53 Days: The first company we are featuring on our countdown to #DanceWeekend20 is The Platform / Ryan Lee. Dance Ontario’s #DanceWeekend20 is happening January 25 & 26 at Harbourfront Centre’s Fleck Dance Theatre.
Connect with The Platform/Ryan Lee: @theplatformto @ryanamaze #theplatformto
- Can you tell us a little bit about your company/collective/school?
The Platform is a Toronto-based contemporary dance collective made up of Benjamin Landsberg, Ryan and Lee and Anisa Tejpar. The focus of the work is exchange, investigation, collaboration and creation with ourselves, our peers and the community at large.
- What are showing at DanceWeekend’20?
A new work by Ryan Lee that explores/questions our personal relationship to balance.
- Who are the performers/collaborators in this piece(s)?
Natasha Poon Woo, Yiming Cai, Ryan Lee, Benjamin Landsberg (Outside eye)
- Can you talk about your creative process? What inspires you?
We are always inspired by creative exchanges with the people and artists around all of us. Exploring our personal stories – triumphs, hardships and the spaces inbetween. We use these experiences as fuel to ask questions and find connections, which makes for our favourite and most insightful art making.
- Please share your experience performing in a previous DanceWeekend and/or tell us what you are looking forward to at DanceWeekend’20?
All members of The Platform have performed in DanceWeekend. Both Ben and Ryan received the Creative Partnerships Commission, Ben in 2013 and Ryan in 2017.
- What is one surprising or interesting fact about your company/collective/school?
Firstly, we are friends first… The best thing about our collaborations is that we come from such different backgrounds but we have a unified love for movement and creation.
Photo by: Richard Rhyme