Mainstage B

Two distinct Mainstage programs showcase diverse, accomplished and innovative Canadian artists.

Saturday, May 31st, | 8pm | $25|Talkback | 9:30pm
Co-operators Hall, River Run Centre, Guelph, Ontario
| $5

JANET JOHNSON [Guelph]
Chrysalis Project (Premiere)

Choreographer: Janet Johnson

The Chyrsalis Project is a performing art piece that uses multi-generational artists to tell the tale of this earth/life cycle. The flight of the monarch suggests the fascinating longevity of a lifespan and the wondrous commitment to life that prevails in a species. Strong images of the earth, of ritual, and of physical and spiritual flight smatter this canvas. The Chrysalis Project joins hands with the Guelph Youth Dance training programme as well as with Temple Studios in this citywide, community-focussed event that draws on Guelph's unique trove of talent. This piece is co-produced by the Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival and featured as part of their 10th-year anniversary celebrations.

After graduating from York University's Dance Program, Janet Johnson spent six years in Toronto. While there she co-founded the eclectic company, PEDESTRIAN WALTZ DANCE PROJECT whose work was performed on rooftops, art galleries, sidewalks as well as at the Canada Dance Festival, "Dancing on the Edge" Festival and in DanceWorks' Mainstage series. Since 1994, Janet has been choreographing independently of PWDP through various commissions and with the financial assistance from the Laidlaw Foundation. More recently Janet has had the pleasure of presenting her choreography at such forums as the Guelph Contemporary Dacne Festival (1998, 2007), Peterborough New Dance Series and Danceworks Mainstage Series (1999). Janet has danced for a diverse number of choreographers such as Denise Duric, Darcy Callison, Conrad Alexandrowicz, Julia Sasso, Kim Frank and more recently Dancetheatre David Earle. Since 1995 Janet has been living in the Guelph area where she actively pursues outreach dance efforts through teaching: she has been a resident modern dance teacher in Guelph, at McMaster University's Centre for Dance, at the University of Waterloo, a frequent recipient of the Ontario Arts Council's Arts in Education Grant, an artist for the Edward Johnson Music Foundation as well as a guest teacher throughout the region. Since 1998 Janet has been co-founder and co-director of the successful Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival and in 2005 co-founded the Guelph Youth Dance Training Program. In 2007 Janet was nominated for the YWCA-YMCA Woman of Distinction Award in the category of Arts and Culture in Guelph, Ontario.

LA CARAVAN [Calgary]
Contrast (2007)

Choreographer: Maya Lewandowsky

Contrast explores both the contradictions of human existence and the tensions of foreground and background. Extreme contrasts are enacted through every aspect of this piece: its music, colours, costumes and choreography, as the eight dancers use the body intelligence and grace of classical ballet but break it into contemporary movements

Photo by Melissa Mckinnon Photography

With a strong classical and modern background, Maya Lewandowsky started her career in the Israeli dance company Bat-Dor as a dancer and a soloist. She later joined the fast-growing contemporary group Inbal Pinto Dance Company. In 2001, Lewandowsky began work as a choreographer. Among her early creations are "Nexus," "In-Proximity" and "Slugs," works that explore the connection between body movement, vocals, and created language in which movement grows from the rhythm and tempo of the performer's breath. In 2004, after three years as a solo performer & choreographer, Maya Lewandowsky started her own company, La Caravan Dance Theatre.

FIRSTTHINGSFIRST PRODUCTIONS [Toronto]
Double Life (2007)

Choreographer: Kate Alton

Choreographed by Kate Alton, performed by Kate Franklin and Kate Holden with composition/sound design by Lyon Smith, this relentless, intricately tangled duet is an intensely-physical exploration of the idea of double identity and the battle between the image of ourselves that we project and the one that we carry inside.

Photo by David Hou
Photo of Kate Franklin and Kate Holden.

Kate Alton is an award-winning Canadian dancer and choreographer who has performed on stages around the globe. She is a former member of Toronto Dance Theatre and is Artistic Director of her own company, Crooked Figure Dances. Her work has been presented across Canada and in Europe. Recent projects include James Kudelka's 15 Heterosexual Duets at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival for Coleman/Lemieux & Compagnie, firstthingsfirst production's sold-out show Namesake, for which she was featured on the cover of NOW magazine, the Exchange Rate Collective's Appetite for Summerworks and the Volcano/Crooked Figure Dances' co-production of The Four Horsemen Project, which garnered four Dora Awards, including Best Direction by Kate Alton and Ross Manson.

KAEJA D'DANCE [Toronto]
Abattoir (excerpt)

Choreographers: Allen and Karen Kaeja

Allen Kaeja's visceral aesthetic meets Karen Kaeja's liquid, sensual athleticism in this major new work of depth and disturbing beauty about our capacity for innocence. Dense with hard-edged kinetics, Abattoir combines the disciplines of dance, music, theatre and opera vocals to explore shifting perceptions, intimate tensions and the erosion of our humanity as we attempt to hold on to our dignity.

Abattoir features the company's performers in collaboration with the fiery talents of new opera singer Fides Krucker and composer Edgardo Moreno. Abattoir includes original text by Jason Sherman, with lighting by Roelof Peter Snippe and costumes by Jorge Sandoval. Performer: Karen Kaeja.

Photo by Allen Kaeja
Photo of Robert Halley and Karen Kaeja

Hailed as "one of the city's most watchable performers" by NOW Magazine, Karen Kaeja is co-artistic director of Kaeja d'Dance for whom she performs for stage and film locally and abroad. She has won the Moving Pictures Award for Best Performance, the 2005 Paul D. Fleck Fellowship as one of Canada's innovative artists of excellence and was nominated With Allen Kaeja for the 10th annual American Choreography Awards. Featured in NOW Magazine's top ten dance artists as a "champion of contact dance," she is on faculty at the School of Toronto Dance Theatre and has assumed other guest artist positions at Universities in North America. As a dance educator, she has developed the Express Dance approach with Allen Kaeja, serving in-need communities across Canada. "One of Toronto's top Improvisers" (Toronto Life), Karen has conceived performance events for Toronto's Distillery Jazz Festival, Nuit Blanche 2007 at the Casa Loma Stables, which "left visitors spellbound, and haunted" (The Toronto Star), and she co-founded/directed the Festival of Interactive Physics (FIP). She has been commissioned and presented by dancers, festivals and performance series in Sweden, India, Spain, Mexico, Portugal, the US, and across Canada. Recent commissions include Dusk Dances, VIVID, LuminaTO’s Luminat’eau and a 2008 installation at Casa Loma for Nuit Blanche. Karen and Allen Kaeja are featured in several documentaries, including the Gemini-nominated Bravo! Freedom series on Canadian dance. Their 16 dance films have garnered international awards, and Gemini and Banff World Television Award nominations. Kaeja Online