly successful in engaging them?

LB: Many youth like hip-hop because they know it, they

watch it on YouTube and they are familiar with the music, so that is often their top request but we found that using contemporary dance worked much better as the facilitators could incorporate movement phrases that the youth created.

AET: I think the youth are interested in having the opportunity to explore their own creativity, so the facilitators create movement and choreography, but they also find it themselves and then we explore that together, this allows us to showcase movement directly influenced and created by the youth themselves. The showing that we did in December of 2016 was really successful and the youth really enjoyed themselves and the opportunity to share with friends and family.

LB: The feedback we got was that they wanted to show what they did, so this year in the 4-week workshop structure, the last half hour is reserved for a small showing with family and friends.

AK: You also worked with a combination of poetry and dance. How did that idea come about?

AET: When Linda approached me, she also asked if I was interested in exploring diversity in disciplines, moving toward theatre, music and writing. One of the artists who had worked with Made in BC was Amal Rana, who is a poet and writer, so we approached her and we co-facilitated the very first part of the project at Scotiabank Dance Centre. We combined text and movement; I worked with the dance component, and she worked with writing and voice. We had different youth from many parts of the world, so we tried a whole range of approaches, and the youth really enjoyed it. Fortunately, we also had a really good chunk of time to immerse with the youth, to take our time, and get to know the process and the organization we worked with.

AK: What is the age range?

LB: In order to qualify for our funding, the youth have to be between 15 and 24, so every workshop is a bit different; with SWIS they are in high school, between 14 and 18. A few were a bit older.

AK: How do you determine group size?

AET: It is really open, depending mainly on the spaces available. The most we can accommodate are about 20-25.

AK: How are they selected?

LB: In the first year, when we ran our own workshops we looked for participants ourselves, and it was hard starting from scratch to find youth and to maintain communication with them. That's why we started working with community partners, to help sign up the youth, maintain relationships and communications as well as having experienced Youth Workers available in case they are needed. We also found working in a space that is more familiar to them and closer to home works best. The Killarney Community Centre has a beautiful dance studio, so there we can take as many as 25.

AK: It was interesting to see how comfortable they seemed to be in their interactions, regardless of the cultural differences. I also noticed that a lot of the movement they explored was gesturally based. Is that something they bring to the workshops on their own?

Alvin Erasga Tolentino & Linda Blankstein

"My country of origin is Tibet. I am 20 years old. I came to Canada in 2015. It helped me a lot cause I loved dancing since my childhood. I loved that I got to do it again, and also made many good friends. I am still in touch with them and we interacted pretty well and got to know each very well as we all loved dancing. I would love to see the workshop continue as it helps immigrants like us to make new friends and also to get out of our comfort zone. Really thankful to Alvin and your team for all those fun times we had together and also learnt a lot by just dancing, please continue this workshop I would love to join again."

AET: Yes, in the part where I was working with them our intention was to allow them to come up with their own gestures and movements, and the facilitator would just help them develop the movement further.

LB: One thing I really liked, especially in the workshops for new immigrants at Immigrant Services Society of BC, was that there were youth from the Philippines, China, India, Syria, Iran, and Iraq, sometimes there was just one youth from a country with limited English, and you could watch them find ways to communicate, and to see friendships develop. When you come from a closed social environment to Canada, which is so open and diverse, it was really rewarding to see that the workshops were helping to breaking down cultural barriers.

AK: How do you communicate with them after the workshops?

LB: We have set up a Facebook page and we send a Mailchimp newsletter out to everyone we have come in contact with and try to offer them access to what is programmed by The Dance Centre, and to try to keep them in touch with free open showings, classes, and ticket giveaways, and to involve them in Canadian arts and culture. Last year, Alvin took his group to the Vancouver Art Gallery; none of them had been before, and they did some dancing in the Gallery, which was lovely. We also did a one day workshop with Mique'l Dangeli and three or four youth came to that. We also had two who wanted to sign-up with Aeriosa Dance to volunteer at their outdoor event in Stanley Park this past July.

AK: If some youth are recently arrived and some have been here for two years, and some are new, how do they interact?

LB: I would say our workshops attract people who have been in the county for a similiar length of time.

