Teasing Gravity – Dances for the Young and Fearless Image

TEACHERS!
Canada’s Most Acclaimed
Dance-For-Young-Audiences is coming to Peterborough’s Showplace Performance Centre
MARCH 1-4, 2004
10:30AM AND 1:15PM DAILY

Tickets are normally $4 each but there is a subsidy for schools coming by bus:
IF YOU ARE BUSSING YOUR STUDENTS, TICKETS ARE JUST $2

The Company…
CANADIAN CHILDREN’S DANCE THEATRE is a contemporary dance company of artists under 19 years of age based in Toronto. Founded in 1980 by Deborah Lundmark and Michael deConinck Smith to present gifted young dancers in professional productions, CCDT has staged more than one thousand performances from Barrie to Beijing and has been hailed by the Globe and Mail as “a national treasure”. Featured performers for young audiences at the Canada Dance Festival and International Children’s Festivals throughout Canada, CCDT will inspire and thrill 20,000 Ontario elementary students over the 2003-04 season.

The Program

TEASING GRAVITY – DANCES FOR THE YOUNG AND FEARLESS is a thrilling adventure in movement that features dances by some of Canada’s leading choreographers. The five-work program includes dances that are fun and whimsical and others that address more serious themes and subjects. Between dances, Company Artistic Director Deborah Lundmark will introduce each piece and speak briefly about the Company and the art form. She and the dancers will field questions following each show. Length: 55minutes.The five works, chosen from the company’s large repertoire are:

• Space Interrupted is a lightning-quick study of teen-age body language set to the headlong electronic rhythms of Photek by the Company’s resident choreographer, Deborah Lundmark. The dynamic young dancers leave their audience breathless as they tease gravity with a rush of jumps, turns, falls and lifts.
• Nine Person Precision Ball Passing is a dazzling “dance of the hands” created by New Yorker, Charles Moulton. The choreographer challenges 9 dancers to pass brightly coloured balls in a kaleidoscope of musical patterns – a one-of-a-kind feat of hand-eye co-ordination and perfect team timing.
• Musical Chairs is choreographer Gerry Trentham’s comic take-off on the popular children’s game where too many characters chasing too few chairs make for some of the funniest moments in dance. As if such worldly problems were not enough, the choreographer gives the chairs a mischievous personality of their own. The bizarre result, while not so funny for the players, is a great delight for audiences everywhere.
• Attack of the Small Ones is choreographer Holly Small’s humourous answer to the ages-old problem of the schoolyard bully who spoils the fun of an innocent (and very comical) group of playmates. Everyone – except the bully – cheers the surprise ending that the “small ones” have in store.
• Oh Mary Don’t You Weep was created by choreographer Keith Lee for five young women in Lexington, Kentucky. The original dancers were an inspiration to this work. Lee thought of them as possessing very strong characters so he paralleled their strength with that of four monumental Marys who, through the power of their belief, raise Lazarus from the dead. The piece, though fictional, does have a true spiritual power and it poses a challenge to all who dance the roles.

Performance Support Materials…
Participating schools will receive an Educator’s Workbook including a survey of Canadian dance, theatre etiquette and a description of the program’s dances including suggested exercises and a reading list.

Admission…
$4 Thanks to generous support from the Ontario Trillium Foundation and the Ontario Arts Council, CCDT is able to provide subsidized admission to a program valued at $15 – $25.

DancePlay Workshops for Students…
Complementing its performances, CCDT offers movement workshops for students wishing to personally experience what they see on stage. The 1-hour sessions, designed by CCDT Director Deborah Lundmark, combine curriculum-based dance and music elements. The in-school workshops are available the last two weeks of February 2004.
Enrolment maximum: 30 students (Observers welcome!)
Cost: $200 per class

For Bookings contact…
Anna at Peterborough New Dance: 705-745-1788 or anna@publicenergy.ca

For more information about the company check out the web site at www.ccdt.org