Dance activities on the Canadian prairies

This past week, I have been looking ahead and planning for future Interactive Media and Performance (IMP) activities. For example, on January 29th, 2010, I will lead a workshop in social dance. In this workshop, I will teach forms that are typically performed at Ukrainian Canadian prairie weddings historically and still today - one of which is a circle dance that enables the integration of other dance styles. This workshop will be interspersed with time for discussion and questions, in which I will draw on my new and original research in the “Mixed Music” project (about which you can read by visiting the IMP website, and following the prompts to "Researchers"). Participants will be guided to an awareness of historical relations between Aboriginal people and Ukrainians in Canada - and toward their own reflections on comparisons between the two dance cultures, and encouraged to consider new possibilities in the present. This interactive multimedia workshop provides a teaching/learning opportunity regarding one of the major cultural groups on the prairies - Ukrainian Canadians - and facilitates an intercultural dance space for diverse dance cultures, including hip-hop which is the focus of much IMP lab activity and Canada Research Chair Dr. Charity Marsh’s research. In this way, this workshop opens up a space for an intercultural social activity and ethos that several research participants (Aboriginal, Ukrainian and of mixed ancestry) in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba have described to me in interviews. This dance workshop is one of the ways in which my work connects to ongoing activities and the research program at the IMP labs.

For instance, this week in Regina, FadaDance will lead a workshop in dance fusion and music mixing/DJing. Media information about the workshop notes that "participants will be taken through a dance warm-up and exploration that will lead into choreography. Music producer Orion Paradis will share some of his process in working with dancers on music mixes. This will be an interactive dance workshop with some musical twists. The class will be lead by Misty Wensel and Fran Gilboy. FadaDance is a prairie-based contemporary dance troupe with a repertoire that includes fire dancing, Kathak and comedic dance, producing a fusion of these various dance styles in original and imaginative works. They collaborate extensively with musicians to explore the natural connections between dance and music. Much of this work originates in the folk festival circuit (see here for more information) where they have joined forces with musicians from the U.S., Scotland and Canada."

The work of FadaDance, and the activities I explore in my research and this upcoming workshop, are prime examples of the creative work that Dr. Marsh and others of us at the IMP labs addresses in our research. She writes, “much of what happens musically across the prairies and in Canada’s northern cities, towns, and communities, is affected by experiences that transpire when one lives in an expansive geographical setting that is sparsely populated. For some musicians isolation from large urban centers and a bustling scene is detrimental, but for others it is this very isolation and expansive space that acts as a catalyst for their creativity and contextualizes their music production” (follow the "Research" links on the IMP website). This is true of music on the prairies - and also dance as FadaDance, and my own research which has tended to focused on relations between Aboriginal and Ukrainian immigrant groups in rural areas of the Canadian prairies, make evident.

The Flatland Scratch Seminar and Workshop Series events are free and open to the public.

The Flatland Scratch Seminar and Workshop Series is made possible with the generous support of: The IMP Labs, the Faculty of Fine Arts, the University of Regina, the Saskatchewan Culture Exchange.

For more information on these events go to: www.interactivemediaandperformance.com