The Past

Photo: HT, choreography Barbara Lindenberg, dancers left to right: Danielle Baskerville, Meredith Thompson, Maria Litvin, Holly Treddenick, Megan English and Neil Sochasky. Photo credit: John Lauener.

Past Up Darling installments -- briefly described

Up Darling 3, October 19 – 23, 2006, The Winchester Street Theatre, Toronto

Up Darling 3, presented premieres by Katherine Duncanson, Barbara Lindenberg, Aimée Dawn Robinson and Holly Small. The show was generously funded by the Toronto Arts Council and the Ontario Arts Council.

Katherine Duncanson premiered Begin Again, a lecture piece and a companion solo to the installation she created for The Large Glass (June 2005, DNA Theatre). Spider webs, conjoining circles, spirals, the tarantella, the Mona Lisa and a song by Cole Porter all contribute to the subtext of this new work.

Barbara Lindenberg premiered Franco-Hungarian Offtact (for 6), otherwise known as HT (for 6). The work asks 6 dancers to stay in contact with one anothers’ heads while performing a variety of dancerly tasks. Taking inspiration from a 1927 photograph by Andre Kertesz of a group of revelers posing at a table with their heads pressed together, this dance evokes that feeling of having an inside joke. It deals with proximity, attachment, influence, intimacy, cooperation, sensuality and dependance through the nature of a physical state of being.

Aimée Dawn Robinson continued her series, mother drift dances to the songs in her head – an ongoing exploration of dance improvisation within a conceptual framework, engaged with memory, failure and repetition. Aimée has danced to songs by artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Waterson:Carthy, James Brown, Silly Sisters and Neil Young in this series to date.


Keiko Kitano-Thompson in Holly Small's choreogrpahy, Night Vision: Nyx, 2006.

Holly Small premiered Night Vision:Nyx, a work that employs dance, music, textiles and video projections (created in collaboration with multi-disciplinary artist John Oswald) to evoke the beauty and dark mystery of the night. Performed by Susan Lee, Barbara Pallomina, Kieko Kitano and Rebecca Mendoza this evocative work will also features a musical score created by Sainkho Namchylak and Nick Brooke.

Up Darling 2, June 3 - 5, 2005, The Inter-Galactic Arts Co-op, Toronto

Kate Alton presented an excerpt of a work in progress, Kissing Giancarlo, a text-based dance piece created collaboratively by Alton and writer Jonathan Garfinkel. This solo performance reflects upon the impossibilty of choice in a world with too many options. Meshed with the work's dynamic movement vocabulary is a text that touches on choice, confusion, desire and the little everyday battles in life and love.

Barbara Lindenberg premièred a new solo, On Purpose, which interlaced dance with film and a mysterious ladder. On Purpose uses fluid, detailed movement as part of its playful meditation on decisive affirmation. While the dancer journeys through questions of doubt, the audience is asked to question the purpose of tulips, a ladder, of a dancing body.

Allison Rees-Cummings presented Scold, the third in a series of solos for women attached to inanimate objects, inspired by the Brank or Scold's Bridle used from 1500-1800 in England -- a device applied to the head of women who talked too much, complained or argued. Scold was performed here to a haunting score by Arvo Part and with set design by Rees-Cummings.

Aimée dancing in Au Revoir Darling, the last performance in our old sutdio space in the Darling Building.


Aimée Dawn Robinson improvised a solo to the music in her head to the song, The Grey Funnel Line, as performed by the Silly Sisters. The fourth in the mother drift dances to the songs in her head series, this piece experimented with memory, repetition and improvisation within a conceptual framework.


Up Darling, Dec 4 - 6, 2004, The Inter-Galactic Arts Co-op

Seika Boye premièred her work, Peggy's Paddle, a solo created for Meredith Thompson which followed Flock (2002), as the second in a series of abstract movement narratives. Peggy's Paddle is coming of age story and a snippet of self-realization, danced to a rendition of the traditional tune, Pretty Peggy, as arranged and recorded by Logan McNeil.

Barbara Lindenberg presented two new works, Was Broken, Fine Now (a duet for Jane Danielson and Karen Stern) and Out of Danger (a solo for Lindenberg). Was Broken, Fine Now is a piece about recovery, connection, severed connection and time. With a quirky, abstract movement vocabulary this dance's wandering quality is expressed with warmth and humour by the interpreters. Out of Danger, danced to music by John Sherlock and inspired by the poetry of James Fenton, roves from headstands, to balanced stillnesses, to languid movement passages, to snappy, angular phrases to weave images of suspicion, trust, instablilty and balance.

Aimée Dawn Robinson improvised a solo as part of her ongoing series, mother drift dances to the songs in her head. The second of the series, Robinson used two songs by Neil Young (Mellow my Mind and Albuquerque) to fuel her improvisation.

Neil Young