Michael Crabb
The National Post
CBC Radio

DanceWorks 25 Years On

One of the delights of DanceWorks is that historically it has kept one hopping, both geographically and aesthetically. I’ve lost track of all the different venues since that first DanceWorks show in March 1977 at the old Music Gallery on St. Patrick. Generally, as a critic, I can count on autopilot to get me where I need to go. Until DanceWorks settled its Mainstage series at the duMaurier Theatre Centre, I always had to read the fine print on the media release and even then once managed to show up at the wrong place. I rather enjoyed the variability of venues. It gave DanceWorks the aura of a brave, nomadic pioneer -- and kept my cerebral synapses firing.

Aesthetically it has also been a long, complex and constantly evolving hop. It all began with a collective of improvisationally-inclined dance artists whose members needed a chance to show their work. It’s so long ago that I don’t quite recall when Danceworks became a presenting organization with a curatorial role. It seems to me that Irene Grainger and Kyra Lober were part of that; and, of course, Mimi Beck – one of the original collective – soon emerged as DanceWork’s key co-ordinator. In a sense Mimi is DanceWork’s conscience. She has never allowed it to ossify or become unhealthily institutional. As a curator Mimi has always allowed instinct as much as intellect to guide her. Along with Rosslyn Jacob-Edwards, DanceWork’s general manager for more than a decade, Mimi has been smart in accessing whatever dwindling sources of public funding still exist. She has also been aware of the dangers of rigid categorization of performance forms. As a result, DanceWorks presentations have often challenged accepted notions of what we describe as “dance”. The results have occasionally been quite dreadful; but often they have been astonishing!