DanceWorks to Stage Julia Sasso's Re-Imagined 'Sporting Life'

DanceWorks, Toronto's longest running contemporary dance series, proudly presents Sporting Life, newly re-imagined by acclaimed choreographer Julia Sasso of Julia Sasso dances, 20 years after she first premiered this striking work at Ottawa's prestigious Canada Dance Festival in 1996. DanceWorks then presented it in 1997, earning multiple Dora Award nominations, including Outstanding Choreography. Rigorously physical, technically and emotionally challenging, Sporting Life runs Thursday March 3 to Saturday March 5 nightly at Harbourfront Centre Theatre as part of Next Steps.

Along with a new generation of extraordinary interpreters, Sasso re-envisions her seminal creation that timelessly mirrors our fragilities and perverse lust for violence. Sporting Life reveals the vulnerability, pain and deliriously nonsensical contradictions inherent in a society steeped in violence - condoned and otherwise.

In a series of deliciously absurd vignettes linked together in theme, movement style and content, Sporting Life places five characters (one female and four male dancers) in conflict, revealing the futility of aggression as well as our potential for redemption.

Potent and poignant, this often darkly humorous work is performed by a talented ensemble of Irvin Chow, Matthew Cuff, Jesse Dell, Daniel McArthur and Mateo Galindo Torres. The original sound score is by Sasso and Eric Cadesky; and the rehearsal assistant is original cast member Julia Aplin.

Recognized as 'one of the foremost dance artists in the country' (The Dance Current), Julia Sasso choreographs extensively for the concert stage as well as for feature film, theatre and television. Her choreography has been commissioned and presented throughout Canada, in the United States and abroad by Harbourfront Centre, the Canada Dance Festival, the Stratford Festival, Toronto Dance Theatre, Dancemakers and Winnipeg's Contemporary Dancers, among others. Sasso's celebrated full-length ensemble works include Sporting Life (1996), Beauty (2003), the betrayal project (2006), Túl a folyón/Beyond the River (2009) and SLoE (2012). Sasso performed internationally with Toronto's Dancemakers for sixteen seasons and continues to create, teach and perform independently.

DanceWorks began as a collective of independent dance artists in 1977 and has grown to become Toronto's leading presenter of independent dance. DanceWorks offers seasons of eclectic, exhilarating choreography programmed to intrigue, challenge and enthral. DanceWorks adds to the theatrical experience with Carol's Dance Notes post-performance conversations with artists. DanceWorks is the administrator of the CanDance Network and Dance Ontario Association. www.danceworks.ca + https://danceworksblog.wordpress.com/

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