CanaDance Series Set Aflight at Trafo

Get ready for a flurry of dancing Cannucks as they leap on into Budapest for what is dubbed the CanaDance series at the Trafo House of Contemporary Arts. Three world-class dance troupes from Canada- The Holy Body Tattoo, O Vertigo and Flak will perform within the next month as producers at Trafo prove their skill at both attracting international talent and bringing some of the most successful contemporary dance troupes to Hungary.

“We’re very excited,” said Kati Rac, one of the performing arts directors at Trafo, “These groups are top, top, top in the world.” Since its opening over a year and a half ago, Trafo has focused its programming on the performing arts with an emphasis on contemporary dance.

On April 25th, the first of the Canadian dance troupes – O Vertigo – will perform an award-winning piece called “En Dedans”, a play on words that could mean both “inside” and “in two dances”. Choreographed by the group’s founder Ginette Laurin, the piece has received gushes of praise from the other side of the Atlantic – where it has been performed often since its inception in 1997. O Vertigo, currently with nine dancers, has a reputation for staging works inspired by topics from as far afield as Cervantes’ Don Quixote and the art of Chagall. Many of the works performed since the group’s inception in 1984 have also been peppered with humor. “En Dedans”, billed as a more fluid, lyrical, serious work, will be performed over two nights.

One of the first dance troupes to perform at Trafo in October 1997, The Holy Body Tattoo will return to the space on May 5th and 6th to stage “Circa”, a dance/theater piece. The Holy Body Tattoo is the brainchild of Jean-Yves Thériault, co-founder and bass player of Quebec’s legendary futuristic metal band Voivod. If you heard the band or saw them in concert, you already know that the term “metal” is grudgingly used because nothing else comes close to defining what they produced. Since the demise of his band, Thériault has branched out in unexpected directions including computer graphic design, full-length musical composition, and finally, The Holy Body Tattoo. Their performance could prove to be one of the most challenging and rewarding of the series.

Rounding out the trio, the much lauded soloist turned choreographer Jose Navas and his company Flak will present the world-premier performance of a work entitled “Perfume de Gardenias” on May 16th , with a repeat the next night. The nature of the piece is somewhat of a mystery, as the only thing founder/dancer/choreographer Jose Navas has revealed is that it was “born in 1998 out of a series of residences in England, Austria, and in Holland, [and] research and rehearsals will continue throughout the 1999/2000 season.” Essentially, this is a work in progress and Budapest gets to see the first step in its evolution.

04.18
Will Wilson