AET: They certainly interact socially in the space once they are comfortable, and they are quite present on social media. They also have a tendency to form groups.

AK: Given that they come from so many different cultures, with so many different ideas of what is appropriate behaviour for the body and for youth, how do they find common ground?

LB: It is both the youth and us and the facilitators who have to find our way. This summer, one of the five facilitators was

asked to do a hip-hop class, and some of the women especially from the Middle East were not comfortable with that and opted out. We all have to be sensitive to what may happen and to be able to react quickly. Facilitators may come with a lesson plan but need to be prepared to throw it out the window if the youth do not respond. We had a conservative young woman from Syria, very recently arrived, who was not comfortable in the class, when she was asked to share something she was familiar with, she did some belly-dancing moves, and everyone thought it was amazing. She taught the others, and then her whole persona in the class changed. A lot is about the facilitator, what they see in the room and how they react to it.

AET: I really think you have to be fluid and realize who is there and how you can be really responsive to the number and the type of youth in the room. For me as a facilitator, it is a sensitive issue, and you have to be very present, which is what we constantly talk about when we reach out for other facilitators. Fortunately, we know who the artists are and that they have a sensitivity to these kind of issues.

AK: Are the youth comfortable finding themselves in a ‘co-ed’ situation?

LB: Some aren’t, and we have had people opt out because of that.

AK: I noticed that there wasn’t any 'floor work' in the videos. Is that a choice by the youth or the facilitators, or is there another reason?

AET: In the first program, we did some floor work, because we were at the Anvil Centre, which has a beautiful studio space, and also at Scotiabank Dance Centre, but we have also been in spaces where we just couldn’t do it. For me, it’s great if they can explore the floor, so that it isn’t always vertical, and when the opportunity presents itself, they adapt and explore. It’s not an issue, except for the spaces we work in.

LB: It also has to do with time, although it doesn’t take that long for them to be comfortable with the facilitators. Some engage more readily than others; with Immigrant Services, we had people sitting on the sidelines, but at

least they were clapping and laughing, and that’s a step in the right direction. The whole purpose is to allow them to stay at their own comfort level and not feel judged…

AET: …and to really explore what that comfort zone is. To not push it too much but to give them the opportunity, and that’s when as a facilitator, you have to observe where that is. Sometimes it isn’t the facilitator that will bridge the gap but the other youth. So, you have to observe, and that is really a learned skill.

AK: How did you integrate movement and text?

AET: We had only one text-based facilitator so far, but it began with me asking them to describe their names, write them down and then create a movement vocabulary. That started the notion of exploring their own language, and Amal would work with them in whatever language was available to them. They wrote more about the origins of their names and what they represented.

LB: Arash Khakpour did a two hour one-off session, and is going to back to Immigrant Services for another, longer one. He brought drawing materials and asked them to draw (actually, he asked them to draw what resonated from the class content, but many drew their homes) and then he asked them to dance it — which they did, and that in two hours is pretty amazing, so we are curious to see where he will get in four sessions.

AK: Community outreach has become a very important aspect of how funders allocate their support. Often this involves familiar forms of workshops, presentations and conversations, but what you are doing here requires a whole other level of skill and resources in order for all the participants, youth as well as facilitators, to be in a safe space. How do you meet these demands?

AET: That is a very important question. As a professional artist, recognizing that the youth coming here are often dealing with profound psychological trauma, while having to integrate themselves into a new country, I have to ask myself as a facilitator ‘How equipped am I?’ I believe that question needs to be put out to the participating organizations, the artists, and also the funders: ‘Do we have a method we can use when we are engaging in this kind of exploration with the community?’

LB: I think that is really important, and even though we haven’t discussed it in detail, we are in conversation with the community partners in order to make the program as authentic and as safe as possible. Initially, we really were on our own, and that was not always comfortable. Now, with the community partnerships, we have support for the youth who are usually part of a larger program, and they have a personal connection with a SWIS worker or a youth worker who are present, so there is a contact and resources that we can use if and when there are issues, but for the facilitating artists it is a concern.

