RESET - A World Premiere for CCDT by Roderick George

Since its inception in 1980, Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre has striven to engage audiences worldwide with performances by young artists whose abilities belie their age. Working with dancers as young as ten years old and all under 20 years of age in its Company, CCDT believes in the capability of youth to not only learn and hone impeccable technical skill as dancers, but also cultivate a sophisticated and individual artistic voice.

This season, CCDT has had the great fortune and pleasure of commissioning a guest choreographer whose work for the Company embodies exactly that defiance of age. Hailing from Houston, Texas and currently based in Berlin, independent dance artist Roderick George (Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, The Forsythe Company) spent three weeks at our studios in intensive process with our dancers to create a new work entitled RESET, which will make its world premiere this May on CCDT’s Alien Grace program of mixed repertoire.

Sydney Runions, centre, and the cast of RESET in rehearsal with Roderick George.

George delved into ideas about authority figures reigning over today’s generation of youth, and especially the excessive control that parents often exercise over their children. Attempts to protect often overshadow children’s maturity and capabilities, and taking away this identity and independence may cause them to act out in defiance.

In RESET we see the dancers using their bodies as a voice to regain their autonomy and prove they are worth being respected as much as any person their senior. This physicality takes form through George’s distinct blend of classical ballet technique, contemporary floor work methodology, and hip hop aesthetics — not unfamiliar styles to CCDT’s dancers, with the Company having recently commissioned artists including Jennifer Archibald, Apolonia Velasquez, and Ryan Lee. Extremely athletic, energetic, intricate and bold, George’s dancers take on this new work with a ferocity and sophistication that could rival that of many established professional dance artists.

Alongside a world premiere by CCDT’s Artistic Director Deborah Lundmark and remounts by Carol Anderson, Jennifer Archibald, and Sylvie Bouchard, RESET is another display of the power of the young artistic voice that is not to be missed.

Alien Grace runs May 25-26, 2018 at 8:00PM at the Fleck Dance Theatre. Click here for info and tickets.