Recipe for Dance: Andrea Roberts on Stages

Jennifer Dallas and Michael Caldwell 

in Thirst by Tedd Robinson | Photo by Omer Yukseker

I have been working with Andrea Roberts for a number of years now. She is a gifted artistic advisor and rehearsal director. I have asked her to share some thoughts on her experience.

-- Jennifer Dallas, Artistic Director

Andrea Roberts on Time Now:

I’ve been spending a great deal of time in the kitchen lately. It’s a lot like being in the studio. I’ve been thinking about process, and direction/directing ... about intention, finding balance, and end results. Recipes are like choreography. They give us a base from which to start, but the choices we make about how to interpret the instructions are what defines us as performers (or chefs/bakers, as the case may be). There’s a line between dramatic and indulgent, between the perfect tasty blend and the tragically over-spiced. Sometimes the tiniest amount can make a huge difference to the end result.

Technical rehearsal for Stages | setting up the Winchester Street Theatre

I’ve also been thinking about travelling. More specifically, I’ve been making travel plans with other people. This too is a lot like being in the studio. Recipes are just maps written in words and measurements. It’s all choreography, so this travel metaphor is useful going the other way, to think about our work as dancers as a kind of group journey. For me as a director it’s about finding a common language, a way to talk about where we have been, where we want to end up, and how we’re going to get there. How do you make sure you take care of your own needs and desires, while taking into account the interests of those who have committed to take the ride with you? What happens when only one of you wants to stop in that small town for lunch, or when only one person wants to dance the last section really slowly? Negotiating these kinds of problems is what fascinates me.

Technical rehearsal for Stages | preparing at the Winchester Street Theatre 

Finally, I’ve been thinking about connections – about making them, missing them, and knowing when we’re supposed to have them! In rehearsal we take things apart so that we can put them back together again, hopefully somehow more whole and more meaningful. It’s not always easy or clear which way to go. Stages ... there’s a double meaning for me in the title of this production. It’s about points on a path, and also (literally) the place where we perform. It’s about growth, about checking in to see where you’re at, while standing and being right where you are. This show for me is about all of these things – about finding common ground with both my mentors and my former students, about shifting relationships in art and in life. It’s about learning how to be an open and generous storyteller. In the end, if we’re successful, this show is an excellent adventure and a satisfying meal. Enjoy!

About Andrea Roberts

Andrea Roberts has worked as both an administrator and rehearsal director at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre since her graduation from the Professional Training Program some years ago. She has spent the majority of her professional career exploring her artistic voice through improvisation and theatre training, and has performed in works by Peggy Baker, Sonya Biernath, Murray Darroch, Terrill Maguire, Sharon Moore, and Julia Sasso. As a rehearsal director/assistant, Roberts has been involved in the creative process for both new works and remounts by more than twenty choreographers. She has acted as Rehearsal Director and Artistic Advisor for Jennifer Dallas / Kemi Contemporary Dance Projects since the company’s inception. Roberts holds a master’s degree in dance studies from York University, and she maintains an active interest in the conversations around performance archives. She has presented several papers throughout North America that investigate various aspects of creation, preservation, and (re)interpretation.

Buy Tickets for Stages

Support the production of Stages | Indiegogo

STAGES

September 18-21, 2013 | 8pm nightly

The Winchester Street Theatre, 80 Winchester Street, Toronto

Tickets $15/$20 | Gala performance September 18th, tickets $40

kemiprojects.ca

Dancers' Thoughts : Ana Groppler on Time Now

Ana Groppler in Time Now by Jennifer Dallas | Photo by Omer Yukesker

I have been working with three gifted women for just over two years on the creation and incubation of my new dance work Time Now. I have asked each of them to share some thoughts on their experience.

-- Jennifer Dallas, Artistic Director

Anna Groppler on Time Now:
When you go deeply into an artistic project, you get into each others sweat, frustrations, epiphanies, struggles, injuries, blood, joy, connection, vibrancy. It’s an amazing journey, one of the reasons why I love my job.

