There are groundbreaking seasons, and then there are quiet personal milestones.
As Jay Hirabayashi and Barbara Bourget prepare to present their 16th Vancouver International Dance Festival, featuring talent from Cuba, Japan, Quebec and more, the hardworking husband and wife duo are also mere weeks away from achieving a 28-year goal: opening their own community dance centre.
“We’ve had enquiries from people that want to both teach and rehearse, and also perform, so I think there’s going to be a lot of interest,” says Hirabayashi, of the rental space. “There’s a shortage of decent, affordable rehearsal and creation space in Vancouver,” he continues. “As soon as we know for sure when all of the work will be done, we’re going to have an announcement and an open house and invite everyone to come for a party, invite them to see the space, and hopefully they will join us in using it.”
The space will be managed by Hirabayashi and Bourget’s personal dance company, Kokoro Dance, as well as by their sub-tenants, Vancouver Moving Theatre, Raven Spirit Dance Society and the Vancouver International Dance Festival. The facility should be fully renovated by the end of April and will be a boon to the non-profit arts community, packing shared offices, a dance studio, and a multi-purpose performance and recording space into the three-level, 5,600-sq.ft. hub in the historic Woodward’s building.
Between contractor meetings and liaisons with the City, which awarded Kokoro the head lease on the space in late 2014, however, Hirabayashi and Bourget still have a festival to run.
Since its inception in 2000, the Vancouver International Dance Festival has presented more than 240 highly physical and theatrical dance artists from around the world, swimming each year in programming that makes you sweat just watching it.
“I think our primary interest is in work that uses the body in a physically visceral way,” explains Hirabayashi. “Dance really works when you see it live – it’s kind of flattened out and de-energized when you see it on television – and you really feel the transmission of energy of knowledge of spirit from one body to yours watching it, so we’re drawn to choreographers that put their emphasis is on the body and the physicality of the body.”
Kicking off the festival, Quebec firecrackers Compagnie Virginie Brunelle make their West Coast debut with the audacious Foutrement.
“Virginie Brunelle is, you know, in your face, in a way,” says Hirabayashi, with a chuckle. “Foutrement means fucking in French, so it’s provocative. And seeing dancers en pointe with hockey pads on and little else is a startling image.”
Other highlights include an action-packed co-production by Memory Wax of Sweden and Retazos of Cuba, featuring two wildly different, yet equally surreal performances.
“Their work has a lot of theatricality in it,” says Hirabayashi. “In one of the pieces they use masks and props and a set, and in the other piece they use live video projection. They have a camera overhead of the stage, so you’re watching the dancers as you normally would, but then you’re also seeing a different vision of them from above, so you get more than one perspective of what they’re doing, which alters your perspective.”
Closer to home, the always-inventive EDAM Dance has a world premiere with its rainforest-inspired The Secret Life of Trees, meanwhile Company 605 is finally unveiling Vital Few – a kinetic exploration of togetherness that, with the help of VIDF, has been three years in the making.
Meanwhile, Hirabayashi and Bourget are bringing back Kokoro Dance’s acclaimed 30th anniversary performance, Book of Love, from last November. The longtime butoh practitioners are also presenting one of their dance inspirations, 73-year-old Japanese butoh master Natsu Nakajima in her spellbinding Like Smoke Like Ash.
Thanks to the new space, though, you can expect VIDF to look a little different next year. Currently presented at Roundhouse and Playhouse theatres for the most part, Hirabayashi confirms that VIDF plans to add the new space as a venue next year, saying that he and Bourget hope to make most of the shows and classes taking place at the centre affordable for dancers and dance lovers.
“I think, if we can get the funding for it, we want to make all the all the activities in the Woodward’s premises free – including the community dance classes and classes for people who have no experience, who just want to move with us.”
In the meantime, people looking to wet their toes in the pool of contemporary dance this time around can catch free shows by Mascall Dance and Raven Spirit Dance in the Woodward’s atrium.
• The Vancouver International Dance Festival runs now through March 19. Tickets range from free to $50; for passes and schedule info, go to VIDF.ca
