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Emergency #11

Works by Kim Allen, Barbara Dametto, Emily Davidson-Niedoba, Anna Gartshore, Anya Gwynne, Catherine Hann, Kris Keating, Charlotte Kennedy, Old Men Dancing, Jessica Rowland, Anne Ryan, Kate Story & Ryan Kerr, SWAG, Christy Stoeten, Penelope Thomas

March 26 – 29, 2003

Market Hall Theatre, 336 George St. N

Program A: Wed @ 8PM, Thurs @ 9:30PM, Sat @ 7PM,
Program B: Wed @ 9:30 PM, Fri @ 8PM, Sat @ 10PM
Program C: Thurs @ 8PM, Fri @ 9:30PM, Sat @ 8:30 PM

View Program for Program A
View Program for Program B
View Program for Program C

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Tickets:

$7 for admission to one program,
$5 for each additional program 

for more information or to reserve tickets, call
(705) 745-1788 or email dancing@publicenergy.ca

For Peterborough’s eleventh Emergency we bring you fifteen brave new works of dance and performance, with a special emphasis this year on works of physical theatre. You’ll find these works, which use the voice and body in ways you won’t see in dance and theatre, spread throughout the three programs.

PROGRAM A is delightfully varied, and features the return of Old Men Dancing, this time directed by Joe Erickson featuring a live chorus performing music by Arvo Pärt. Snow Day is a spirited duet featuring Ryan Kerr and Kate Story performing in ski-doo suits to a live classic rock score. Catherine Hann combines her classical dance training with an interest in contemporary styles of dance in her solo work. Emily Davidson performs a clown piece that explores the buoyancy and depravity of desire with a mature-theme use of balloons, and theatre artist anya gwynne is moved by the words of women poets in three compelling vignettes about love, sex, and power.

PROGRAM B features Elemental: Fire , choreographer Anne Ryan‘s second work in a suite of four dances about the elements. Not-to-be-missed is Kim Allen as the clown Billy Logan who gets antsy in church, and back for a second appearance in Emergency is the physically fearless SWAG group tackling a movement-based piece about the creative process. Penelope Thomas premieres a gestural, contemplative dance work, My namesake unraveling at night . Theatre and dance artist Barbara Dametto‘s new solo draws its look and sound from the American South, and explores a young woman’s self-imposed confinement.

PROGRAM C treats the viewer to the rich layering of video, slides, live music, puppetry, and dance in Jessica Rowland‘s MIMIC . Charlotte Kennedy as her celebrated Bouffon character Marnie blows the raspberry at the invisibility of older women. Returning for her third appearance in Emergency is dancer Christy Stoeten with a new lyrical solo work. Kris Keating and Anna Gartshore bring us two thematically connected pieces that combine modern dance and physical theatre to tell the story of the many wrenching crises of Big City Choreographer Dede, who appears in Peterborough with the reluctant written permission of her management.

Emergency Eleven Piece Descriptions

PROGRAM A Wed Mar 26 8 pm, Thurs Mar 27 9:30 pm, Sat Mar 29 7 pm

EMILY DAVIDSON performs desiderio * , a clown piece that snags you when you least expect it, like wool unraveling from the hem of your sweater, and pulls you along for an unforgettable trip to places you never thought you would go, or laugh at when you got there. Sounds and movement originate from the heart of clown tradition; this work-in-progress explores the buoyancy and depravity of desire. After three years of Ryerson University’s Theatre-Acting program, Emily is happily exploring the Peterborough performance community before returning to Ryerson for a forth and final year.
*note: desiderio will not be performed Saturday night 

ANYA GWYNNE’s piece in three movements, Fire on the Tongue, splices together the texts of poets Evelyn Lau, Susan Musgrave, di brandt, and Alexis O’Hara. The poets’ words are spoken in a soundscape that underscores a movement-based exploration of love, sex, and power. gwynne is a seasoned theatre artist, and is fresh from a featured role in Mysterious Entity’s production of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead. 

