The Dance Ontario Commissioning Committee (James Kendal, Tina Nicolaidis, Yasmina Ramzy, Peter Ryan, Jennifer Watkins) are delighted to announce that the commissioned choreographers for 2013/14 will be Malgorzata Nowacka/MOTUS O Dance Theatre and Natasha Powell.
After a day of deliberations, the group selected these stellar creators from 23 applications.

Malgorzata Nowacka, artistic director of The Chimera Project, will be the lead choreographer on a duet for two mature male dancers, Jack Langenhuizen and James Croker of MOTUS O Dance Theatre. See with your ears, hear with your feet, taste with your hands is about the transcendence from the ordinary to the extraordinary, breaking preconceptions about athleticism and age in a duet that taps into the essence of animal nature. The movement language will be drawn through an improvization process with the performers and develop high energy lifts and vocabularies that draw on their unique talents and those of the lead choreographer.

Natasha Powell will bring Ascension, a work influenced and inspired by men living with cancer. Through styles as varied as hip-hop, blues, ballet and jazz dance and performed by four black male dancers, the piece will be about motivating people to reassess the way they live their lives, that tomorrow is not guaranteed and to follow their passions and inner dreams.

Both works will be featured at DanceWeekend’14 on Jan 18 & 19 @ the Fleck Dance Theatre, Harbourfront Centre, Toronto.

BIOGRAPHIES
Award winning choreographer and dancer Malgorzata Nowacka is a professional dancer, educator and the founding Artistic Director of The Chimera Project and the “bad girl” (The Globe and Mail) of contemporary dance. Uncompromising and unconventional, Malgorzata Nowacka founded The Chimera Project in 1999 and the company burst onto the dance scene with hyper-physical creations. Searching for a kinetic language that conveys emotional intensity, her works explore spontaneity while fearlessly tapping into urgent, contemporary, gritty themes. Under her artistic direction The Chimera Project continues to flourish on the Canadian dance scene. She has created over 15 critically acclaimed works described as “most exciting” and “most original in Canada” (The Globe and Mail) and garnered accolades such as Top 10 performances of the year in The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, NOW and FASHION.

Natasha Powell has a dance background ranging over 20 years informed by training in styles as diverse as Hip-Hop, House, Ballet, Modern Jazz and Tap. She has worked in film, television, stage and commercials. Her co-creation The 5th Element in the 2011 Toronto Fringe was named one of NOW Magazine’s “must-see” events. Most recently she co-choreographed a dance theatre production with Jasmyn Fyffe Gimme One Riddim.