AET: Arts funding is increasingly based on working with the community but I believe that as artists we have to ask ourselves ‘do I, as a professional dance artist have the resources I need to work in this capacity?’ I believe community outreach is important in the cultural sector and we need to ensure that we develop the skills and be provided with the tools, to do our work respectfully and properly.

AK: For the coming year, what will you change, expand, or shift in the program?

LB: I think we will have to see if the four-week format works and is long enough to do the work, or if we need to consider six weeks. We have tried different formats and will now analyze if this works and discuss with the facilitators about how they feel about what they are accomplishing within the time frame and if the youth feel fulfilled. We have also changed Alvin’s involvement to act in the role of ‘artistic advisor' and are looking to find more people who really want to do the work. It is difficult for professional dancers/choreographers /artists to find four weeks in their schedule to commit to this type of project, however we feel very strongly that we need to work with professional artists in order to keep the workshops on a very high artistic level. Integrity on all levels is crucial to the success of this program.

AET: Many of the artists who want to be working with youth and community may be on stage, in creation, research or on tour. It is also a critical part of The Dance Centre's role in connecting to the community.

Power of Dance

A conversation with Alvin Erasga Tolentino and Linda Blankstein

It is a really important aspect of our work and it is important for the funding bodies to recognize that. At the same time, for me, this is such an important program. It is responding to the shift in what is happening in terms of migration and population growth in Canada, and how we deal with involvement is critical.

AK: When are the next workshops going to take place?

LB: The first of the fall 2017 workshops took place October 21-November 11 at Killarney Community Centre, and the second series will take place November 29-December 20 at Immigrant Services Society.

AK: Thank you!

"This was the best workshop that I had ever done, it made me realize that how unique and beautiful we all are in our own way. Please continue making this workshop cause this helps immigrants like us to open up and be ourselves and also find some confdence within us."

Heavy Ground A conversation with Adam Hayward

continued from page 5

in France in 1968 or of Eugenio Barba’s Odin Teatre in Holstebro in Denmark. I find this shifting away from the centres liberating. When I think of a festival like PuSh, there is a wonderful trust that comes from the peripheral nature, that feeling on the margins gives a lot more freedom in what you can get away with, because there is not an expectation that you will have to concede to the norm or the stereotype. People think FTA is so cool because it is in Montreal and because it is FTA, but that is its downfall in a sense, because it becomes a victim of its geography. There are other spaces like the Walker in Minneapolis, outside the conventional circuit, and I recommend people go to New York in January for Under the Radar, and Coil and so on, but then piggyback a trip to PuSh in Vancouver, where the public may feel marginalized, on the periphery, as 'l'étranger' in the meaning of Camus, and there is a hunger to experience new work in a hidden geography.

AK: PuSh programs physical work and dance as well. What distinguishes it from DIV?

AH: PuSh is a pan-artform festival. DIV is very local in terms of drawing attention to the Vancouver dance scene, but this year, I am bringing three New Zealand dance artists to DIV. It is interesting to see the similarity to an issue I have with artists in New Zealand; the mentality created by an idyllic place that makes people say 'why would I go somewhere else?' New Zealand, like the West Coast, is a beautiful country, a stunning landscape, you are never far from ocean or mountains, and life is very comfortable. The problem with that is that the work becomes stale or complacent because it doesn’t have a global context, or a frame of reference against which to compare itself. Because of the economy of distance, you can't bring massive touring productions to New Zealand. However, in the context of the move from product to process, I was in Japan a couple of years ago and met with Saburo Teshigawara, the founder of KARAS, and chatted to him about the idea of a 'failure project' as a space to play, and he said 'I wish someone invited me to do that, to have the space not to have to present the next multi-million dollar production in Paris or wherever.' I think there are economically perpetuated problems but the only way we can contextualize ourselves as artists on a global scale is to see other's practices. What I observe is that those artists who make the most interesting work

have gone away and returned home. With DIV participants, I hope we can have these conversations about going away from your country, and your tried and tested companies, and to challenge yourself as a curator or a presenter. There is a workshop in DIV this year called 'Why do you curate?' and I want as many presenters from the CanDance network and Made in BC and from Vancouver to be in that room with artists and public and literally answer that question. I am very interested in marginal and peripheral presence. For example, I have gone to Ice Hot, the Nordic dance platform in Stockholm (2010), Copenhagen (2016) and Helsinki (2012). The most interesting work, to me, is what is happening on the edges, in Finland and Iceland (which are not classed as Scandinavian countries, incidentally) rather than Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, New Zealand is also strange marginal place — sometimes people ask where in Australia it is located — and I love the Pacific Northwest rim, with Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver. That periphery is where I think the most interesting things happen.

