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
Commission Concept: Michael Trent
Doublebill
Canada Dance Festival, 2010
Co-production with Dancemakers, Toronto
Artistic Director Michael Trent
Music Reena Katz
Dancers: Kate Hilliard, Kate Holden, Rob Abubo, Lori Duncan, Steev Paquet
Lighting and Set Designer Trevor Schwellnus
Dramaturgy: Bonnie Kim / Jacob Zimmer
Harbourfront Centre Theatre (formerly Enwave Theatre)
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 tension, 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 shape, 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.
Length 20 min