Kokoro Dance's Reading the Bones gets an online remount, September 23 to 26

At the virtual Vancouver International Dance Festival, the work traces 30 years.

Kokoro Dance’s Reading the Bones takes place September 23 to 25 at 7 p.m. and September 26 at 4 p.m. via vidf.ca.

READING THE BONES distills and reimagines choreographic highlights from the entirety of Kokoro Dance’s existence. That meant poring over 190 dance works and picking out favourite phrases from memorable works like Impending Death (1990), Truths of the Blood (1996), Embryotrophic Cavatina (1998), and Life (2013).

Barbara Bourget and Jay Hirabayashi then set the phrases on five women of different generations, with their son Joseph Hirabayashi creating the score. It’s a mix of the balletic and the butoh, imbued with memory and burnished by time. The show, livestreamed from KW Studios, features Bourget alongside Molly McDermott, Deanna Peters, Salomé Nieto, and Katie Cassady. ”

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Janet Smith

Janet Smith is founding partner and editorial director of Stir. She is an award-winning arts journalist who has spent more than two decades immersed in Vancouver’s dance, screen, design, theatre, music, opera, and gallery scenes. She sits on the Vancouver Film Critics’ Circle.

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