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Festival of New Dance 2023
October 4, 2023
Wednesday October 4th
7:30pm
Supportive $40
Regular $30
Subsidized $25
Presented by Neighbourhood Dance Works
An Evening of Atlantic Dance
with Mocean Dance, Jalianne Li, Liliona Quarmyne
Utawtiwow Kijinaq – Our Mother’s Road
Co-Choreographed by Mocean Co-Artistic Director Sara Coffin, and Eskasoni First Nation dance artist Sarah Prosper, this cross-cultural and cross-generational duet explores the spiritual and emotional qualities of water. Two perspectives meet as the performers process their histories and relationships with water, and with each other, moving towards connection and balance. Inspired by the life-giving sacredness of mother earth and the four sacred waters: Fresh, Rain, Body and Sea; water is our honoured protector guiding us down the flowing paths of Our Mother’s Road – Utawtiwow Kijinaq.
100x1x2
At once rooted in reality and living in an absurd, surreal universe, 100x1x2 is a solo dance performance by Jalianne Li that marvels at humanity’s uncanny ability to adapt. Faced with new difficulties and limitations such as the restriction of space, social unrest and isolation during the pandemic, 100x1x2 asks the question: how can we overcome what life throws at us? The show offers a response, through Li’s point of view. She finds resilience in the creation of art and draws from its well of inspiration. The act of creation becomes her voice, her way of communicating and making sense of the world, and a means of survival.
Resonances of a Warrior Boy
Resonances of a Warrior Boy by Lilliona Quarmyne is a contemporary African solo that is born out of an exploration of ancestral memory. It examines how the ancestral story that is stored/deposited/discovered in my body interacts with my own story here, in this time, on this land. The ancestor at the core of the piece is my great-grandfather on my father’s side – my Ghanaian side. He was captured at 16 in the north of what is now Ghana (then the Gold Coast), was enslaved in the internal slave trade in various parts of the colony, somehow made his way to the south and, by the time he died, was a renowned warrior, chief, and landowner. He is the Warrior Boy in the piece, although my Ghanaian grandfather and grandmother’s stories also appear and resonate.
Ages 14+ / Mixed program with a variety of content, some family friendly, some more mature