AK: Speaking of the marginal, the question of indigenous artists, in New Zealand as much as here, and their presence in the arts and festivals is interesting. There is a recent upsurge of acknowledgment of First Nations presence at least, although it is still just a beginning. How does that compare to New Zealand from your perspective?

AH: New Zealand is interesting. It has a Maori indigenous political party which had recognition and seats in parliament — until the recent election, at least. In terms of indigenous dance, if you look at Australia and New Zealand, the treatment is very different. In New Zealand, there are indigenous dance companies that are funded, a slew of independent indigenous artists, the likes of Jack Gray, Louise Potiki Bryant, Black Grace, Lemi Ponifasio —probably our most well-known ‘export’ choreographer. There was an indigenous dance festival called Kowhiti, a few years ago, and I was asked to curate a panel of indigenous choreographers. I started by saying 'I have one question and then I will leave the stage: How does it feel to be programmed as an artist because of the colour of your skin?' They went off for an hour and a half. I found it interesting because at DIV they have just begun the acknowledgment of indigenous land, and settlement, and I look at what has happened in the last two years with the Museum of Anthropology and people like Margaret Grenier and all of that becoming more prominent. I guess the question from a curator's point of

Heavy Ground

A conversation with Adam Hayward

view is 'Are you curating it because it is indigenous or because it is quality, and because of its relevance to what you want to curate?' There is large and small 'p' politics in play here, but I think in New Zealand we are more fortunate than in a lot of countries with an indigenous history in that we have a treaty that is ‘honoured’, and we have platforms, and our indigenous work is programmed domestically as quality work, rather than as indigenous work, and there is no quota to fulfill. It is interesting to see those conversations happen in Canada, and to see how far behind countries like Australia are. I think it comes down to treatment on a national level, and there will always be grievances and a relationship of colonizer/colonize.

AK: In Canada, sadly, our first conversation, apart from residential schools and the safety of indigenous women would have to be about providing a reliable supply of safe drinking water to Canadians who happen to live in First Nations communities. But going back to your question about 'who do we curate for', there is a First Nations audience, but even if DIV has programmed an indigenous artist, finding and engaging that audience in the context of a contemporary dance event is not an easy task. Speaking of the honest conversations you are hoping to encourage, how does one alter that?

AH: To use the New Zealand example, there is an economic stereotype because a lot of Maori people are in a lower socioeconomic stratum, and there have been instances where indigenous works were presented and indigenous audiences couldn't afford to see it. Our biggest theatre in Christchurch is a 1400 seat proscenium, and we have created programs where we take kids in schools of lower economic status for a term and teach them dance; salsa, contemporary, jazz, swing, tango, ballroom (but no hip hop) and then let them perform on that stage, in a theatre they would never be able to afford, for their families. My challenge to that theatre for the last couple of years has been that as a festival or community organization I can raise the money to pay for that theatre, and I don't want to devalue to cost of that ticket, but I want to develop a

subsidy for the cost of a $30 show and take it to the community that would most benefit from seeing it and offer them a $5 ticket. How can we, instead of a venue subsidy, create a ticket subsidy, so we can go out and through connection officers and say: We are not just coming into your community to present this token piece of indigenous work, but it has a voice because of its quality within the festival framework. Yes, there is a reality that we have to charge an amount that is beyond the standard price, but we can offer a subsidy. Of course, there also has to be an interest and a willingness on the part of indigenous audiences to come out of their comfort zone and say 'We are interested.' It has to be driven from the ground up, but there also has to be an education and informing of that ground level that says 'This is available to you if you wish to connect.' I think that audience development in contemporary dance has a universal message.

AK: In your video invitation, you emphasize that Dance In Vancouver should be experienced as a 'journey'. What do you have in mind?