CATHERINE HANN has studied ballet for many years both locally and in France, and has now created a short work entitled Passage to music by Fritz Kriesler that explores the boundaries between classical and contemporary dance. First connecting with Peterborough New Dance as a coordinator of Frank Augustyn’s Ashley Fellowship residency activities, Hann is an elementary school French teacher by day and is currently working toward her intermediate certification with the Royal Academy of Dance.

RYAN KERR & KATE STORY perform their new work Snow Day . Ski doo suits & electric guitar tear across a landscape of the imagination. This is contemporary dance – unzipped! (Not to be outdone by contemporary dancers from big cities, the artists warn us that the piece contains terrifying nudity.) Legendary rock guitarist John MacEwan joins performer/ choreographers Ryan Kerr and Kate Story in Snow Day. Story has worked with companies such as R. Murray Schafer’s Patria, 4th Line Theatre, Seaskum, and creates original dance-theatre works (most recently Crazy…Crazy Like a Fish. Kerr is a stay at home defenceman for the Peterborough Pneumonia, and has been involved with many dance and theatre productions; he looks forward to seeing the upcoming presentation of his new play, Attrition, at 4th Line Theatre this summer.

OLD MEN DANCING are back by popular demand in People Singing and Old Men Dancing to a Mass . Now that the bruises and scars suffered by the old men dancing last year have healed, the addiction to performing in PND’s Emergency extravaganza has once again manifested itself. Under the tight reigns of “Mr. Erickson…Sir”, a whirlwind of singers -The Convivial Chorus, old geezers from last year and a couple of fresh testosterone-laden old guys struggle with the thundering derailment of Christian theology, sex, death, and the curious behavior of our species. Director Joe Erickson was born in a small cabin, deep in the Scandinavian wilderness. He began his long acting and directing career as part of his enforced Sunday school regiment. Musical Director Curtis Dreidger is on the run from a bevy of tomato throwers and copyright agencies, adopts a wide variety of disguises and musical styles in an attempt to elude commitment.

Program B Wed Mar 26 9:30 pm, Fri Mar 28 8 pm, Sat Mar 29 10 pm

KIM ALLEN as the clown Billy Logan discovers a window of opportunity to Make a Joyful Noise during a Sunday Morning Church Service. Within the sacred space between pew and altar, the space reserved for special occasions, the clown discovers percussive body parts and uses her body to create music within an otherwise silent world. Church organist and sound effects are by musician Kirsten Addis, and a very unlikely dance producer has a key cameo as the Reverend. Allen co-produced her own full length work at the Market Hall in November of 2002, and is also a founding members of Chi Chi Chicanery Threeatre, a Peterborough-based physical theatre troupe committed to creating vigorous, challenging, original work that is grounded in the body and gives voice to the human spirit. She has trained in European Style Theatre Clowning with Klauniada in Montreal and at Clown Hall in Toronto.

BARBARA DAMETTO performs her newest solo dance work Kiss Me . It is about a young woman’s self-imposed confinement, symbolized by a white picket fence, and her desire to break out. It is about longing and love, and features music by The Cox Family and John Hartford. Dametto is a local teacher and performing artist, whose original dance and theatre works have been shown at the Toronto Theatre Fringe Festival, fFIDA (The Fringe Festival of Independent Dance Artists), the Theatre Resource Centre and Homeworks studio, and most recently, the 8-to-8 Dances.

ANNE RYAN’s Elemental: Fire is the second piece in a suite of 4 works based on the elements. Fire is inspired by the contrast between the constant movement of a raging fire and the absolute stillness of a candle flame. The original score is played live by Kirsten Addis on the djembe drum, providing the work with a vital texture and evoking the presence of smoke and sparks. Ryan has a B.f.A. in dance from York University, and has been an independent dancer, choreographer, and teacher in Peterborough for the last fifteen years. She has produced two full-length evenings of her own work, and recent projects include producing and performing in the Bare Essentials Dance Project at the Market Hall in November 2002.

SWAG GROUP is back for the second year running in a piece called Body Art , which is a colourful look at the joys and frustration of a not-so-average artist. The piece brings art and movement together in a way that is fun to watch. With a balance of quick lifts to upbeat music, and more slowly paced movement to softer sounds, this piece shows all the emotions that this artist goes through in a single creative session. Originally based at St. Peter’s Secondary School, and now branching into Trent University, The Swag Group includes the creative contributions and performances of Ryan McLeod, Mary-Kate Whibbs, Molly Morrisseyand Rodney and Sidney Pinto .

