SOD #1 Performance Schedule

SOD 1: Sunday, May 12th, at 3:00pm, University Theatre, Riddell Centre 

• Women’s Pow Wow Dances | with Chasity, Jordynn, and Jayda Delorme. 

• salute to the early rockin women | Choreography: Connie Moker Wernikowski. Performers: Carleigh Macdonald and Natasha Molnar-Fluter. 
• Loops and Crinkles | a dance film by Connie Moker Wernikowski and Larry J. Bauman. 
• Cotton Handkerchiefs and Dog's Tears | Choreography: Tedd Robinson. Performers: Susie Burpee and Robyn Thomson Kacki. 
• Crow Comes Calling | Choreography: Davida Monk. Performers: Members of the Professional Program of the School of Contemporary Dancers. 

• QUADRIGA Ⅱ | Co-created: Robin Poitras and Edward Poitras. Performers: Members of the Professional Program

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salute to the early rocking women

Choreographed by: Connie Moker Wernikowski
Performers: Carleigh Macdonald and Natasha Molnar-Fluter
Music Credits: White Rabbit – Jefferson Airplane, Mercedes Benz – Janis Joplin, Little Girl Blue – Janis Joplin
Project Length: 9 minutes

salute to the early rockin women by Connie Moker Wernikowski consists of three short dances to music by Grace Slick (Jefferson Airplane) and Janis Joplin.  The first dance is reminiscent of a circus act and Alice in Wonderland…. in which the two tall (5’8’’) dancers perform on two tiny chairs.  The second dance, to Joplin’s Mercedes Benz,  is light (potentially humorous) and fast.  The third dance is pure blues to Joplin’s “Little Girl Blue”.

Connie says “I have always been intrigued by these women who stepped into the male world of rock and roll and sang with so much fervour and passion. I listened (and danced wildly)  to their music when I was a young teen. “

​Connie Moker Wernikowski holds an Honours BA in Dance from York University and an M.Ed from the University of Regina. Connie has been actively contributing to dance in this province for over 40 years. She moved to Regina in 1975 to be a company member and teacher with Regina Modern Dance Works. Her professional career, centred in Regina, has included work as an artistic director, dance teacher, dance educator, professional dancer, choreographer and mentor. Connie is a master teacher of contemporary dance technique. She has taught numerous movement and arts education classes at the University of Regina, and has mentored many young dancers who now have careers in dance. Her choreography has been shown internationally. She has developed performances for school children audiences. Connie performed as part of New Dance Horizons InTemp Company and has toured through Canada as an independent soloist. In recent years Connie has created new choreographic works annually. Connie was Artistic Director of Youth Ballet and Contemporary Dance of Saskatchewan (YBCS) from 1994 to 2009. Her work at YBCS has left a significant legacy in ballet and contemporary dance training and in providing performance opportunities and development for young dancers. In 2018 Connie was a short list nominee for a Saskatchewan Arts Award for Arts and Learning. 
Thanks to New Dance Horizons for their continued support. Watch for a full performance of Connie’s recent work which will be held in January 2020 at the Shu-Box theatre, University of Regina.
 
Natasha has performed in the New Dance Horizon’s Stream of Dance Festival 2018, 2016; Secret Garden Tour 2017, 2016, 2015; Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan For the Love of Dance 2016; The Blanket Folding Project 2016; Regina’s Globe Theatre’s Sandbox Series 2015; Sixty/Forty: Recent Works by Connie Moker Wernikowski 2014; and with SQx Dance 2014. She is a former member of the Youth Ballet Company of Saskatchewan, which provided the opportunity to perform throughout Saskatchewan, Edmonton, and Scotland, as well as the recent opportunity to perform as an alumnus in their 2017 Dance Me a Song company performance. Natasha has completed a B.Sc in Mathematics and is now in the midst of finishing a B.Ed to teach high school math.  
 
Carleigh performed pre-professionally as a member of Regina’s Youth Ballet Company of Saskatchewan for eight years; culminating in attendance at the Aberdeen, International Youth Festival in Scotland (2013). Since graduating from Youth Ballet, she has participated in professional projects with local choreographers including Connie Moker Wernikowski, Johanna Bundon, Caitlin Coflin, and Karen Rose. She has performed in collaboration with Regina’s Globe Theatre’s Sandbox Series (2015), New Dance Horizon’s Stream of Dance Festival (2016, 2018), and Secret Garden Tour (2016, 2017), Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan’s For the Love of Dance (2016) and the University of Regina’s Music and Dance Project (2018, 2019). Carleigh’s continues to share her passion for dance by teaching ballet and modern at Youth Ballet and Contemporary Dance of Saskatchewan. 