AH: I find with festivals and platforms that people turn up at the theatre, they watch the show, they stick around for a Q&A — which I hate and propose to ban — and then they leave. It is a bubble: 'Tonight we are going to the theatre.' For me, the idea comes from the Christchurch experience that our audiences had to travel outside their comfort zone to get to the space where we presented work because we had lost our traditional venues to the earthquake. So, I said "What if we propose that DIV was curated as an entity, that there was contact from the moment you turned on your TV in the hotel room.”. I was in a Tapas restaurant in Gastown with Justine A. Chambers, and some of the waitresses were dancers/artists. There is this myth that dancers have money, and I thought we would go with a group of people to this restaurant and that the meals will be hosted by artists in the festival, and the following day you will have lunch with them. The walks between theatres will be along a path where the artists have to work during the day. I proposed to stage a fire alarm, but that didn't work. The challenge to the audiences is: 'Don't just drop in to see the work by artists you know; join them at the restaurants they work in, and they will be there with you and talk about the show’.This is nothing new brought in suddenly by an outsider — festivals all over the world are doing it, but I recommend the encounter. One of my favourite works from

"...one of the big failings of curators globally is that there are three kinds of major obsessions which let down the arts: An obsession with time, with space, and with ego."

the last DIV was Justine's choreographed walk, because you begin to see the city through different eyes, you stop taking it for granted, your relationship to the space that surrounds you should not be a given. The festival should permeate the entire city.

AK: Are you proposing a question, or a concept by your selection of work?

AH: The original theme which is now more implicit than explicit is Heavy Ground, which is about the fact that our connection to the land is experienced as a given and in isolation, instead of being a global connection. I look at a Pacific island body or a Maori body and a Canadian body, and they are different. It is just in the nature of geography and culture and existence. In our search for identity we want to look at how we frame our existence in relation to those dimensions. We can get a little stuck in our spot and our landscape or, within a city, you get stuck within your culture, or tribe. Can we begin to open

"I have one question and the stage: How does it feel to be programmed artist because of the colour of your skin?"

Heavy Ground

A conversation with Adam Hayward

then I will leave programmed as an skin?"

our eyes and ask questions about these connections, and perhaps even reject them? I am not saying you have to acknowledge that you are one being in a universal cosmos and you have to know everybody, but ask the question in order to affirm your answer.

AK: Looking at this question in relation to who is represented in the DIV lineup, many of these artists have explored and sometimes struggled with the different dimensions of their cultural identities: Wen Wei speaks

of the difficulty of integrating Chinese and Western cultural aspects in his work and his life, Karen Jamieson describes her journey into First Nations culture as critical to developing her artistic identity, and an artist like Ziyian Kwan describes cultural identity as a process of discovery and invention. They and many others are also currently exploring about how these relationships shift as they age.

AH: I also think of people like Aryo and Arash Khakpour, but to go back to that notion of indigenous identity, New Zealand regards itself as a bi-cultural country, but as a multicultural society, and that is an interesting way to frame it. There is Maori and Pakeha culture; I am not sure there are any pure blood Maori left, but the balance and negotiation continues. Those who are part of an older generation had to struggle and fought to achieve that success, and I think it is interesting to have a non-indigenous–to-Canada guest curator. I applaud Mirna for doing this, choosing Pirjetta and me, and with Jason Dubois on board as a producer, there are plenty of people out there who are asking that challenging question 'Why we are presenting what we are presenting? Why do you label yourself as an indigenous choreographer? That takes me back to the Heavy Ground idea; we a re caught by those layers of history that we sit on as artists and presenters and curators, and we need to constantly put a spotlight on these questions.

AK: What do you aim for in curating DIV this year?

AH: I think that The Dance Centre is positioned really interestingly globally, and we should not underestimate the intelligence of our audiences, and also the desire of artists and curators to be challenged. We want to give them the opportunity to be challenged, and our role is to give them the opportunity to think differently. If we just continue to present regular platforms we perpetuate the same problems. In conversations with Mirna and others around Canada, there needs to be a lot more support given so we can give the chances to join and experience the event as journey.

AK: Thank you!