PENELOPE THOMAS performs her latest work, My namesake unraveling at night . Odysseus’s wife Penelope making and unmaking her weaving to delay her suitors while her husband was away at sea for so many years inspires the themes in the work. This piece is a contemporary dance solo with a gestural, contemplative movement quality and an evocative, layered soundscape played live by local DJ Osha . Thomas has been dancing for twenty-five years; her most recent projects include the 8-to-8 Dances in January 2003 and a duet in the Bare Essentials Dance Project November 2002. Her work as an arts administrator this year has involved her working as an intern with the Danny Grossman Dance Company.

PROGRAM C Thurs Mar 27 8 pm, Fri Mar 28 9:30 pm, Sat Mar 29 8:30 pm

ANNA GARTSHORE & KRIS KEATING bring us two thematically connected pieces melding dance and physical theatre: de Danse moderne is a modern dance send-up: complete with beautiful movement, tragedy, live music by oboist Tori Owens, melodrama, comedy and a bittersweet resolution. Big city choreographer Dede’s lecture-demonstration on the art of modern dance is rudely interrupted by a creative crisis of epic proportions. See the rivalry between modern and ballet come head to head in a dramatic confrontation played by Keating and Gartshore, and surprise yourself with the un-expectedly gifted movements of an unknown maintenance man played by Jim Gleason .
Following her artistic crisis, Dede begins the performance of the second piece, de Builder danse, with a tragic solo when she unexpectedly falls into another world — a world to which she is entirely unsuited. Dede’s artistic efforts turn to mayhem as she tries to make sense of a builder’s world. What’s to be done? Turn them into dancers of course. Featuring performances by Brian Nichols and Tim Walker . Keating is a choreographer and arts educator who is the recipient of numerous Ontario Arts Council grants that allow her to share her knowledge of partnering technique and composition with students in the public school system. Gartshore is a graduate of Ecole Philippe Gaulier — an international acting school based in London England. She has performed as an actress, cellist, singer and physical theatre artist in Canada and Great Britain.

CHARLOTTE KENNEDY performs her newest physical theatre piece, Marnie the Magnificent Master of Disguise . This work is a classical Bouffon piece that delights in blowing the raspberry at a specific aspect of society. Outrageous, fantastical and satirical, the Bouffon is the theatre form of the medieval outcast who has nothing to lose. She is always very knowing and relishes bursting through blind spots of humanity with a sting of light. Musical punctuation is by michael hermistan playing a wide range of instruments. Kennedy is a graduate of the international School of Physical Theatre, directed by Ron East, a graduate teacher from L’Ecole international Theatre de Jacques Lecoq. Credits include Equity Showcase Theatre, The Renaissance Festival Theatre, The Physical Theatre Company, Beyond the Drop Zone Two, The Mandala Puppet Theatre, and a founding member of Peterborough’s Chi Chi Chicanery Theatre.

JESSICA ROWLAND premieres her newest multi-disciplinary work, MIMIC. MIMIC is, in formal terms, an adventure in layering. Super 8 film and other projections, slides, shadow puppets and elaborate costumes are intermixed with recorded and live music to complement the live performance of movement. The theme is based on the story of the handless maiden and Diana, with her bow, making references to dances from many places including the tango, flamenco and whirling dervishes. Scott Elliot contributes costume and projections, and performances feature dancers Christine Apsega and Holly Podres . Rowland is a graduate of Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and has worked with the Art Gallery of Peterborough, The Green Turtle Art Camp, and has taught at Bethany Hills school.

CHRISTY STOETEN brings us a contemporary dance piece entitled Hurt set to the song by Johnny Cash. This song asks “what have I become?” and, more importantly, explores whether or not the answer really matters when one is simply happy in life. Stoeten was born and raised in Peterborough, and has been dancing and performing since the age of three. She is currently living in Toronto, teaching dance, studying arts at the University of Toronto and working while pursuing a career in dance.

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