Working with this group of women is quite a treat. I am honoured to be in a room with Jennifer Dallas, Emma Kerson and Joanie Audet; they never fail to excited me, push and inspire me. What an experience to be working with so much estrogen in the room! It is quite magical that I get to spend this time with two of my great friends, dance colleagues and School of Toronto Dance Theatre graduate classmates, Joanie and Emma. I enjoy being in their presence, playing and bouncing off one another's energy. They are both brilliant artists and open, wonderful people. 

Jennifer Dallas is vibrant flowing energy. She has a beautiful mind, a unique movement vocabulary. Her work has a sense of dynamic musicality that shakes the body internally and turns on your senses. The opportunity to work with her and sink my teeth into her dance has been fulfilling. To explore her world of movement over the course of a number of years now gives new meaning to learning ones essence, to understanding how to encompass the space fully as an interpreter.

(L to R) Joanie Audet, Ana Groppler, Emma Kerson 
in Trinity by Jennifer Dallas | Photo by Jennifer Dallas

We began this process in the fall of 2011 fresh from graduation. Two years later, we are about to perform the third incarnation, the culmination of all the work and process. I am finding my adult woman shoes, I am much more aware of things around me, about me. Much has developed for all of us dancers in our personal lives and artistic lives during the years of dance creation, it has been an interesting experience coming together sporadically over those years, jumping in and out of creation. 

It’s intriguing for my mind and body to remember the past performances of this work. To have the ability to create continuously and truly develop a work is a luxury, yet I wish it was more standard for small dance companies who work project to project. The first time we performed this work it was called Trinity, in September 2011. Trinity had a sense of womanship and femininity. Sexy and jazzy the it was filled with engaging feminine magnetism, with slivers of the 1920s world with Duke Ellington music and our 20s-style dresses.

Click Here for some footage of the woman I was in Trinity. 

Joanie Audet and Ana Groppler in Time Now by Jennifer Dallas | Photo by Omer Yukesker

With the title change to Time Now we performed again in December 2012. The 1920s femininity was distilled and the discovery of a world of props grew. Prop props props!! What beautiful stimulating things … so many possibilities, for the world of Time Now. It has been thought-provoking to explore this world of props within work that already existed before … what do they mean to me? What are they? How do I interact with them? How do they interact with me? For me this version was an exploration period, even during the performance I was still deep in exploration as a performer.

Now we are in the present moment, a new version of Time Now. We are in the Time Now. It's a mixture of the two development versions with its own dash of change and evolution. The characters are deeper and the world has been shifted into place. It is a place where three women experience a journey. A journey of play, of discovery, of relationship. A journey that I, we, invite you to come share. Be curious about what you see, I will be curious about what you might behold.

About Ana Groppler

Ana Claudette Groppler was born in Toronto. She discovered her love of dance at Rosedale Heights School of the Arts, and pursued her training further, graduating from The School of Toronto Dance Theatre in 2011. Since graduating Groppler has worked with Toronto Heritage Dance, Kemi Contemporary Dance Projects, Nancy Latoszewski, Signal Theatre, Fiona Griffiths, Parahumans, Pollux Dance, Social Growl Dance and she worked as a rehearsal assistant for Michael Caldwell’s Ash Unravel for Dance: Made in Canada. Groppler has performed her own work in shows with Dance Matters, the Parahumans and Magpie Dances. She is currently working with Find the Floor Dance Collective on a piece to be performed in July 2014 in DanceWorks CoWorks, as well as Signal Theatre on their new upcoming production A Soldiers Tale to be performed at The FleckDance Theatre in February 2014 as well as The Canada Dance Festival in June 2014.

