CanAsian festival grows up

Biennial fest unites traditions from Korea to India, helped make Toronto a No. 1 venue

Susan Walker
DANCE WRITER
TheStar.com

The first year of the CanAsian International Dance Festival was a labour of love. "Everything was done on a volunteer basis," says Denise Fujiwara, the biennial festival's artistic director. All board members pitched in. "We sold tickets, put up posters, pushed the play button on the cassette deck."

Getting burned out after a few years of that, they applied for and received a Trillium grant, to keep Fujiwara and an office administrator working on a very part-time basis.

The festival has been gaining ground ever since, bringing in performers from abroad who would not otherwise be seen here, and highlighting the work of Toronto dancers and choreographers working in Asian modes of dance.

"This festival is unique in that it really is a reflection of Toronto," says Fujiwara, whose touring with Fujiwara Dance Inventions gives her a chance to be a scout for the festival. "We have well-developed communities that support artists who are now integrating their work with contemporary practices. The work that is coming out of Toronto now is really sophisticated."

Nothing has changed in the festival's mandate, designed to present a mix of traditional and contemporary work, from dancers representing as many Asian dance forms as can fit on one bill.

This year's mainstage performances in the Premiere Dance Theatre run from tonight through Saturday. A special show in the York Quay's Brigantine Room, running only tomorrow and Saturday before the mainstage show, is a solo performance from Yuko Kaseki of the Berlin-based cokaseki, which is influenced in part by the Japanese contemporary dance movement butoh.

"I saw her at the New York Butoh festival a couple of years ago," Fujiwara says. "I thought her work was remarkable. She synthesizes contemporary dance and kind of post-butoh dance." The dancer becomes a wonderful tragicomic character who wins the audience's empathy. Not wanting to spoil any surprises, Fujiwara will only say that the solo, called Tooboe – The Howl, involves "lots of water."

Kinya "ZULU" Tsuruyama from Tokyo met Toronto's Keiko Ninomiya the last time he performed at the CanAsian festival. Ninomiya, an independent dancer and member of the Green Tea Collective, invited Tsuruyama to work with her on a piece, called You see the tree, you don't see the forest. They worked with composers in Japan over the Internet. Tsuruyama, who had been thinking of winding down his career as a butoh dancer, was reignited after coming to the CanAsian festival a few years ago and getting nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award.

Qi Shu Fang Peking Opera Company from New York City keep to tradition in a show based on an ancient myth, The Monkey and the Princess Iron Fan. The four elaborately costumed and masked performers deliver music, song, acrobatics and martial arts. "They do these things with swords and spears that you can't believe," says Fujiwara.

Montreal's Sinha Danse will present a Toronto premiere of Apricot Trees Exist. The piece for six dancers grew out of a poem by Danish writer Inger Christensen. Roger Sinha goes for dynamic confrontations between East and West rather than a quiet fusion in his choreography, combining ballet and modern with South Asian gestures.

Soojung Kwon draws on traditional Korean shamanistic dance. Her new work, M_K, is a meditation on the many aspects of being female. She'll be accompanied live by the Opaque Ensemble of Korean musicians playing on traditional instruments.

Expect flat-out dance from Kathak performer Joanna de Souza, when she dances the solo Khammaj Tarana with the live percussion of the Toronto Tabla Ensemble.

Tomorrow night's performances will be followed with an exchange between artists and audience. It could be an opportunity to see how the CanAsian International Dance Festival fosters cross-pollination between continents and dance forms and why Toronto has become a No.1 venue for Asian dance.