(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.
September 18-21, 2013 | 8pm nightly
The Winchester Street Theatre, 80 Winchester Street, Toronto
Tickets $15/$20 | Gala performance September 18th, tickets $40
