Peggy Baker | Canadian Dance Icon

Krishna’s Mouth | since then | unmoored
February 20 & 21
8PM
Timms Centre for the Arts, Second Playing Space

Peggy Baker is a Canadian dance artist who believes wholeheartedly in the beauty of the dancing body. This body celebrating its aliveness in the here and now. Originally from Edmonton, Peggy has built a powerful international presence, and yet, her performances are defined by her simple honesty, her humble nature and her beauty.

KRISHNA'S MOUTH is danced by Natasha Bakht, a brilliant Barahtanatyam dancer, an author and a law professor.  Peggy's choreography explores the communication between peoples of diverse cultures in our pluralistic society.

SINCE THEN is danced byJacquline Ethier and Sarah Hopkin, two dancers from the Ottawa dance community who offer the audience a sublime ( YES! SUBLIME!) interpretation of Peggy's choreography which beautifully and tenderly explores the here and now through each individual's eye.

UNMOORED brings us Peggy's phenomenal skills as a powerful dancing woman, a woman with stories to tell, a woman who eagerly gives of herself. Choreographed by Sarah Chase, UNMOORED is a work that offers us the experience of celebrating every aspect of life as experienced through the heart of Peggy Baker.

Krishna’s Mouth
choreography: Peggy Baker
music: Karen Tanaka (The Song of Songs)
recorded cellist: Shauna Rolston
lighting design: Gabriel Cropley after the original by Marc Parent
costume: original pieces by Caroline O’Brien with bodice by Robyn Macdonald
dancer: Natasha Bakht

 “I first encountered the story told within Krishna’s Mouth in Annie Dillard’s ruthless and touching For the Time Being, and it hit me like a thunderclap. In this remarkable book, Dillard draws together stories from across millennia and around the globe to shed light on the human dilemma. In 2005, alone in a Montreal studio, improvising to Karen Tanaka’s Song of Songs, the story insisted on telling itself to me, over and over.  Finally, I spoke it out loud. Coming back to this dance in 2018, but also stepping outside of it to pass it on to three utterly unique interpreters, theatre artist Ravi Jain stood beside me to watch and listen and share his insights. Natasha Bakht makes this dance her own.” PB

premiere: Peggy Baker:  January 19, 2006; Vertigo Theatre; High Performance Rodeo; Calgary
debut by Natasha Bakht: February 22, 2018; The Theatre Centre; Toronto

 The creation of Krishna’s Mouth was made possible by a residency with Circuit-est, Montreal, and through support to Peggy Baker Dance Projects from Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Arts Council.

since then
concept, choreographic composition, direction: Peggy Baker
movement invention: Peggy Baker with the dancers
original score: Debashis Sinha
costumes: Peggy Baker
lighting design: Gabriel Cropley
dancers: Jacqueline Ethier and Sarah Hopkin

“since then arose out of the retrospect of age. I have insights now that I wish I could share with my younger self. There are conversations about love, sexuality, loss, and old age that I would dearly love to have had with my late mother. There are truths about my life that I have never confided and need to find the courage to share and discuss. I offer this dance as an invitation for conversations among women.” PB

premiere: June 2, 2022; ODD Box; Ottawa Dance Directive
The creation of since then was made possible through the support from Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Ottawa Dance Directive and The School of Dance (Ottawa)

unmoored

choreography and direction: Sarah Chase
text and performance: Peggy Baker
sound design: Debashis Sinha
Arabic vocalist: Maryem Hassan Tollar
recording of Nina Simone used with permission
lighting design: Marc Parent
technical director / stage manager: Gabriel Cropley

“In 2003 I turned to the dance artist Sarah Chase to make a work for me. Sarah creates in a genre she calls dancestories, and preliminary to working together she set me the task of writing two stories for every year of my life. When the time came to go into the studio together, I told Sarah that there was one aspect of my life that I hadn’t written about and could not share in the public sphere. Sarah agreed to my caveat, and we went on to create a piece titled The Disappearance of Right and Left. In March of 2017, I sat down at a desk, in a small room, in a huge house in Bogliasco, Italy to remember and write the stories I had not been ready to share. Over the next months, Sarah and I worked together to distill my writing as a dancestory titled unmoored. The episodes I recount in unmoored describe events during the 20-year arc of my marriage to the musician, composer, and disability rights activist, Ahmed Hassan.” PB

unmoored

in midnight water

no waves, no wind

the empty boat

is flooded with moonlight

(Eihei Dogen / Japanese Zen master / 13th century)

premiere: February 21, 2018; Franco Boni Theatre / The Theatre Centre; Toronto

unmoored was created through support to Peggy Baker Dance Projects from Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Arts Council; with the invaluable support of a fellowship with the Bogliasco Foundation in Liguria, Italy; and through subsequent residencies at Tiamat House on Hornby Island B.C., (through the generosity of Judith Lawrence); and Ottawa Dance Directive, Artistic Director Yvonne Coutts / Associate Director Lana Morton.