Josh Beamish's all-male Saudade aches with longing, via VIDF on October 8 and 9

The MOVETHECOMPANY livestream seems well-suited to an era when we’re trying to connect

The Vancouver International Dance Festival livestreams Josh Beamish/MOVETHECOMPANY’s Saudade on October 8 at 7 pm and October 9 at 4 pm.

SAUDADE IS A Portuguese word for a sense of longing—a desire for something that probably can never exist.

Vancouver dance artist Joshua Beamish infuses his all-male piece of the same title with that indefinable, vaguely aching yearning.

Bodies flicker into each other’s orbit, a bit like ghosts passing in the night, but never truly connecting before disappearing into the dark.

Set to a moodily melancholic score by Icelandic cello innovator Hildur Guðnadóttir’s the work is stark and restless, but endlessly relatable in these detached, digitally mediated times when it’s harder than ever to connect.

That makes it a perfect piece to revisit on a cold autumn night, livestreamed as it is for this Vancouver International Dance Festival presentation, from the subterranean KW Production Studio.

The top-notch dancers are Tyler Angell, Juan Duarte, Douglas Oliveira de Souza, Bennett Tracz, Nicolas Ventura, and Calder White.

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