The Liminal

The Brian Webb Dance Company’s history shows that it has always been committed to the adventure of the new. Brian feels that the contemporary arts today are defined by the use of contemporary technologies. In The Liminal, he is so excited to be collaborating with Gary James Joynes (Clinker), Edmonton’s most celebrated AV artist - (check out the 2018 winter edition of Canadian Art).

Liminal – that state of neither here nor there, of the in between, is an intersection of live performance and new technologies in sound creation. Six amazing performers, including Brian, will join Gary in a celebration of dance, storytelling and singing all shaped by electronic sound creation and mixing.

Over the years the BWDC has built a strong relationship with Edmonton’s rapidly evolving South Asian Dance Community. After presenting the premiere performances of all Usha Gupta’s contemporary Kathak dances, Brian has put together a program of Kathak and Bharatanatyam dances by the Edmonton’s next generation of highly skilled dance artists.

In this mixed program, four pieces will have their world premiere performance.

Dialogue

Dialogue is a piece for six men that explores themes of contact, communication and language – both spoken and unspoken. Underlying our learned ability to speak language, there is a fundamental urge to communicate.

Drawing on Wen Wei Wang’s personal experience as a non-English speaking immigrant to Canada, Dialogue explores the basic desire to be understood, and the loneliness when one does not achieve those rare honest connections with others. Dialogue strives to break down the sophisticated and artificial systems of language and technology to examine the universality of communication and of our collective experience.

“Dialogue is not about diversity, it is diverse.” - Brian Webb

Solo 70

In his final performance, Paul-André Fortier with perform Solo 70. His international career is certainly something to be celebrated!

"Here is a man who has danced, and who dances still. A man whose body has lived fully, and who carries on, pursuing a formal aesthetic.  His aura is nearly mythological, and the depth of his experience reaches into his very soul. Inviting the younger generation into his world - a writer, an actor, a punk guitarist, and others - he asks them to accompany and nourish him, yet also challenge him, pushing him into the unknown and beyond. The world is changing, as is he: style, tastes, questions and concerns. In response, what is important is to converse, to move, to sing, to debate, to sweat, and of course, to dance. And dance again. Always and forever. As if for the very first time. As if for the very last time. This encounter could suggest alarming conflicts, but also surprising points of contact. A clash of conventions and languages in search of a common goal. Expect neither retrospective, nor exegesis: only an indestructible desire to ensure that creativity and its conventions change with the times, and that they leave nothing behind but the burning embers of the present." – Étienne Lepage

Bhinna Vinyasa

Bhinna Vinyasa explores metaphysical journeys prompted by internal and external forces resulting in profound changes in the lives of individuals and communities. Mapping the fractured fragments of dreams, desires, hopes and stark realities in the context of rapid and often unplanned urbanization, environmental shifts and migration, Bhinna Vinyasa will lead you through an immersed visceral experience.

Celebrated in India and across Europe as a powerful expression of virtuality, this international coproduction (India, Germany and Italy), brings a contemporary art point-of- view from the IT capital of the world (Bangalore) to Edmonton on its first North American tour.

“Both the auditory and visual aspects explored a certain stillness, evoking powerful silence and poise. And while the artists broke the definitive barriers of form and genre, it was a truly aesthetic performance.” – Deccan Herald

Second Hand Dances for the Crude, Crude City
Gerry Morita

This work is inspired by Chi Pig, the lead vocalist of Edmonton's greatest punk band ever, SNFU. These dances explore what it means to be punk or alternative in today's world, when the meaning behind those terms has become commodified, fashionable, and neutered of political impact. Can art still cause revolution?

It Began with Watching
Melanie Kloetzel&Co

It began with watching, explores the transformation of democracy as ‘alternative facts’ and outlandish acts populate the political landscape. Through sardonic interactions, blunt physicality, and a brutally humorous text, the work exposes the alarming possibilities that arise as governments, concentrated wealth, and surveillance technologies join forces. A droplet of intelligence here, a hint of a shadowy figure, and we are all marionettes, putty in the puppet master’s hands.