Six performances to see at this year’s Dancing on the Edge Festival

Isabelle Kirouac & Nayana Fielkov: Habitats. Photo: Willoughby Arevalo.

Dance productions from Canada, Brazil, and Korea are part of this year’s Dancing on the Edge Festival (July 4 -13).

Canada’s longest-running festival of contemporary dance, DOTE delivers high calibre, challenging and innovative work. World premieres, North American and Western Canadian debuts, and works-in-progress are among the over thirty performances taking place at this year’s 10-day event. Performances take place at various Vancouver venues, including DOTE’s home, the Firehall Arts Centre.

Check out some highlights below.

Isabelle Kirouac & Nayana Fielkov: Habitats (Vancouver)—Described as “a twist between Fellini and Lewis Carroll,” Habitats blends physical comedy, contemporary dance and circus. Recommended for all ages.

Dab Dance Project: First Abundance Society (South Korea)—This two-dancer piece “focuses on the fact that preparing for the future doesn’t guarantee a better quality of life.”

Dab Dance Project: First Abundance Society.

Pamela Tzeng: A Meditation on the End by Jo-Lee (Calgary)—Pam Tzeng performs a “bare bones duet” crafted from “the fragmented memories of an imagined other, crafting a theatrical dance that embraces the poetry and humour of existential longing.”

A Meditation on the End. Marc J Chalifoux photo.

Rachel Meyer: Transverse Orientation (Vancouver)—The lowly moth is the inspiration for this piece for five dancers by Vancouver choreographer Rachel Meyer. Specifically, Meyer draws on the idea of transformation, as well as attraction to a mysterious source of guidance.

Rachel Meyer and dancers perform Transverse Orientation. James O’Mara photo.

WAREHAUS Dance Collective’s Megan Hunter & Akeisha de Baat: Druft B (Vancouver)—From the DOTE brochure: “Feel what you see, see what you hear, smell what you feel, taste what you smell and hear what you taste.”