DanceWeekend’20 is 46 days away and today we are featuring The Parahumans! Read on to learn what they are bringing to the DanceWeekend stage.
Dance Ontario’s DanceWeekend is happening January 25 & 26 at the Fleck Dance Theatre, Hourfront Centre.
Connect with The Parahumans:
Website: www.theparahumans.com
Instagram: @TheParahumans
Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheParahumans
Can you tell us little bit about your company/collective/school?
The Parahumans are an interdisciplinary and experimental dance company. The company’s main focus is on Post-Contemporary Dance. This style blends contemporary dance techniques along with everyday actions, theatre, novel movement, and semi-structured performance presentations. This style also balances choreographic impulses derived not just from the body, but from Space, Dynamics, Relationships, as well as experimenting with the audience-performer connection. The company was founded in 1992 with the inaugural production of ‘Parazone Future.’ The Parahumans performed in London, England in 1995 in The Resolution Festival at The Place and later toured England (Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Derbyshire) in 2002 and 2003. The company have performed in Canada’s Fringe Festival of Independent Dance Artists (fFIDA) many times and in festivals and productions in Toronto (Dance Ontario Dance Weekend), Guelph (Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival), and Hamilton (Art Gallery of Hamilton).
The company has a strong focus on supporting emerging local dance artists – professional and pre-professional, in varied productions such as – ‘Experimental Solo Dance Showcase’; ’21 Chopin Nocturnes’; ‘The 77 Minute Dance improv’; ‘coexisDance’; ‘Short Dances/New Blue Festival.’ Innovative past projects have included – ‘Boy Dancer’ – a 47-minute documentary film involving young boys learning and performing hip hop dance, which received the Fan’s Award at the 2011 New York – Long Island film festival’; Dance for Parkinson’s choreography to help patients strengthen movement and regenerate brain tissue; Plato Was A Raver (2001/2011), a 20-section dance story.
What are showing at DanceWeekend’20?
The performance begins with 1. Alchemical Dance by The Alchemist – Mary Patsiatzis, and shows how Historical Dance styles can be transformed into varied Post-Contemporary Dance aesthetics. Source material is – 2. 1880s Japanese Kabuki Dance (title – ‘A Dance Inspired By The Hokusai/Toma Collaboration’) – Yui Ugai; 3. Jazz Dance (title – ‘Evening’) – Amanda Meadows; 4. 1960s NYC Post-Modern Dance (title – ‘Solo Z: The Muscles Think In Infinite Parts’) – Lauren Runions
Who are the performers/collaborators in this piece(s)?
Artistic Director/Creator – Dave Wilson
Dancer – Amanda Meadows
Dancer/Creator – Mary Patsiatzis
Dancer/Creator – Lauren Runions
Dancer/Creator – Yui Ugai
Creator – Cassandra Bowerman
Can you talk about your creative process? What inspires you?
We generate material from improvisation, imagery and historical dances. We also use text, characters, and scenes to generate dance theatre pieces. Somatic (mind-body) practices are also used for warm-up and embodiment
Please share your experience performing in a previous DanceWeekend and/or tell us what you are looking forward to at DanceWeekend’20?
The Parahumans have performed in 4 past Dance Weekends. We have shown work from solo to group, abstract to theatrical, and this year are bringing some pieces generated in the last year that allow the audience to think about what ‘Alchemy’ can be!
What is one surprising or interesting fact about your company/collective/school?
The Parahumans are proponents of Post-Contemporary Dance and believe in the untapped hidden and higher energies of human beings. This is just one planet in the multiverse. Our theme song is – ‘Crystal Blue Persuasion’ by Tommy James & The Shondelles