DUSK DANCES choreography by Peter Chin, Allison Toffan, Carmen Romero, Karissa Barry and Tina Fushell. At Withrow Park (south of Danforth between Logan and Carlaw). Previews Sunday (August 5), opens Monday (August 6) and runs to August 12, 7:30 pm (2 pm mat on August 12). Pwyc ($15 suggested). 416-504-6429 ext 24, duskdances.ca.
After 24 years, Dusk Dances huge and loyal audiences have learned to expect a few cultural juxtapositions at their annual al fresco dance buffet. Thats good because its one of the things veteran choreographer and multidisciplinary mix master Peter Chin does best.
Chins Oceanic Reach premieres at the Withrow Park dance festival this weekend, alongside another commissioned work, Poinciana, from tapper Allison Toffan and works by flamenco artist Carmen Romero and contemporary artists Karissa Barry and Tina Fushell.
Chin is working with dancers Pulga Muchochoma and Nivedha Ramalingam. One is a member of Toronto Dance Theatre and has a concurrent traditional African dance practice the other is trained in the classical Indian dance form bharatanatyam. Chin himself has studied everything from opera to Khmer to classical Balinese and Javanese dances. Making it all cohere- in the park? No problem.
Chin often starts a work simply by considering the performers, rather than the steps or the technique behind them.
Its not like I go in at the beginning trying to find all of this fancy footwork, he says. Dancers bring their own stories to the process, their own backgrounds. And the meaning just spins out of them. But its not like they are just elements of my choreography Im not interested in that. I want to see who they are and what their inner life looks like.
Oceanic Reach, commissioned by Dusk Dances, is imbued with the idea of geography, specifically the Indian Ocean between India (where Ramalingam has studied) and Mozambique (where Muchochoma was born), both as a barrier and a means for connection. Thematically, the work sends the performers reaching across the oceanic expanse, across cultures, and even the new piece is set to a requiem by Gyorgy Ligeti across dimensions.
Chin identifies with the performers, describing a life experience that is also shared by many Torontonians.
Theyre international, they have family all over, they have creative lives on different continents and they are integrating and connecting disparate cultures by being who they are. Its very moving for me, because these are things that I have been thinking about in my work since the nineties.
Born in Jamaica and raised in Canada, Chin splits residential time between Toronto and Cambodia, and is constantly touring and making work internationally hes an artist of global reach. And he understands well how such cross-border fluidity fits into recent high-profile discussions about cultural identity, representation, migration and artistic freedom.
Three years ago Chin reacted to a Globe and Mail review of his work that he found culturally insensitive, pushing back publicly and asking that the Globe not review his work in the future (he has subsequently turned down at least one commission rather than embroil other artists and companies in a potential conflict).
Although he still feels mainstream media operates mostly from a dated Western perspective, Chin says his thinking has evolved somewhat since that period and he feels less pressure to be publicly vocal about it.
I think the general discussion about culture, and the participation by more and more people in it, is more forceful now especially with whats been going on with Robert Lepage lately [two recent productions involving Lepage, Slav and Kanata, were recently cancelled due to public outrage about ham-fisted cultural exploitation].
There are real leaders who are speaking up with compelling things to say. Very slowly the discourse is evolving and I think we are becoming more conversant about the issues.
Chin, whose work has always been about finding the connections, says he feels hopeful that challenging conversations can lead to new understanding. Oceanic Reach says as much, in movement.
Here in Toronto we still tend to think from a North American perspective, but of course there are as many ways to think about things as there are points in the world.
stage@nowtoronto.com
