Idiom

Research and creation 2012
March 19 – 30: Toronto, ON Creative Image Studios
April 2 – 6: Ottawa, ON The School of Dance
April 16 – 20: Toronto, ON Dovercourt Dove House
April 22 7 pm: showing at The Citadel, 304 Parliament Street

 

Created and Performed by Jennifer Dallas and Bienvenue Bazié
Music composed and performed by John MacLean
Lighting design by Roelof Peter Snippe

 

Kẹmi gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council for the creation of Idiom

 

Idiom, a collaborative creation of a full-length duet for DanceWorks Mainstage 2014 between Jennifer Dallas, Bienvenue Bazié of Burkina Faso and musician John MacLean. Idiom stands on the shoulders of Converse , a duet created in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and Toronto for Danceworks CoWorks 2011 season.

 

The subject is language, the idioms of Idiom may be musical, verbal or movement-based. What are the effects of borderlessness? What are cultural norms as they manifest in dialog? Idiom will present an exploration of like and unlike cultures and how that’s changing human ways.

 

Converse is a collaboration about collaboration, with its inherent struggles to understand and communicate with, create with, artists from a different culture. Voice, humor, mimicry, compassion – these are the enabling universals that allow such an exchange to happen and they are all evident in this work. It’s a hopeful message that couldn’t be clearer in its implications for the wider world and everyone in it.
- The Dance Current Kathleen M. Smith

 

Idiom , une création collaborative de Jennifer Dallas, Bienvenue Bazié du Burkina Faso avec le musicien John MacLean sera présentée à Danceworks Mainstage 2014. Idiom est la prochaine création artistique après Converse , une œuvre chorégraphique que nous avons créé à Ouagadougou, et à Toronto pour Danceworks CoWorks 2011.

 

Le sujet est la langage, les idioms de Idiom pouvant être musicaux, verbales ou basé sur le mouvement. Quels sont les effets de l’absence de cadre et de frontieres? Quelles sont les norms culturelles au moment où elles se manifestent dans le dialogue? Idiom présentera une exploration des similitudes et différences culturelles (une exploration de cultures semblables et différentes) et comment c’est en train de changer les coutumes ou moeurs humaines.