Fluid Festival showcases contemporary dance

By Cynthia Kwan, Oct 11 2016 —

From Oct. 13–29, Calgarians will have the opportunity to dive into the city’s contemporary dance community at Springboard’s annual Fluid Movement Arts Festival.

The event brings unique and intricate dance forms together with physical performances from both international and local performers. Now in its 11th year, the Fluid Festival will showcase a wide variety of contemporary dance in order to appeal to dance fans of all categories and formats.

“Some [acts] are more experimental and have live music or mix music that’s really pushing the edge,” says project
coordinator Pamela Tzeng. “They are some of the most unforgettable [acts] because there are things that you don’t expect. There are some  [performances] that are very physical and emotional [and] some that are political.”

This year, the Fluid Festival will feature acts from Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto and Belgium alongside local acts. University of Calgary School of Creative and Performing Arts professor Marie France Forcier choreographed Lab Rats — an exploration of loss and female  transformation — which will show in the third week of the festival.

Tzeng says this year’s festival will bring a variety of shows for dance fans of all forms. She says shows like Major Motion Picture from the Banff Centre  — which attempts to embody a world of surveillance and pop culture obsessions — are sure to change how audiences normally see a contemporary dance show.

“[Contemporary dance] is very hard to define because there’s so much free reign to create your own way of expressing it,” Tzeng says. “What we’ve been sharing is this idea of embracing experiences at the festival and being dance curious — getting that taste of all that dance can be.”

Cabaret shows will feature at the festival this year. The Flamenco dance cabaret will highlight traditional Flamenco dance and improvisation. The cabaret show, with a focus on physical therapy will — according to the organizers — take a lot of action and place it on a small stage to create artistic chaos.  The Urban Culture cabaret will incorporate wordplay into dance performance in order to expand the possibilities of a dance show.

PechaKucha Calgary will partner with the festival to present PechaKucha Night Calgary #27 on Oct. 13. The event will
give 10 speakers of various artistic and innovative experiences the chance to speak to the audience about their ideas using 20 photos for 20 seconds each.

The festival runs until Oct. 29. Tickets are available online.

For more information, visit springboardperformance.com