Nova Bhattacharya and Jenn Goodwin – Out of Bounds

Peterborough New Dance presents
Out of Bounds
2 women, 4 dances, 1 incredible show

Workshops with the artists:
•Bharatanatyam for Contemporary Expression:
A workshop by Nova Bhattacharya
•How to tell a story in 2 minutes: Video and Dance on Film – A workshop by Jenn Goodwin

Downloadable photos for the press…

Two compelling dancers, Nova Bhattacharya and Jenn Goodwin, combine their extreme differences and explosive energies in Out of Bounds. The program includes two stunning new duets: The End created by co-founder of The Holy Body Tattoo’s Dana Gingras, and Gold Moon from Tokyo’s modern dance doyenne Mika Kurosawa . Goodwin’s 2004 solo The Falling and this year’s hit from The Canada Dance Festival, Calm Abiding, a powerful and potent new solo created for Bhattacharya by Montreal’s José Navas , complete the program. Illuminated by the visionary Marc Parent, the electrifying Out of Bounds is sure to confound expectations of what contemporary dance is.

Springing from dialogue and gestures from horror and suspense films, The End attempts to understand what is revealed and what is hidden. Gold Moon (premiering at the Tokyo Dance Selection Festival on October 14, 2006) is a work of elegant simplicity, where Bhattacharya and Goodwin create a contained world of endless possibilities constantly overlapping each other, as if they would cease to exist without the other’s reflection. Goodwin’s solo The Falling explores living to extremes – and sometimes close to death – in search of a greater sense of life and living. And Bhattacharya’s solo Calm Abiding by choreographer José Navas daringly combines high emotion with the formalism of dance.

Artist’s Statement
“My reason for asking Jenn Goodwin to join me on a programme of dance is a part of my ongoing vision of bringing unexpected combinations of performers together. Jenn is from an aggressive, athletic style of contemporary dance that she combines with tender vulnerability to communicate emotional and intimate experiences of women. I come from a highly refined classical background that I am constantly trying to push into a grittier, earthier realm. The team of creators that contribute to this program are some of Canada and Japan’s most respected artists and I am honoured and privileged to bring their work to Peterborough.”
~ Nova Bhattacharya

Artist Biographies

Nova Bhattacharya
Nova Bhattacharya trained in Bharatanatyam with Toronto’s Menaka Thakkar . During eleven years with Menaka Thakkar & Co. she toured nationally and internationally as a soloist and company member.

In 1997, after a side-trip career in the investment industry, Bhattacharya returned to the world of dance, working at Dance Umbrella of Ontario in the position of Administrator, Artists’ Services. In 1999, she fully committed herself to the pursuit of her artistic goals and began to create, commission and produce dance. Her repertoire includes work created by Peggy Baker, José Navas, Menaka Thakkar and several self-created solos. Her own choreography has been described as “a contemporary expression of the Bharatanatyam form… and more.” (Vancouver Sun). A compelling interpreter with a captivating stage presence her performances have struck a deep emotional chord with audiences and critics alike. She has appeared in the works of classical and contemporary choreographers including Denise Fujiwara, Janak Khendry, Karen Kaeja and Hari Krishnan. An ongoing fascination with different aesthetics coming together in a cohesive artistic experience has led her to create opportunities for unique partnerships with dancers such as Natasha Bakht, Louis Laberge-Côté and Jenn Goodwin.

Recent work includes choreography for Theatre Direct Canada , Cahoots Theatre Projects and two commissioned duets co-choreographed with Louis Laberge- Côté for Dance Ontario and Dusk Dances respectively. After Out of Bounds performances in Danceworks 30th Anniversary Mainstage Series, and Peterborough New Dance’s 06/07 season, she will sink her teeth into the creation of an ensemble work for Toronto Dance Theatre’s 4@ The Winch program.

Jenn Goodwin
Jenn Goodwin moved to Montreal from Burlington Ontario and received at BFA at Concordia University in Contemporary Dance and a minor in video. She has called Toronto home since 1998 and creates dance, film and works as an arts programmer.