Buy Tickets for Stages

Support the production of Stages | Indiegogo

STAGES

September 18-21, 2013 | 8pm nightly

The Winchester Street Theatre, 80 Winchester Street, Toronto

Tickets $15/$20 | Gala performance September 18th, tickets $40

kemiprojects.ca

Dancers' Thoughts: Emma Kerson on Time Now

(L to R) Ana Groppler, Emma Kerson and Joanie Audet 

in Time Now by Jennifer Dallas | Photo by Omer Yukesker

I have been working with three gifted women for just over two years on the creation and incubation of my new dance work Time Now. I have asked each of them to share some thoughts on their experience.
-- Jennifer Dallas, Artistic Director

Emma Kerson on Time Now:
When asked to reflect on my experience with Kemi and working on Time Now, I realized that the relationship I’ve been building with my fellow dancers, Joanie Audet and Ana Groppler, has been in the making for five years now. We first started our training at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, and our time with Jen began in our second year when she came in to choreograph on our class.

Emma in Time Now by Jennifer Dallas | Photo Omer Yukesker

We started our professional work (or as Jen would say, play) together as soon as we graduated, and though as dancers we’ve worked both together and apart over the past two years, we all kept coming back to these creation periods with Kemi. I’m at the point where each stage of creation feels like an intimate reunion, or pulling on an old comfortable sweater, but noticing a new hole or a new stain and thinking, that’s interesting. We’ve morphed alongside the work through its many phases and different stages of existence. I love that each time we come together to dance we are bringing our newly gained knowledge with us and across the board though it may be, there is always the underlying history that we all share, that familiarity with each other and with Jen’s world and essence, that makes us one. 

Emma in Time Now by Jennifer Dallas | Photo Omer Yukesker

It is so incredibly satisfying and exciting to dance with these women. We know how to fit into a world together, and yet we are constantly being surprised and challenged by each other’s new propositions. Jen likes to work with a lot of open improvisation. There is a constant play with her material. She has given the three of us a gift: to discover and intimately grow together in the context of her world. I am thrilled to be a part of a work that is so unique in dynamic quality and essence, and is profoundly female. 

About Emma Kerson:
Kerson graduated The School of Toronto Dance Theatre in 2011. She is a recipient of a Millennium Excellence Award, the Kathryn Ash Leadership Award, and a Metcalf Foundation Performing Arts Internship grant. Independently, Kerson has had the pleasure of working with artists such as Sharon B. Moore, Patricia Beatty, Elizabeth Chitty, Jennifer Dallas, and Mary Jo Mullins, and she continues to work with Kemi and Niagara Dance Company.

Buy Tickets for Stages

Support the production of Stages | Indiegogo

STAGES

September 18-21, 2013 | 8pm nightly

The Winchester Street Theatre, 80 Winchester Street, Toronto

Tickets $15/$20 | Gala performance September 18th, tickets $40

kemiprojects.ca

The Production Machine

John MacLean setting up to record Elizabeth Shepherd for Time Now in the Dancemakers studio, Toronto.

There is a network of artists working underneath the lights and glamor of the mainstream art world. The ones producing indie shows in the small theatres off the beaten path. The dancers, choreographers, visual artists, film makers, musicians, directors, the list goes on, who are passionate about what they do regardless of popular response. We work tirelessly. I believe we are the soldiers of the arts, the ones who make sure that the arts and culture of our country has a thriving pulse. We are always pushing the edges of reality, raising questions, lighting inspiration by daring to create.

Last week I was listening to Lucy Rupert, artistic director and visionary for Blue Celling dance, discuss her work at, Dance Made in Canada. Lucy spoke about the validation of art, and how the presentation is the validation, similar to thoughts from my mentor and choreographer Tedd Robinson of late. As the weeks count down to the opening night of my show Stages and we get closer to full-time rehearsals and in the midst of the tail-chasing frenzied of ever the growing production to-do list, I am reassured by comments like Lucy’s.

I am fortunate to live and produce art in a country where I have a community of supporters. As more and more people come forward to offer time, finances and other resources to Stages I am reminded of one of my most passionate interests and the subject of several of my dance works, the power of the collective, The Community.

