Retrospek

Citadel LIVE Presents

Retrospek
Company-in-Residence KasheDance

 

KasheDance celebrates its 15th anniversary with a mesmerizing Retrospek, an exploration of the past, the present and a creative vision for its future in Black dance in Canada. Led by Kevin A. Ormsby and the newly announced Assistant Artistic Director Jillia Cato, the company invites you on an exploration of choreographies steeped in the rhythms, movements, and culture of Caribbean, African, and Diaspora culture, as well as social/human rights advocacy. 

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Re:Imaginings TPM (time, place and movement)
Re:Imaginings is an honouring the Caribbean influence in Canada, the socio-cultural traditions of the Caribbean and the music of the Caribbean. The Caribbean is a smell, a food, a sound, an accent, a language, an artifact, and a picture. A place of resistance, a commentary, a revelry, a lyme, a vibe, a ting, a portal, a stance, a riddim, a pan, a drum, a tamboo, an iron, a stomp, a chipping, a back back, a whine, a wuk up, a bubble, a fire, a flagwoman, a flagman, ah panyard, a food, a life breathing, a portal through time, It’s a joy, it’s a time, it’s a moment in which we arrive to acknowledge the contributions of Caribbean bodies on Canada.  This work is for those before, those in us and those to be birthed with the genome of the Caribbean in them; the amalgam of identities that exist within the Caribbean space and how this shapes an integral part of carnival.

Until THEN Now…
Presented in our 5th Anniversary production, an excerpt from three of KasheDance’s earliest works takes audiences into the imagination of Kevin A. Ormsby’s first investigations in movement and in themes that supported KasheDance’s multi-technical kinetic play, rhythms and physicality.   

Recalcitrare
Premiering at Canada Dance Festival’s “Fresh Canadian Choreography” in 2011 “to be a recalcitrant is to resist and question authority. Kevin A. Ormsby as choreographer was curious about the symbiosis of dance techniques, its relationship to art and music. Questioning perceptions of the instruments of the classical period. The Erhu, Cello and Kora drive the musical score.

FACING Home: Love and Redemption (Excerpt) 
Embarking on separate creative research projects, Mr. Ormsby investigating the global impact of Marley’s music, and Mr. Walker, on contemporizing Caribbean dance and research project, “A Yard Abroad” evolved into “Facing Home: A phobia.” This project investigated the potential that dancehall and urban popular movement vocabulary has, as language, to engage in conversations around the stigmas of homosexuality and homophobia. Both choreographers decided to creatively combine and collaborate the choreographies to create Facing Home: Love & Redemption. “FACING HOME” is meant to impact migrant populations, generate change and ignite the LGBTQ community, its supporters, and service workers everywhere it’s performed and beyond. We hope, with this work, to initiate an ongoing conversation with you and provide spaces for the LGBTQ narratives of displacement from home.