Screenings, stairway dance installations, and more, as city celebrates International Dance Day, April 29
New Works hosts screenings, while the Dance Centre presents performances by the likes of Vanessa Goodman, Dance//Novella, and Lesley Telford
Dance//Novella, appearing at the Scotiabank Dance Centre. Photo by David Cooper
Inheritor Recordings, screening at the Vancouver Public Library, care of New Works.
New Works presents International Dance Day on Screen at the Vancouver Public Library, 12:15 to 1 pm on April 29; The Dance Centre presents International Dance Day events o April 27 and 29, at the Scotiabank Dance Centre and the Vancouver Art Gallery South Plaza
APRIL 29 IS INTERNATIONAL Dance Day, and this year Vancouver has a range of events on offer, from workshops and live performances to films.
New Works Dance and the Vancouver Public Library are hosting free screenings of short dance films followed by a conversation guided by Company 605 artistic directors Josh Martin and Lisa Mariko Gelley.
The event will showcase short dance films, including Anya Allegra Saugstad’s Mountains, Company 605 and Brian Johnson’s Inheritor Recordings, Satya Mari’s Lost Paradise, and Eric Cheung and Tim Rolls’s Liminal.
The Dance Centre is hosting its own series of events, from workshops and performances to art installations and film showings. There are activities for everyone, with some free offerings that don’t require any experience.
Getting an early start at the venue on April 27, choreographer and teacher Kay Huang is running a workshop at Scotiabank Dance Centre based on a new work that explores combinations of text, words, and movement, and dives into explorations of cultural heritage and memory.
A film screening on April 29 at Scotiabank Dance Centre showcases “Gluk” by Karen Jamieson Dance, which revisits Jamieson’s pioneering work Stone Soup that toured B.C. from 1995 to 1997.
The work embodies the idea of gluk, the Gitxsan concept of reconstructing a wrong. The original project from the 90s engaged with asking permission to dance on various First Nations territories. The film brings the groundbreaking project to life and its intention to push truth and reconciliation forward.
The same day at the Vancouver Art Gallery South Plaza sees noonhour performances by a high-school hip-hop group from Burnaby Central Secondary School; soma anima arts’ multigenerational dance celebration Artemis’ Embrace with East Van brass-orchestra sensation Balkan Schmalkan; and a piece titled landings for six by Vancouver contemporary-dance artist Vanessa Goodman, of Action at a Distance. The latter piece, which is centred around stairways and explores the theme of transition, shows again at the Scotiabank Dance Centre that evening, coinciding with a video installation presented in the main lobby.
Other performances at Scotiabank Dance Centre include Borrowed Time by Inverso Productions’ Lesley Telford, The Brutal Joy by Justine A. Chambers, and Chrysalis by Dance//Novella, whose new work incorporates adaptable set pieces.
Most performances are free and some offer tickets which are priced on a sliding scale.
International Dance Day has been taking place since UNESCO proclaimed it in 1982. 
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