Unfold Attachments (2023)
The company instigated an emerging artist program in our 2017/18 season, and for the first three years the experience focused on physical practice, repertory study and performance, with three dancers in year one and four as of year two. In 2020/21 we moved to an online version focused on movement invention and added a week-long cohort of 10 to the four dancers working with us for a month. In 2021/22 a film project allowed us to bring in a single emerging artist, fulltime for two months. Moving into the final season of the company, I shifted the program’s focus to co-creation, vetting impressive and inspiring applications from more than 60 dancers to choose two collaborators: Derek Souvannavong and Vania Dodoo-Beals.
Vania is a graduate of Toronto Metropolitan University where I was fortunate to work with her on a repertory project during her third year. She is a gorgeous mover – super charged and expansive, lush and kinetic, hugely skilled. Her approach to movement invention is free-wheeling and wildly imaginative. A central statement in her application declared “It is important that I reflect personal experiences and struggles in my movement practice”, and she had identified an emotionally complex situation she was working through as the premise for a group work. Her intention was to use our solo project as a single episode in that longer work, or perhaps as the foundational material for group choreography.
We did all of our rehearsals without music and once we began to experiment with sound, Vania realized that what she wanted was pure percussion. I loved the idea of a musician with an array of percussion instruments clattering and bashing, pushing and pulling dynamically with Vania. By a crazy match of dates, the superb player Michael Menegon was able to join us in the last days of rehearsal and for a preview performance in the glorious Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. They are amazing together!
Unfold Attachments explores the dynamics arising out of betrayal; the dismantling effects of shock, anger and confusion; and the possibility of letting go of past assumptions as a first step toward re/gaining balance, freedom, and wellbeing.
Vania’s program note reads:
still purging myself / reconstructing myself / more the person I am / the person I want to be
Dance: made in Canada/ fait au Canada 2023
excerpted from Robert Binet’s program note for the Binet Series:
I was incredibly moved when I first witnessed Peggy Baker’s collaborations with Derek Souvannavong and Vania Dodoo-Beals. To me these works embody the very best of what intergenerational mentorship and collaboration can be: a sharing of process and practice that facilitates expansion for all involved and puts the younger artist more deeply in touch with their own voice. Derek and Vania are glorious dancers and creators, and the way Peggy has put wind in their sails as they bring their ideas out into the world makes me deeply excited about the future of dance in Canada. - Robert Binet
credits
movement invention and performance: Vania Dodoo-Beals
creative process, choreographic composition, direction: Peggy Baker
original music: Michael Menegon
preview:
Toronto
November 10, 2022
Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts
COC Free Lunchtime Concert Series
concert title: orchestrated action
premiere
Toronto
August 16, 18 & 19, 2023
Betty Oliphant Theatre
dance: made in Canada, Binet Series