Jenn’s dance work is inspired by story telling, humour, discomfort, beauty, death, pop culture and raw energy. Her dance work has been show all over Canada, NYC, Amsterdam and Brussels. (see www.turbobonz.com ) She has also choreographed music videos, commercials and directs her own short dance films that have shown in festivals in Canada, NYC and Europe and have been broadcast on Bravo, Channel 4(UK) and the Sundance Channel (US) Recently she was also featured on FREEDOM – a show about dance artists for Bravo and was also nominated for the KM Hunter Award in dance.

While in Montreal she met Sarah Doucet and they continue their 15 year collaboration under the name Stutter Dance. With Jessica Rose, she is also one half of The Movement Movement – , which is a movement… about movement. The Movement Movement runs with art by running the city’s Art Galleries and Institutions.

Further collaborations include working with Ed Hanley, Nicola Pantin, Sylvie Bouchard, Marlee Cargill, Lisa Gabriele, Justine Chambers, Heidi Strauss, Darryl Tracey, Zoja Smutney, Ame Henderson, Matthew Dailey, Jared McSween, Valerie Gelinas, Cat Lipscombe, Elizabeth Langley, Tania White, Blake Howard, Jeff Wilson, and many more people each of whom she is grateful and honored to work with.

Dana Maria Gingras
Dana Maria Gingras was born in Canada then grew up in Argentina and Scotland. In 1993, Gingras (with Noam Gagnon and Jean Yves Theriault) co-founded The Holy Body Tattoo as a multi-media dance company. Since its inception, the company has received both critical and audience acclaim. The company has been Artist in Residence at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre since 1998 and has captured a number of significant awards and honours for both its stage and film work. In 1997, our brief eternity won The Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best Ensemble Performance. The work has been performed over one hundred times in Canada, Europe and the US. Circa, which received the inaugural Alcan Performing Arts Award, has been performed around the world, including at Ein Fest in Wuppertal, Germany at the invitation of Pina Bausch, and at London’s Barbican Theatre. Running Wild, a collection of solos and duos, premiered in Vancouver in May 2004, and toured across Canada and to China. monumental, The Holy Body Tattoo’s most recent work, involves the company’s largest performing ensemble to date.

Dana has collaborated internationally on a number of different projects with a wide range of artists including designer Steven R. Gilmore, filmmaker William Morrison, writer William Gibson, visual artist Jenny Holzer, musicians The Tiger Lillies, Iva Bittova, Warren Ellis (The Dirty Three), Steven Severin (Siouxie & the Banshees), Roger Tellier-Craig (Fly Pan Am) and The Tindersticks. Her most recent collaboration is with animator and programmer James Paterson with whom she is currently conceiving and creating a full evening of work entitled Smash Up.

Mika Kurosawa
Mika Kurosawa was born in Yokohama, Japan in 1957 to a family of modern dancers. She began learning modern dance at the age of five from her parents Teruo Kurosawa and Eiko Shimoda. During the first 20 years of her career, she received many prestigious awards.
From 1982 to 1985, with a grant from the Japanese government and Asian Cultural Council, she lived in New York. In 1983, she danced pieces of Amy Rosen and Bebe Miller, and became a member of the Nina Wiener and Dancers with whom she toured in the United States and Europe in 1994. Through drawn to and influenced by the experimental bare movement style of the Judson Group, Kurosawa developed her own distinct style. Later her interests shifted towers what is a more secretive, underground and intimate practice.

José Navas
Trained as a dancer, the Venezuelan-born artist José Navas now pursues a rich choreographic career. With a repertory that includes more than twenty pieces, Navas has quickly become a regular at some of the world’s most prestigious venues for contemporary dance: Vienna’s Im Puls Festival, Joyce Theater in New York, London’s Dance Umbrella, Venice Biennale and Aoyama Theatre, in Tokyo. His work has been internationally acclaimed for the universes he creates: formalistic, fantastic, the audience’s only compass there is their own emotion.

