Hailed as the Best Performance of 2011 by Montreal’s La Presse Newspaper, Jocelyne Montpetit’s riveting solo La danseuse malade (The Ailing Dancer) makes its Toronto debut as part of CanAsian’s Mainstage Program A on May 1 and 2, 2013 at the Fleck Dance Theatre.

“For the last 10 years, I have been cherishing the dream of a piece inspired by a book that has yet to be translated in the West: Tatsumi Hijikata’s La Danseuse malade (The Sick Dancer). Cofounder of the butoh movement with Kazuo Ohno, Hijikata was, in his lifetime, a mythical figure in the Japanese arts community. He died in 1986, and his myth lives on… In 1983, he wrote La Danseuse malade (The Sick Dancer). Complex and impossible to classify, the text was long considered untranslatable. It is a text about becoming. We see someone (Hijikata) becoming something else: woman, child, animal, sick, insane… Female figures appear here and there, and are never named. They are often sickly, and we suppose that they are the seeds that grow into the dance. “When I dance, my sister’s body rises up through me.” Is he referring to his older sister, who left home to sell her body on the streets of Tokyo to escape famine, only to return half-mad and ill? Or: “The dances of the world are starting to stand up, but I start by not being able to stand up. My body, bent over, is in a shape that could regain power; but it was formed with a crack.”

Hijikata’s fundamental beliefs about the body explore this flaw, and it is from my own flaws that I have created my piece. With La danseuse malade I have tried to explore, in an echo of Hijikata’s universe, my own body, my psyche and my childhood. I tried to explore the different facets of this body, which are spun with invisible threads through time and space, and where illness becomes a source for creation. I go back to the dead people, the simpleminded children, the infirm, all that served as material for this master’s choreography. This is more than simply his style, it is his manner, his method of exploring the body, the power to transform and to elevate the soul on stage, that I have taken away from his teaching.

“This work by Jocelyne Montpetit reminds us that life is a stolen moment between death and death.”
-Aline Apostolska, La Presse

Jocelyne Montpetit

Influenced by her experience with the cultures of the far East, Jocelyne Montpetit is among the most unique performers in Canadian dance today. She has built her singular experience through training in a range of disciplines: classical dance with Éric Hyrst, mime with Gilles Maheu, Jean Asselin and Étienne Decroux in Paris, theatre with Jean-Pierre Ronfard and Jerzy Grotowski’s ‘laboratory’ in Poland, as well as acrobatics with l’École de Cirque in Paris. Her meeting with Min Tanaka in 1981 proved to be decisive, and she spent four years in Japan with Kazuo Ohno and Tatsumi Hijikata, the co-founders of Butoh who played a revolutionary role in post-war Japanese culture. She became a member of Min Tanaka’s avant-garde troupe Maijuku and toured with them throughout Japan, and to New York and Paris. Since then, her vision of dance has been rooted in the idea that essence precedes form. For Montpetit, dance is an introspective art, with the potential for multiple metamorphosis through the fusion of body with matter, as well as with intimate and collective memory.

Commissioned by CanAsian Dance for the 2012 Kick Start Festival, Susan Lee performs her solo work Trace Elements as part of CanAsian’s Mainstage Program A on May 1 and 2, 2013 at the Fleck Dance Theatre.



How does one create and enact their personas? How are we perceived? How does the external world affect, and is affected by, the act of creating our identity? These are recurring themes in a number of Susan Lee’s works, and in her latest work Trace Elements, she explores the delicate interplay between inner perception and outer representation in the experience and creation of self.

Susan Lee is a dance artist based in Toronto with a longstanding interest in interdisciplinary collaboration and improvisation in performance. A Dora-nominated dancer, Susan’s professional career spans 20 years, originating roles in numerous works by established Canadian choreographers, which have been performed across Canada, the US, Mexico, Portugal, Sweden, Singapore and Indonesia. Her choreography has been presented in dance festivals and series in Toronto, Ottawa, Halifax and Peterborough. Many of her works combine dance, live music, video and interactive new media. Susan holds a BFA and an MFA in dance from York University and is part-time faculty at York University’s Dance Department.

inDANCE premieres I, Cyclops, a new work in collaboration with Singapore’s Bhaskar’s Arts Academy as part of CanAsian’s Mainstage Program A on May 1 and 2, 2013 at the Fleck Dance Theatre

Choreographer Hari Krishnan channels Balanchine’s Jewels through his own tripolar dystopian universe. With exquisite dancers and master musicians from India, Singapore, Canada and the UK, this deliciously dangerous work catapults you between the mystical Siva’s Third Eye and sexy James Marsden’s cool, red shades in Hollywood’s X-Men reboot. I, Cyclops is a post-Modern pan-Asian, multimedia vision that spellbinds you in a dream of seductive eyes & Winnipeg snow; erotic poetry & red silk; marigolds & monsoons; girls’ hips & boys’ chests; fierce multi-armed Goddesses and hottie Super Heroes!