Loops and Crinkles

Choreography: Connie Moker Wernikowski 
Dancers: Connie Moker Wernikowski, Katrina Currie, Evelyn Currie, Elle Wernikowski 
Rehearsal Assistant: Jill Wernikowski 
Music: Maytzo 

Special thanks to Youth Ballet and Contemporary Dance of Saskatchewan for rehearsal space and to Robin Poitras and New Dance Horizons for rehearsal space and for creating a forum to present this work.  

Cotton Handkerchiefs and Dog’s Tears

Choreographed by: Tedd Robinson
Performers:Susie Burpee and Robyn Thomson Kacki
Music Credits: Charles Quevillon, with Stella
Project Length: 16 minutes

Cotton Handkerchiefs and Dog's Tears

Dancing, not dancing with boxes and big hearts
in suits black and dog's crying,
handkerchiefs dropping, and hands holding,
piano wailing ...
but the dog.
-Anonymous 18th century poem translated from the Dutch

"Tedd Robinson has created an "elegiac 'Godot-esque' world in which dancers Susie Burpee and Robyn Thomson Kacki appear as co-conspirators" (Holly Harris, Dance International). Robinson's signature handling of objects and use of idiosyncratic gesture creates a sense of ritual purpose in this enigmatic and poignant duet. 

Cotton Handkerchiefs and Dog's Tears premiered at Anything But Absolute Zero, Winnipeg's Contemporary Dancers, April 2017, and was performed at Guelph Dance Festival, June 2018.

Tedd Robinson is best known for his idiosyncratic solo dance works, including the Chalmers Award winning Rokudo: six destinies in three steps. Robinson's choreography juxtaposes spiritually controlled movement with unexpected moments of sly, subtle humour. Born in Ottawa, Tedd Robinson graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from York University, and studied at The School of The Toronto Dance Theatre and with eminent British visual theatre artist Lindsay Kemp. He first rose to prominence as artistic director of Contemporary Dancers in Winnipeg (1984-1990). He returned to Ottawa in 1990 to pursue a solo career and study with Peter Boneham at Le Groupe Dance Lab. His recent collaborators have included artists such as Louise Lecavalier, Margie Gillis, Ame Henderson and his regular collaborator, composer/performer Charles Quevillon. Between 2005 and 2012, he took up residence in the Pontiac, Québec and established La B.A.R.N., an intimate venue for creation and performance.  From 2013 to 2016, he co-directed Centre Q: a centre for questioning in Quyon, Québec. He now operates Centre Q2 in Bristol, Québec, an hour's drive west of Ottawa/Gatineau. His work is influenced by his six years of study as a monk in the Hakukaze soto zen monastery, Ottawa. He is winner of the 2014 Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts and is an Associate Dance Artist of the National Arts Centre.
 
The artistic preoccupations of composer, musician and performer CHARLES QUEVILLON center on the ritualization of sound and movement performance. He has studied six years at the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal and worked nine years with choreographer Tedd Robinson on 23 projects including 6 hour-long works in which he himself performed. Through this extensive collaboration, he has discovered a passion for movement and performs many of his own works himself, such as Corde à Vide, composed for a suspended musician at the center of a chime of plucked-string instruments. His holistic and multidisciplinary approach to composition has brought him to work with ensemble and musician that are also redefining music performance.
 
Robyn Thomson Kacki has had the privilege of working with several outstanding artists throughout her career, including Stephanie Ballard, Paula Blair, Susie Burpee, Odette Heyn, C.M., Gaile Petursson-Hiley, Tedd Robinson, and with the company @tendance/C.Medina in Graz, Austria. She is a company member with NAfro Dance Productions under the Artistic Direction of Casimiro Nhussi, and has worked with the company since 2009. As a founding member of Drive Dance, Robyn produced and performed in several performance series. She had the honour of performing Rachel Browne’s signature solo, Freddy both in the New Dance Horizons’ Stream of Dance festival (Regina, 2017) and in WCD’s Verge: Remembering Rachel Browne performance series (Winnipeg, 2019). Robyn is a graduate of the Professional Program of the School of Contemporary Dancers. She is an Artistic Coordinator for the General Program of SCD, and works within the Junior and Senior Professional Programs. Robyn would like to thank the Manitoba Arts Council and the Winnipeg Arts Council for supporting the creation of Cotton Handkerchiefs and Dog’s Tears.
 
