CCDT produces two distinct programs. WINTERSONG – dances for a sacred season in the autumn and winter season and TEASING GRAVITY – dances for the young and fearless in the spring. These both feature repertoire selected from the work of more than thirty-five North American choreographers, and run at around 60 minutes each. Both are followed by a Q&A session, and are animated by Artistic Director Deborah Lundmark who introduces each piece with a brief description.
WINTERSONG – dances for a sacred season showcases choreography inspired by the rich variety of solstice traditions, celebrating the holiday season with the breathtaking tapestry of dance. The program of four dances has been carefully selected to engage Grades 2-8, and their teachers, with the beauty and magic of mid-winter solstice themes set to commissioned and traditional music.
Unquiet Dreams – Unquiet Dreams is a contemporary reading of the poem "The Stolen Child" by William Butler Yeats, where a child is tempted away into the world of faeries. Elliott's enchanting new score uses elements of traditional Irish and Scandinavian music along with electronic and contemporary sounds. Performing live on stage with the dancers, singer Rebecca Campbell will be the Voice of the Child, Elliott will play Celtic harp, flute, bouzouki, guitar and electric violin and Grossman will play hurdy gurdy and percussion.
Doyne Suite – A “doyne” is a particularly soulful piece of Klezmer music, full of eastern European and gypsy influence. The choreographer imagines a nineteenth-century village welcoming travelling musicians, dancing under the winter sky to keep warm, forget their hunger and for the sheer joy of life.
Kaha:wi (Excerpts-Four Sisters; Young Woman's Dance) - Kaha:wi is a full-length work premiered by Santee's company at Harbourfront Centre, June 2004. Four Sisters: Respect is given to the four directions represented by four dancing women. Unified they are symbolic of the continuous and harmonious circle of life's renewal. Young Woman's Dance: The music and dance embody the feminine presence that exists everywhere within creation. In unity the young women are dancing in celebration of their female community, family and ancestors.
Nowell Sing We – Driven by the celebratory briskness of medieval carols arranged by Kirk Elliott, Nowell Sing We sets two-dimensional imagery - familiar from medieval art - into motion. Since its creation in 1988 for the inaugural WINTERSONG every CCDT company member has performed in this piece
TEASING GRAVITY – dances for the young and fearless is a thrilling adventure in movement that features dances by some of Canada’s leading choreographers. The program includes dances that are fun and whimsical and others that address more serious themes and subjects.
Platform Blues – choreographer Deborah Lundmark places six people and a musician on the waiting platform of a train station. We watch their relationships develop as they interact with each other to the accompaniment of blues harmonica player Jerome Godboo.
Attack of the Small Ones - is choreographer Holly Small's humourous answer to the ages-old problem of the schoolyard bully who spoils the fun of an innocent (and very comical) group of playmates. Everyone - except the bully - cheers the surprise ending that the “small ones” have in store.
Nine Person Precision Ball Passing - is a dazzling “dance of the hands” created by New Yorker Charles Moulton. The choreographer challenges 9 dancers to pass brightly coloured balls in a kaleidoscope of musical patterns - a one-of-a-kind feat of hand-eye coordination and perfect team timing.
Out and About - is fun, light, and flirtatious. It defines and establishes the attitudes and relationships of young, teenage girls and further explores these behaviours by incorporating one teenage boy into the mix. Choreographer Robert Glumbek captures the delightful antics of “teens at play”.
Musical Chairs - is choreographer Gerry Trentham's comic take-off on the popular children's game where too many characters chasing too few chairs make for some of the funniest moments in dance. As if such worldly problems were not enough, the choreographer gives the chairs a mischievous personality of their own. The bizarre result, while not so funny for the players, is a great delight for audiences everywhere.
Slept Away (red dream, blue dream) is a journey into the world of dreams. Through a series of short vignettes, archetypal images and characters are suggested to the audience, and – much like dreams – brought together in a non-linear, episodic way: falling asleep leads to the sinking of the Titanic, which then turns into a Romeo and Juliet duet on a sea of love; Ophelia, running away from Hamlet, ends up in the world of Dracula; the killing of Medusa brings us into a museum of classical mythology, where the statues come to life to the dismay of the tour guide.
Humourous, touching or frightening, the work takes us through a vivid kinetic and sensory journey, and creates a clever parallel between entering the dream state and experiencing contemporary dance. From its transporting opening moments when twelve ominous strokes signify the midnight hour and the dreamer tentatively steps from her familiar place among us in the audience to her unsettling private place of dreams, to the final moment which brings the dreamer back to her starting point, we are transfixed by the familiar – yet often irrational – web of recognizable images in startling combinations which makes up the world of dreams.
This commission was made possible with generous assistance from the Canada Council for the Arts.
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