So you think the spectacle does not love you Choreography by k.g. Guttman in collaboration with the performer-artists: Kate Hilliard, Kate Holden, Rob Abubo, Lori Duncan, Steev Paquet
Choreography by k.g. Guttman
Commission for the Canada Dance Festival, 2010
Co-production with Dancemakers, Toronto
Artistic Director Michael Trent
Dancers: Kate Hilliard, Kate Holden, Rob Abubo, Lori Duncan, Steev Paquet
Sourcing sequences from the popular t.v show “So you think you can dance”, the dancers and I studied the qualities of the bodies that appear on the show. Extreme muscular attention, taut, popping extensions, and splayed-as-flexible forms are frequently shown, as is the portrayal of heterosexual audacious flirting movements.
The choreography attempts to refresh these clichéd qualities to their former beauty and strangeness, by subtly modulating their intensity or form, collapsing or extending their normative duration. The spectator is thrown into the usual codes of spectacle dance, but then insistently and subtly drawn to the peripheral vulnerability that is the true ground under the gyrating, flash-edited rhythms of televised dance.
Full Length Work 20 min
Excerpt Shown 1 min