Artistic Director Yvonne Ng, on behalf of princess productions and guest curators Serge Bennathan and Cylla von Tiedemann, has announced the award winners from this year's dance: made in canada / fait au canada (d:mic/fac), the cutting-edge contemporary dance festival which had a popular and critically successful run August 14-17, 2013 at the Betty Oliphant Theatre in Toronto.
New this year, the festival initiated Audience Choice Awards (ACA) for each of the MainStage Series and What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) Late-Night Series, with prize money raised through an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign divided 60/40 between the winners from each series.
The MainStage Series Award goes to
Benjamin Kamino, who performed an excerpt from his solo Nudity. Desire. He receives a cheque for $692.
The ACA winner from the WYSIWYG Series is Throwdown Collective (Zhenya Cerneacov, Mairéad Filgate and Brodie Stevenson). The Throwdown Collective receives a cheque for $461.
Amy Hampton, whose Middle Distance was featured in the lottery-drawn What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) Series at d:mic/fac, is the winner of the 2013Paula Citron Award and receives a cheque for $100.
Among the outstanding Canadian dance creators contributing to three different MainStage Series were
Benjamin Kamino (Montreal),
William Yong (Toronto), Femmes du Feu (Toronto), Louis Laberge-Côté (Toronto), Gearshifting Performance Works (Winnipeg), Mocean Dance (Halifax) and Blue Ceiling Dance (Toronto). Following the MainStage programming was a Late-Night "What You See is What You Get" (WYSIWYG) Series with Jamee Valin of Vancouver and Toronto-based artists Amy Hampton, Shannon Litzenberger, skindivers
Dance Company and Throwdown Collective. (Arts Encounters, a visual art exhibit, community line dance, live video dance installation and other happenings rounded out the festival.)
More details on the winners:
This year's d:mic/fac featured a new prize - the Audience Choice Awards (ACA). Audience members had the opportunity to vote for their favourite artists in both theMainStage Series and What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get Late-Night Series, with prize money raised through an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign divided 60/40 between the winners from each series.
The ACA winner from the MainStage Series is
Benjamin Kamino, who performed an excerpt from Nudity. Desire., a solo embodying the theological framework of the "first nude" or "fall" as a potential origin of language and birthplace of desire as explored by contemporary philosophers Giorgio Agamben, Slavoj Zizek and Erik Peterson.
The ACA winner from the WYSIWYG Series is Throwdown Collective (Zhenya Cerneacov, Mairéad Filgate and Brodie Stevenson), whose Various Concertexplores the dynamic form of the trio as a choreographic structure. Playing with the tension of partnering, weight sharing and manipulation, a fluid and changing dynamic is found and used as the background.
Benjamin Kamino receives a cheque for $692 while Throwdown Collective collects $461.
In 1996, dance critic Paula Citron inaugurated a prize to recognize choreographic artistry at the fringe Festival of Independent Dance Artists. Since then, the Paula Citron Dance Award has been variously conferred on choreographers selected from
Moving Pictures Festival of Dance on Film and Video, Fresh Blood (a showcase of emerging choreographers) and the biennial d:mic/fac. The winner of the 2013 Paula Citron Award is Amy Hampton, whose Middle Distance was featured in the lottery-drawn WYSIWYG Series at d:mic/fac. Performed by Hampton and
Brendan Wyatt, Middle Distance explores a relationship through the lens of physical proximity and the spaces between us. "Amy Hampton is a very physical dancer," Citron observes, "so it is no surprise that she is also a very physical choreographer. The very traits that make her one of the most sought after independent dancers in the city can be found in Middle Distance - precision placement, firm control, and strong expression." Hampton receives a cheque for $100.
For more information, visit
www.princessproductions.ca.