Between writing press releases, editing posters and flyers and hashing out ideas with my fantastic production assistant Susan Kendal of Pocket Alchemy I am grateful for my community and for the drive to birth Stages. There is no mistaking that I hope for, dare I say I deserve, press coverage and many bums in seats. I suppose all of this proves I am ready to validate years of work, so that I my move onto the next set of mountains and valleys. The artist’s path is undetermined, it is fluid if we let it be. For now in all the hectic moments I am enjoying the thrill of production. - JD

Buy Tickets for Stages

Support the production of Stages | Indiegogo

STAGES

September 18-21, 2013 | 8pm nightly

The Winchester Street Theatre, 80 Winchester Street, Toronto

Tickets $15/$20 | Gala performance September 18th, tickets $40

kemiprojects.ca

Music - Elizabeth Shepherd

The seed for Time Now (a new work for Stages) came from my interest in Duke Ellington's music. Some of you may have see the first incarnation of the work in 2011. When I revisited the work in 2012 I felt the music was not a good marriage with the dance. I approached Elizabeth Shepherd, asking her to use specific Ellington tunes as a starting place for an original score for Time Now. The results give me goose bumps. Elizabeth was willing to step out of her comfort zone to create a score that marries Time Now beautifully. Here are some thoughts from the Canadian great who I am honoured to have worked with and to know.

I've never really seen a huge difference between dance and music. It's not that one is done to / for the other. To me, both are movement in time, using the confines imposed  by time to make something out of space, something out of nothing. As a musician who hasn’t really grown up around contemporary dance, I have to admit, I never fully "got" it, but I understood that we were related, somehow. I guess I liken it to poetry – it’s not literal, and it moves you even if you can’t name the ways in which it does so.

Years ago (oh yeah - YEARS), I used to play for dance classes. We weren't equals. I knew my job was one of a support role: to lay down the ground for the dancers to move over.  And this was safe for me; from my vantage point where there was no risk, with the added benefit of being consistently moved by what I witnessed. But I never felt that it was a true exchange of voices. The stakes were low, and I knew that I didn’t really have to step up and be present in the way that, say, improvising or parenting or cooking require. Confessions best aired out years later ...

Working with Jen for the ‘Time Now’ project was my first ever opportunity to do just that – to step up and be fully present, to put some music out there and have something come back at me in the form of movement. I responded in kind, and was swept up in a dialogue as it unfolds, without really knowing where we were going. The only thing I can liken it to is to playing jazz with truly great improvisers, or taking the plunge into a body of water and just trusting in both your own ability and that the ‘other’ will hold you up. Time stops being relevant and all that matters is what comes next. It’s hard to explain, but in situations like these - when you're playing with masters of their craft, there's no shortage of ideas and all the time in the world. And when we're freed up from all the ego nonsense and fully committed to that moment, then the exchange brings us each a little closer to some intangible, the one that moves through us all, that is always there even when we forget it. Simply put, it’s spiritual.

Like I said, contemporary dance is not a language I know, but as I found out, you don't really have to know it to play together. Like kids in a playground, or like making your way in a new country where you can't even read the characters of the language, you rely instead on instinct, on your senses, on reading body language, gesturing, smiling a lot and always above all, remembering to be playful.

Thank you Jen for trusting me, for showing me another side of play. I'm honoured to work with you and be included for a brief moment in time, in your language. It's a beautiful and unique one. It was fun, it was terrifying. But most of all, it was exhilarating. - ES

Buy tickets for Stages

Support the production of Stages | Indiegogo 

STAGES
September 18-21, 2013 | 8pm nightly
The Winchester Street Theatre, Toronto
Tickets $15/$20 | Gala performance September 18 Tickets $40

kemiprojects.ca

As I return to the city and all it's demands, I begin here with a reflection on our time at Centre Q from my collaborator and dear friend Michael Caldwell.

