Only 45 days until Dance Ontario’s DanceWeekend’20. We are featuring Pratibha Arts on today’s DanceWeekend countdown.
Dance Ontario’s DanceWeekend is happening January 25 & 26 at the Fleck Dance Theatre, Harbourfront Centre.
Connect with Pratibha Arts and Bageshree Vaze:
Can you tell us little bit about your company/collective/school?
Pratibha Arts serves to enhance the creative intelligence of Ontario (‘Pratibha’ means creative intelligence) through the promotion of excellence in dance and music, particularly in aesthetics influenced by South Asian culture, a significant cultural demographic in Toronto/Canada. Bageshree Vaze is the Artistic Director and conceptualizes, choreographs, and composes much of its activity/programming, as well as the company’s dance works.
What are showing at DanceWeekend’20?
We will be presenting an excerpt of the 2015 DanceWorks commissioned ‘Paratopia’ which is an exciting confluence of Kathak with urban dance.
Who are the performers/collaborators in this piece(s)?
Bageshree Vaze, Tyler Gledhill, Daniel Gomez, Samantha Schleese (dancers), Vineet Vyas (Tabla)
Can you talk about your creative process? What inspires you?
As an Indo-Canadian, I am drawn to how dance can evoke and tell contemporary stories drawing from many influences, whether they be cultural, political or artistic. Paratopia emerged from the idea to create an ‘alternate reality’ of dance in which different bodies interpret the same rhythmic language but with their own individual style and character. The idea was to reflect the world as it could be in which people of different cultural and linguistic backgrounds can still achieve harmony through diversity. People think Kathak is a traditional dance form, but it is just as contemporary as any other; its rhythmic and movement language developed greatly in the 20th century. In creating a contemporary work, it was important for me to not adhere to a colonial construct as often happens with cross-cultural dance works, in which there is a bit of Indian dance language thrown into an overall Western aesthetic. If you deconstruct Paratopia, it is a Kathak work in its rhythmic construction and narrative. However, it was important to allow the dancers, who all came from different training and cultural backgrounds, to understand Kathak rhythmic syllables and embody them through their own bodies. It was a great opportunity to see how dancers with no Kathak training can still interpret the same language – dance training isn’t about being of a particular culture, it’s about understanding rhythm and wanting to bring something new on stage that reflects the time and place we are in. Paratopia is an example of the possibilities there are in Toronto and Canada, despite current political attempts to create more division and barriers between cultures.
Please share your experience performing in a previous DanceWeekend and/or tell us what you are looking forward to at DanceWeekend’20?
I performed in 2011 and am very excited to be at DanceWeekend again after almost a decade. Toronto is a true reflection of Canada’s diversity and DanceWeekend programming is an even better reflection of the styles of dance that have been practiced in the province for decades, despite mainstage programming which predominantly features a European/Western classical aesthetics. I’m happy to present Paratopia in line with the vision of DanceWeekend, there is no other festival of its kind in Toronto, and it makes diverse dance forms highly accessible.
What is one surprising or interesting fact about your company/collective/school?
I named the company after my mother ‘Pratibha,’ who was named by her father – he gave her a artistic name as she was born around the time that he was establishing a community library of Indian literature in Kampala, Uganda. I love this story because it reflects how art can exist in unexpected places, transcend time and distance, and survive despite colonialism. Pratibha Arts is committed to not just promoting South Asian arts, but to exploring exciting ways in which they embody themselves in Canada with other cultures and art forms.
Do you have any up-coming performances/events you would like to share?
We just performed a collaboration with Flamenco as part of the Aga Khan Museum’s Duende Festival alongside another DanceWeekend artist, Carmen Romero.
Photo: David Hou