relay

relay is a collaborative choreographic experiment for 8 performers and 2 musicians. Public Recordings' Artistic Director Ame Henderson has invited these exceptional artists to come together to make a performance that asks important questions about the politics and possibility of being together. The work investigates the role of the dancer as an authority of the emerging dance archive by dragging the memories of their past performance experiences back to the future. This unearthing is done with care and awareness, privileging both the dancer's autonomy of experience and the original artworks evoked to examine and reframe the function of memory and imagination in the persona of the performer performing. At the same time, relay re-imagines unison as a mode of being together, asking if it is both possible and interesting to move together without abandoning individuality. A formal element in dance for as long as people have been dancing, Ame Henderson wants to confront the taboo and pleasure of both watching and making movement in unison, activating unison as an extreme gesture of togetherness to allow for the emergence of sensational difference, connection and participation.

The project is supported by The Canada Council for the Arts, The Ontario Arts Council, The Toronto Arts Council, the CanDance Network, Harbourfront Centre (Toronto), Recontres Chorégraphiques Internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis (France), L'Agora de la danse (Montreal), The Vancouver East Cultural Centre (Vancouver) and The Canada Dance Festival (Ottawa).