This Thursday and Saturday, July 15th and 17th, Vancouver's Dancing on the Edge Festival presents Roger Sinha's A Matter of Life and Breath, performed as a duet by Tanya Crowder and Tom Casey. In this video we see the work performed as an ensemble by Crowder, Casey, Ghislaine Doté, Laurence Ramsay, Raul Huaman and Elise Legrand.
The signature style of Sinha Danse is a blend of classical Indian dance with contemporary dance, martial arts and theatre. In recent years, Sinha has been incorporating new media and sensory technologies into his work, which is exemplified here with the use of Wii remotes attached to various body parts. As the dancers move, their remotes trigger sound fragments via interactive software.
This particular work was inspired by Sinha's close call with a critical asthma attack and also the (true?) story of the famous arctic explorer Peter Freuchen. The latter tells of a tiny igloo which Freuchen built to wait out a terrible blizzard in northern Greenland. Sinha's website continues: "His breath was freezing to the walls, with each breath, the walls became thicker and the igloo became smaller until there was no more room for his body. He was breathing himself into a coffin of ice."
Seven performances remain of Sinha Danse apprearing in various "Maison de la Culture" for the CAM en Tournée event. The double-bill program features Threads and Zeros & Ones, both of which were developed in India in 2008. In the latter, Sinha is wired up with sensors and special metallic bells, translating his movements into sound and poetry using interactive software: "a physical spoken word DJ." Sinha's website further elaborates: "Using a hybrid vocabulary where spoken word, images, and new technologies allow the emergence of a poetic language of the body, the duo examines how close East and West can come together before they collide."
The lineup of performances includes Maison de la culture Pointe-aux-Trembles on February 18th, Maison culturelle et communautaire Montréal-Nord on February 19th, Maison de la culture Mercier on February 20th, Maison de la culture Plateau Mont-Royal on February 24th, Auditorium Le Prévost on February 26th and La Salle Jean-Grimaldi on February 27th.