Susie Burpee creates ‘fully human characters, struggling for connection’ (The Toronto Star). She was a dancer with Le Groupe Dance Lab and Dancemakers, and she has worked with many luminous Canadian choreographers such as Peter Chin, Sasha Ivanochko, Lesandra Dodson, and Tedd Robinson. Her work has received Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Outstanding Choreography and Performance. A past recipient of the K.M. Hunter Artist Award for Dance, Susie's work examines the intersections of creator and performer, and the collision of chance and craft. Her study with master clown/theatre teacher Philippe Gaulier and her extensive work in contemporary performance allows her to traverse disciplines as sought-after outside eye rehearsal director, and teacher. Susie is a graduate of the Professional Program of the School of Contemporary Dancers/University of Winnipeg, where she is now guest faculty. She also teaches at George Brown College, The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, and Ryerson University. Susie is a member of the Canadian Alliance of Dance Artists, and on the board of the Toronto Dance Community Love-In. 

Crow Comes Calling

Choreographed by: Davida Monk
Performers: Kendra Coulter, Kamryn Dyck, Anastasia Evsigneeva, Julious Gambalan, Melina Giesbrecht, Joelle Jobin, Courtney Maertens, Shayla Rudd, Emily Solstice Tait, Kyra Taylor-Gagné, Sharazade Vahid, Jenna Voth, Fiona Witherell, Colleen Zander
Music Credits: Racing Unseen (part 2), Composer: Natasha Barrett
Project Length:10 minutes

Davida Monk began her professional career in 1985 with Le Groupe de la Place Royale of Ottawa, and was instrumental in the development of Canada’s first professional contemporary dance laboratory for choreographic development, Le Groupe Dance Lab.  Monk’s works have been presented across Canada and in Europe. Amongst her most celebrated creations are LYRIC (2002), The Land Quartet (2011), and Dream Pavilion (2013), Pan (2015), The Call (2016) and Ashes for Beauty (2017).   She has taught dance technique, creative process and choreography in a wide variety of contexts and has danced for and collaborated with many Canadian choreographers and artists of other disciplines.   Monk is currently engaged in creative and performance projects in Alberta and across Canada. Most recently she has danced solo works from Calgary choreographers Linnea Swan, Helen Husak and Catherine Hayward. Currently Monk is in residence with a company of seven dancers at Vancouver’s Scotiabank Dance Centre where an evening of her works will be produced May 23 – 25. Monk is the recipient of awards for choreographic development and touring from the University of Calgary, Calgary Arts Development, and Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Banff Centre. Monk directed Calgary’s Dancers’ Studio West, an organization dedicated to the development of choreographers from 2008 – 2018. Monk is Associate Professor Emerita (University of Calgary), and Artistic Director of M-Body (www.m-body.ca), dedicated to the development of her own works, since 2004.

‘Under the direction of Odette Heyn and Faye Thomson, the Professional Program of The School of Contemporary Dancers is recognized as a leading national centre for professional contemporary dance training in Canada.  Renowned across the country for the excellence of its training and high calibre of its graduates, the School gratefully acknowledges the support of Canadian Heritage, the Manitoba Arts Council and the Winnipeg Arts Council.’ ​

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QUADRIGA II

Choreographed by:Robin Poitras and Edward Poitras
 
Performers: Justine Erickson, Megan Henderson, Brooke Hess, Arena Mann-Baxter, Sophie Milord, Tija-Mare Sihvart
Duet: Marcus Merasty, Emily Solstice Tait
Project Length: 20 minutes

Edward Poitras is a multi media visual artist with a background in performance creation. A product of the experimental Indian Art Cultural programs of the 1970s, Edward has worked as a teacher in the arts and has worked in communications in a audio visual department and as a freelance graphic artist. Edward has also been involved with a number of Aboriginal artist run centre’s and has curated a series of exhibitions whose focus was Treaty Four Territory. He has also co-curated a couple of story teller festivals. Edward has shown his work in international art biennials and other major national exhibitions. Edward lives on George Gordon First Nation.

Robin Poitras is one of Saskatchewan’s most prolific dance and performance creators. Creating dance, performance and installation works, she has been actively engaged in contemporary dance practice since the early 80s. For many years Robin has traversed the formal worlds of dance and performance art. She co-founded New Dance Horizons in 1986, where she continues to act as Artistic Director. With an interest in research into diverse fields of artistic and somatic practice she has developed a unique interdisciplinary approach. Robin’s works have been presented across Canada, in Spain, France, Germany, Mongolia and Mexico. She is a recipient of the 2016 Lieutenant Governor’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2006 Mayor’s Awards for Business & The Arts’ Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2004 Women of Distinction Award for the Arts.