Vancouver artists Barbara Bourget, Jay Hirabayashi inducted into 2022 Dance Collection Danse Hall of Fame
Other local talents to receive honours include the late David Y.H. Lui and Kay Armstrong
Jay Hirabayashi and Barbara Bourget.
KOKORO DANCE CO-FOUNDERS Barbara Bourget and Jay Hirabayashi have been inducted into the 2022 Dance Collection Danse Hall of Fame.
The event honours lifelong contributions to dance in Canada across genres, from jazz and contact improvisation to modern and ballet.
The Toronto-based organization recognized Bourget and Hirabayashi for their contributions to the development of modern and postmodern dance in Vancouver and to the introduction and practice of butoh in Canada.
Aside from the repertoire that the two have formed for Kokoro, melding the aesthetics and philosophies of butoh with Western dance forms, DCD pointed to such career highlights as the pair’s founding of the annual Vancouver International Dance Festival and the creation of Rage, which drew attention to Canada’s shameful history of Japanese internment.
Evelyn Hart, Paul-André Fortier, and Robert Desrosiers are among the other 2022 inductees from across the country.
The late impresario David Y.H. Lui was awarded the DCD’s William J.S. Boyle Award. Lui was influential in developing arts infrastructure in Vancouver and in the creation of Ballet British Columbia and the Vancouver Dance Centre; among other roles, he was founding artistic director of the Canadian International Dragon Boat Festival. Kay Armstrong was recognized as a trailblazer for her role in the development of dance in Vancouver during the ballet boom of the mid-20th century. Armstrong was among the first Canadians to practise, perform, and teach flamenco in Canada; was a choreographer at the Canadian Ballet Festivals in the 1950s; and taught generations of Vancouver dancers.
The 2022 DCD Hall of Fame Event will be held in Toronto on October 2.
The full list of inductees can be found at DCD.
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