July 28, 2013

Here's a rambling quasi-poetic prose blog post:

Just passing a week since my visit to the farm, still processing all that was said, questioned, uncovered, created... 

I have known Jennifer Dallas since our time in school together... I remember dancing in Jen's first choreographic work in school (walking slowly across a stage with a balloon and string in my hand) so it was a pleasure to continue along the cycle of our artistic work.  She is a fantastic choreographer and a gifted performer in so many ways.  Her patience, her calm, her devotion and respect to the images... it was wonderful to "get to know" her in this capacity - as a co-conspirator in interpretation and performance.

And Tedd is quite frankly a genius - a rare gift to dance, art, and humanity.  So generous in sharing his expertise, his home, and his infinite wisdom.  I've danced for Tedd a few years ago and I'm so happy to return.  I could easily and happily get lost in his choreographic world of images again and again.

The work is challenging, very specific in its physical intention, with tons of room for interpretation.  Images flow through my performance with abundance and clarity.  My eyes are sore (is that even possible?) and my big toes now know the meaning of 'flexion'.

What else to say about the two weeks at Centre Q?
Let's see... Kubrick lessons, Stella, wine, allergies... or not, Charlotte's web every night, Charles, meal chants ... and dishes, dishes, dishes.  And the dinner time chats - talking about life and art and the future.  Taking the time to ask, "who am I?" and, "what am I doing, and why?"... everyone should be so lucky - to confront yourself in the mirror and realize that you are doing what you were meant to do and that everything is going to be alright... - MC

This new duet by Tedd Robinson will premier as part of our September production Stages, September 18-22, 2013 at the Winchester Street Theatre, Toronto. 

Centre Q : Creation

Jennifer Dallas and Michael Caldwell are in creation with Tedd Robinson and Charles Quevillon at Centre Q.

Dancemakers residency : After thoughts

It is hard to know where to begin when reflecting on our time at Dancemakers. It was in essence the perfect week.  We traveled through the world of Time Now, a work I began creating two years ago with dancers Joanie Audet, Ana Groppler and Emma Kerson. With the opportunity to work in the theatre space I was able to play with props, sound and lighting equipment that till this point were just ideas in my mind or small sketches in my notebook.

During our residency Elizabeth Shepherd (composer for the work) spent a day improvising with voice and piano while John MacLean (recording engineer and musical arranger) captured the sounds. Omar Yukseker joined us for two days of photo capture and I was able to acquire countless hours of video footage.

Time is invaluable to an artist,  it is rare for small dance companies to have unlimited access to studio space for several days consecutively. The week brought with it a freedom for experimentation. Our rehearsals were between 6 and 8 hrs each day, I would arrive early to spend time in the space and often leave late sketching ideas for the next day before I left the incubator of the studio.  It seemed a luxury to me to spend this kind of time surrounded by collaborators and open space to romp through my physical thoughts.

Kemi will produce Time Now as part of Stages at The Winchester Street Theatre in September. Having had this intensive period with the collaborators I feel certain that we will be presenting a work that is more informed and developed. I hope that in the coming years Dancemakers will offer more of these opportunities and that the artist councils will support the artists in residence. Dedicated time to practice is the simplest way to support any artist and I am deeply grateful for this time.

- JD

TIme Now : Images by Omer Yukseker

Voice

We have been in residence at Dancemakers Centre For Creation for the past three days. On Monday afternoon Elizabeth Shepherd joined us while we manipulated Time Now. Live music and generous dancers made for a dreamy couple of hours.

I hope you will join us on Saturday evening.

Research Lab

With the generous support of Artist Play, I have begun a weekly research project. Last week I was fortunate enough to work with Joanie Audet on some new phrase material.

Joanie and I spent one month together in Ouagadougou Burkina Faso last July. Between teaching and performing, we researched. Many of the images and movement vocabulary found in Burkina was translated to my latest work Time Now.

This short video is a glimpse of my continued research with Joanie.

- JD