“Hari Krishnan the maverick gadfly is aggressively iconoclastic.”
- Michael Crabb, The Toronto Star

Hari Krishnan is a dancer, choreographer, teacher and dance scholar. He is artistic director of Toronto based company inDANCE as well as a professor of dance in the department of dance at Wesleyan University (Connecticut). An award winning dancemaker who combines classical elegance and populist echoes, Krishnan is frequently commissioned as a forward thinking, innovative choreographer with an original edge to create works in the US, UK, Canada, Singapore and India. He holds a Master’s degree in Dance from York University (Toronto) and is currently completing his PhD in the dance department at Texas Woman’s University.

inDANCE (www.indance.ca) is one of Canada’s most progressive dance companies presenting works that are an original synthesis of artistic director Hari Krishnan’s South Asian and Western aesthetic sensibilities. While respecting the legacy of tradition, inDANCE boldly investigates post-modern evolutions that place the company on a trajectory that brings influences from the West into its strong and confident idiom of contemporary Asian cultures. The company aims to create work that is daring and radical – dancing outside the box. It produces eclectic, sensual, virtuosic and evocative dance creations that challenge dominant discourses on global culture. inDANCE’s work continues to be presented at prestigious venues in the US, Canada, UK, India, Singapore and Malaysia.

Bhaskar’s Arts Academy is an Indian performing arts group based in Singapore. With history dating back to the 1950s, when its founders Mr. K. P. Bhaskar and Mrs. Santha Bhaskar first arrived in Singapore, Bhaskar’s Arts Academy remains one of the longest standing providers of classical Indian performing arts in Singapore. Committed to the high sophistication of traditional dance theatre and the innovative spirit of cross-cultural productions alike, it carries the distinction of being the only Indian arts group in Singapore supported by the National Arts Council’s Annual Grant Scheme. Among its many ventures, it now boasts its own Kathakali troupe, the only of its kind in the world outside India, and also runs a gallery dedicated to Indian visual arts.

Taketeru Kudo performs his haunting solo A Vessel of Ruins for CanAsian’s Mainstage Program B May 3 and 4, 2013 at the Fleck Dance Theatre.

From the broken land, from the zones of destruction, from shattered landscapes and from memories, raises the figure of a man, forcing himself to wake-up to a new life. He searches in himself the power to overcome, to make it, to tell people what he saw.

Taketeru Kudo is one of the leading butoh artists of his generation. His creation explores the sphere between the folkloric blood and the wilderness of modernity. While studying theatre he was introduced to butoh through the work of Koichi Tamano in 1989. This encounter decisively changed his path, and he found himself travelling to the US to study with Koichi Tamano. From 1995 to 1998 he worked with the critically acclaimed company Sankaijuku before founding his own company Tokyo Guienkan in 1997. He joined Asbestos-kan, as performer and choreographer, under the direction of Akiko Motofuji (wife of the founder Tatsumi Hijikata) until its closing in 2004. His works have been performed around the world.

Ember: Trapped in Fire – a sizzling performance by whirling dervish Ziya Azazi.
Recently performed for the 2012 London Paralympics Opening Ceremony, Ember: Trapped in Fire is a spectacular work based on repetition and experimental whirling. It is particularly concerned with self-destruction, the pain of the awareness of mortality, and the inevitable ending within the continuous cycle of life. The piece depicts the lifelong battle with individual boundaries, leading one to a growing awareness of the diminishing possibility. Life becomes an irreversible circle, an unavoidable trap. Ember provides no easy answers. Instead it suggests the viewer to consider: what is the beginning and what is the end; where does life start and where does it end; and where does fire stand in this cycle – in the beginning or end?

Ziya Azazi was born in 1969 in Antakya, Turkey and has been based in Vienna, Austria since 1994. In 1999 he was awarded a scholarship by Summer Dance Week Vienna (Dance Web), including an honourable mention by the Ballet International Magazine as “The Most Outstanding Dancer of the Year in Austria” with his full-program performance Unterwegs Tabula Rasa.
 Ziya has performed in festivals around the world. He has performed for the royal family members of the Netherlands, Thailand and Denmark. As well as numerous European countries, Ziya has performed in Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Egypt, Ecuador, Iran, Israel, Korea, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Russia, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Venezuela and the USA.

May 4, 2013 at 6:00 PM

Fleck Dance Theatre
207 Queens Quay West, 3rd Floor
Presented in association with Shinsedai Cinema Festival

From Noh and Kabuki through to the mesmerizing and sometimes macabre world of butoh, Japanese dance runs the gamut from conservative and courtly to the outer limits of the avant garde. One choreographer bridges these two worlds beautifully and has changed modern theatre and performance in the process; but you may not have heard her name before — Suzushi Hanayagi. Filmmaker, and longtime assistant to Robert Wilson, Richard Rutowski explores the life and artistic journey of Suzushi Hanayagi in his 2011 documentary The Space in Back of You.

Preceding the feature film, Robert Wilson’s 1989 short film La Femme à la Cafetière also featuring Suzushi Hanayagi, and based on Paul Cezanne’s 1895 painting of the same name.

