Get to know your CADA/BC
March 2013 Member's Newsletter
This edition features the 2013 Member's Unconference; Membership renewal, a discussion w/ Member Jennifer Mascall; & our monthly dance citizenship challenge.
Member's Unconference
CADA/BC is its Members.
Bring your ideas, bring your passions. It is your Unconference—you get to decide.
The 2013 Member's Unconference is March 24, 2013 in the Heritage Courtrooms at the Vancouver Art Gallery; starting at 10am.
How will we work and live as professional dance artists in 10 years?
Many ideas, and subsequent activities (like this newsletter, our Dance Response program, our advocacy blog and CADA Cafés), arose out of the 2012 Member’s Unconference; please see our report on 2012 at CADA/BC. We will leave this day with a list of outcomes to carry us forward through the next year.
If you are there, you get to decide.
SCHEDULE
- 10am: Welcomes, Introductions, Agenda Setting
- 11am—3:30pm: Concurrent Sessions (Agenda set by participants)
- 3:30—5pm: Reporting and Closing
Coffee, snacks and lunch provided for those who RSVP before noon, March 22.
DETAILS
- The Unconference is free, but $10 will be charged to Members who RSVP before March 22 and do not show up—this is to cover our catering costs.
- Anyone is welcome to arrive at anytime and leave at anytime. RSVP is only necessary for those wishing to eat.
- The Heritage Courtrooms are located in the administrative wing of the Vancouver Art Gallery. Signage will help you find the location once you arrive.
We hope to see you there!!!
Membership Renewal
CADA/BC Membership Renewal is March 31, 2013. Please see this form to renew your Membership today.
photo: Yukiko Onley
Member Profile: Jennifer Mascall
As Artistic Director of Mascall Dance since 1992, Jennifer Mascall continues to explore the potential of the human body moving in space and expand our preconceived notions of the discipline of contemporary dance.
In our recent CADA Cafés on Training & Maintaining the Form—What training is important to professional dance? it was mentioned that there are plenty of skills that professional dancers need that they do not get in dance school.
Do you agree with this statement?
Yes.
What are the skills that pro dancers need that they may not be getting in school?
When I studied with Linda Putnam, her entire syllabus of physical impulses, river work and the study of the psychological implications of a gesture, it felt like what we should have been taught but weren't. It took me 30 years of studying with her to understand it. It is not a casual study.
If not in dance school, where do we get these skills?
Linda Putnam had a school, but I think we get the study we need from wherever we can. We have radar for the people who can speak to us and we go to them.
It would help our field tremendously if students would state their lineage of influencs and training as the Tibetan Rinpoche's do when they begin their lectures. It would help us track and it would strengthen the honour of the oral tradition.
Should/Can dance schools provide these skills?
From what I have seen of the schools they do what they can and as responsibly and thoroughly as possible. I admire tremendously the work of LAADMI, The School of Contemporary Dancers and The School of Toronto Dance Theatre. But, as we are going to study for the rest of our dance artist lives, I think the training needs to be appropriate to the context and the situation of the students who are entering it. They will find other more specialized teachers along the way.
What skills do you look for when hiring a dancer?
They have to be able to work with images. They need to thrive on risk-taking while simultaneously having an interest in studying blindness. They must respect tradition. They must have courage. They must really want to do my work.
For more discussion on training and approaches to creation, check out Mascall Dance's blog.
Kim Stevenson & Molly McDermott by Deanna Peters
Speak With Your Feet
This month's dance citizenship challenge...
Register to vote.
Elections BC is updating the voters list for the May 2013 Provincial General Election. Register to vote or update your voter registration to be eligible to vote.
General Voting Day for the next scheduled general election is Tuesday, May 14.
Voting connects us as citizens—to our communities and to our political process. However, poor voter turn-out is endemic in BC, especially amongst people age 25 and under. By not voting, we lose an important opportunity to make our voices heard by politicians.