After studying dance in Caracas and at the Merce Cunningham Studio in New York, José Navas moved to Montréal and started choreographing his own work. In 1995, he founded Compagnie Flak and began an international career. Among his numerous creations, Sterile Fields (1996), One Night Only 3/3 (1998), Solo with Cello (2001), Perfume de Gardenias (2000), Adela, mi amor (2004) and Portable Dances (2005) are the landmark works of his choreographic journey.

Marc Parent (Lighting Designer)
Marc Parent has worked as a lighting designer for more than 20 years, creating over one hundred designs for the stage. Marc is a self-taught designer whose exceptional conceptions and artistic collaborations with numerous national and international creators have been acclaimed by audience and critics alike. His primary specialization is in contemporary dance and he has worked with several companies from Canada and abroad including Peggy Baker Dance Projects(Toronto), The Holy Body Tattoo (Vancouver), as well as many choreographers of the dance scene in Montréal including Danièle Desnoyers, Daniel Léveillé and José Navas. Currently he is the resident lighting designer for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal. Marc is also in demand as a designer for theatre and has been nominated by the Académie Québecoise du théâtre for the Masque award.

Public Energy Presents
Bharatanatyam for Contemporary Expression:
A workshop by Nova Bhattacharya
Saturday, November 18, 2006, 2-3:30 pm
Market Hall Performing Arts Centre,
336 George St. N.
$10 Admission.
Call 745-1788 to reserve.

A workshop in the use of Bharatanatyam technique for contemporary expression. Dancers will participate in exercises designed to use classical Bharatanatyam as source material for contemporary movement. Dance sequences will be created, deconstructed and abstracted. Dancers will also be taken on an in-depth journey through abhinaya (mimetic) technique as a way of exploring characterization. Finally, workshop participants will have the opportunity to use the highly developed gestural vocabulary of mudras (hand gestures) to interpret text. Please bring a piece of text that you would like to explore in this workshop.

Participants should have some dance or movement training in any technique and an interest in choreography. Please wear appropriate dance clothing. Participants will be dancing barefoot.

Nova Bhattacharya studied Bharatanatyam with Toronto’s Menaka Thakkar and toured nationally and internationally as a soloist and company member. A vivacious performer, she has been described in The Globe & Mail as possessing a style that is “bold and disturbingly direct.” Her choreography has been characterized as “a contemporary expression of the Bharatanatyam form … and more” (Vancouver Sun), and has been commissioned by Dusk Dances and The Canada Dance Festival and presented by Desh Pardesh and The Dancing on the Edge Festival. Recently she was featured in NOW Magazine as one of Toronto’s top upcoming stage artists.

Call 705-745-1788 for more information

Public Energy and the Peterborough Arts Umbrella Present
How to tell a story in 2 minutes: Video and Dance on Film
A workshop by Jenn Goodwin
Wednesday, November 15, 7 – 10 pm
Follow up screening Saturday, November 18, time TBA
Market Hall Performing Arts Centre,
336 George St. N.
$10 Admission.
Call 745-1788 to reserve.

Jenn Goodwin, choreographer and director of dance films, commercials and music videos will be presenting a workshop on video and dance. Participants will work towards creating a 2 min film. Using a three-dimensional medium (the body) with a two-dimensional medium (video) we will tell a ‘story’ and learn how to capture movement on camera. Participants will also explore the differences between creating dance for film versus creating dance for live performance. The workshop is open to both dancers and film-makers / videographers. Space is limited, so reserve early.

Jenn Goodwin received a BFA at Concordia University in Contemporary Dance and a minor in video. She has called Toronto home since 1998 and creates dance, film and works as an arts programmer. Jenn’s dance work is inspired by story telling, humour, discomfort, beauty, death, pop culture and raw energy. Her dance work has been shown all over Canada, NYC, Amsterdam and Brussels.

She has also choreographed music videos, commercials and directs her own short dance films that have shown in festivals in Canada, NYC and Europe and have been broadcast on Bravo, Channel 4(UK) and the Sundance Channel (US) Recently she was also featured on FREEDOM- a show about dance artists for Bravo and was also nominated for the KM Hunter Award in dance.

More info at: www.turbobonz.com

Call 705-745-1788 for more information