May 5, 2013
2:00 – 6:00 PM
Dovercourt House, 805 Dovercourt Road, 3rd floor
Cost: $60*
Level: All levels

*includes 1 free ticket to a Mainstage performance of your choice

To register, email outreach(at)canasiandance.com

Through whirling, participants will challenge their limits and reach their goal movements within their own genre, spending less energy to achieve a higher level of awareness. Whirling is the means to increased awareness of self, but not the main objective of the workshop.

Join us for workshops with artists Taketeru Kudo and Jocelyne Montpetit

Butoh with Taketeru Kudo
April 29, 30, and May 1, 2013
12:00 – 4:00 PM
Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre, 509 Parliament Street, Studio C
Cost: $200 or $75/day*
$190 for CADA members*
All Levels

Explore the evolution of the human body by connecting with memories inside the body. Discover how and where heavy and light, wet and dry manifest in our minds and bodies, and how to transform with this insight.

Butoh with Jocelyne Montpetit
May 3, 2013 from 12:00 – 4:00 PM
Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre, 509 Parliament Street, Studio C
May 4, 2013 from 2:00 – 6:00 PM
Dovercourt House, 805 Dovercourt Road, 3rd floor
Cost: $125 or $70/day*
$115 for CADA members*
Level: Intermediate / Advanced

Based on internalization of mental images developed by Master Tatsumi Hijikata, this workshop will lead the student to a greater awareness of their external and interior space.

*includes 1 free ticket to a Mainstage performance of your choice
To register, email outreach(at)canasiandance.com

April 28, May 5 and May 12, 2013
10:30 AM – 1:00 PM
Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre, 509 Parliament Street, Studio C
Cost: $90 or $35/day*
Level: All levels
Presented in association with Fuijiwara Dance Inventions

*includes 1 free ticket to a Mainstage performance of your choice

To register, email outreach(at)canasiandance.com

A workshop in deep, simple, creative dance. Good training for your body and mind. Using Japanese Butoh and creative post-modern dance principles we’ll work towards becoming more present and therefore more creative while expanding movement vocabulary and conditioning the body for strength and agility. The work can be done at many levels and challenges both the beginner and professional dancer. If you can walk, you can do this dance work.

Denise Fujiwara has over 30 years of performing, choreography and teaching experience. She has worked intensively under Butoh master, Natsu Nakajima and now performs and teaches in Toronto and internationally. She is the Artistic Director of Fujiwara Dance Inventions, the CanAsian Dance Festival and is an adjunct professor at York University. www.fujiwaradance.com

May 4, 2013
10:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Centre for Social Innovation, 215 Spadina Avenue, Suite 400
Cost: $125*

*includes 1 free ticket to a Mainstage performance of your choice
To register, email outreach(at)canasiandance.com

Contemplative writing is practical, radical, and transformative, developing capacities for deep concentration and quieting the mind in the midst of the action and distraction that fills everyday life. This state of calm centeredness is an aid to exploration of meaning, purpose and values. Contemplative practices can help develop greater empathy and communication skills, improve focus and attention, reduce stress and enhance creativity, supporting a loving and compassionate approach to life.

Sarah Selecky has been teaching people, locally and abroad, how to write mindfully since 2001. She has studied with exceptional teachers, including Natalie Goldberg, Lynda Barry and Zsuzsi Gartner, and works under their influence. Sarah is an alumna of the Humber School for Writers, the Banff Wired Writing Program, and graduated from the University of British Columbia’s Optional-Residency program with an MFA in Creative Writing. Sarah Selecky wrote a book of stories called This Cake Is for the Party. The book was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Commonwealth Prize for Best First Book in Canada and the Carribean, and it was longlisted for the Frank O’Connor Prize. She has been published in The Walrus, Elle Canada, Geist, and The Journey Prize Anthology.

May 5, 2013
3:00 – 5:00 PM
Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, 6 Garamond Court
Cost: $45 (includes materials)*
Presented in association with the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre

*includes 1 free ticket to a Mainstage performance of your choice

To register, email outreach(at)canasiandance.com

This workshop will explore the contemplative art of Japanese and Chinese writing with ink and brush. Through the use of a different media, Sho: Japanese Calligraphy, this workshop will look at different ways to express feelings and scenery using Japanese characters. www.norikomaeda.com

Monday April 29 at 12:00 pm  (International Dance Day)
Wednesday May 1 at 12:00 pm  (Asian Heritage Month)
Saturday May 4 at 1:00 pm (World Labyrinth Day)
Location: Toronto Public Labyrinth in Trinity Square Park (Eaton Centre)

Presented in association with the Labyrinth Community Network (www.labyrinthnetwork.ca).

Join us for a free lunch time labyrinth walk led by composer and Shakuhachi musician Debbie Danbrook.

Labyrinth walking in an ancient practice used by many different faiths for spiritual centering, contemplation and prayer. Entering the serpentine path of a labyrinth, the walker walks slowly while quieting their mind and focusing on a spiritual question or prayer.

To sign up and for more information please e-mail outreach(at)canasiandance.com

Photo courtesy of Labyrinth Community Network