Shapeshifting: How five dancers across Canada are adapting to the times
By Jenn Edwards
Between cancelled gigs, shifting performance models and uncertainty about the future of the arts in general, dancers have been proving their resilience this year. And while many companies are resuming some form of their usual activities this fall, daily routines are going to look quite different. Five dancers working in Canada shared what 2020 looked like for them, and what’s on the horizon.
Carol-Ann Bohrn, Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers
After studying dance at Ryerson University and Winnipeg’s School for Contemporary Dancers, Carol-Ann Bohrn established a versatile freelance dance career in her home province of Manitoba. Bohrn has appeared in music videos by local artists such as Royal Canoe and Begonia, as well as a couple of commercials. An ad for Tourism Winnipeg came after she was spotted on Instagram dancing behind the counter of a coffee shop where she was working part time.
She first reached out to choreographer Jolene Bailie in 2015 after being struck by Bailie’s Happyland. “I found it very daring,” Bohrn says. “There was so much precision in intent, the dancing was extraordinary and the content was a little bit jarring. I was so grateful something like that was happening in Winnipeg.” Bailie soon started casting Bohrn in works for her own company, Gearshifting Performance Works, and then brought her on board at Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers after becoming artistic director in 2019.
Over the summer, Bohrn switched up her training regimen and started taking hip hop online. “It’s such a different way of processing the body,” she says, comparing the technique to modern dance and ballet. She’s also been part of a few outdoor video performances, including a collaboration with her musician sister Natalie Bohrn for a virtual Canada Day concert at the Forks, a community hub and historical site in Winnipeg.
For WCD’s season launch, an in-person and online event slated for September 25, Bohrn will be performing a solo by Bailie, for which rehearsals are starting mid-September — in person, masks on.
Sabrina Comanescu, Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, Calgary
Sabrina “Naz” Comanescu inherited a deep love of dance from her mother, who was born in Trinidad and Tobago, and founded a Caribbean folk dance performance troupe after settling in Calgary. Comanescu was brought to rehearsals from as far back as she can remember, and at age six she joined in. As she puts it, “My introduction to dance wasn’t in a class setting, it was in rehearsal.”
Later, she attended the Professional Training Program at Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, where she is about to begin her sixth season as a company dancer.
Continuing her mother’s legacy, Comanescu also runs Diversity Performing Arts, a performance group for young dancers focusing on Caribbean folk dance, as well as modern Caribbean dance styles such as soca and dancehall. The group normally spends summers touring festivals across Alberta and BC, but this summer they’ve resorted to online rehearsals and video tutorials.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, DJD company members stayed connected through online workouts with a trainer, as well as regular mental and emotional check-ins. This fall they are going back into the studio in smaller numbers, and at the end of September will be virtually presenting an excerpt of artistic director Kimberley Cooper’s Beautiful Noise, which had been in rehearsals when the March shutdown happened. The piece features a robust section of live musicians, and, in Comanescu’s words, “percussive, beautifully grounded movement.”
Comanescu turned to filmmaking this summer as a way to work through her emotions and keep sharing her work, releasing a few short videos through her own collective, Casa de Naz. “I was kind of lost, because my inception into dance was through performance. But in art, we adapt and we shape-shift and we move along with the times.”
Diego Ramalho, Ballet Edmonton
Diego Ramalho got his start as part of a breakdance crew in his hometown of Mococa, Brazil. They rehearsed in community centres, competed at battles and busked in parks on pieces of cardboard. When a local ballet teacher saw them perform, she offered free studio space and lured Ramalho to ballet as a way to improve his breakdancing. “I always thought ballet was this delicate thing, but I’ve never worked so hard in my life,” he says.
Soon after moving to São Paulo to study ballet, he was offered a scholarship at Pacific Dance Arts, a school in Vancouver. Ballet Edmonton artistic director Wen Wei Wang spotted Ramalho while working with the school as a guest choreographer, and invited him to join Ballet Edmonton in 2018.
This spring the company was forced to suspend a creation process for a mixed bill that was to include one work by Wang and one by Montreal choreographer Gioconda Barbuto. During the long break, Ramalho taught “Breakdance with socks,” an introduction to breakdance for contemporary dancers, through Ballet Edmonton’s Vimeo page.
As the company won’t be fully back to work until January, Ramalho has opted to go home to Brazil for the next three months to stay with his family. He plans to reconnect with the breakdance crew, and perform a new self-choreographed solo work in a small warehouse near his home, for family and friends.
Lydia Zimmer, Freelance, Halifax
Halifax-born contemporary dance artist Lydia Zimmer completed a BFA from the Boston Conservatory in 2011. Wanting to explore the west coast as well as make use of her US work visa, she took off to Los Angeles after graduating. In LA, she began to shape her own improv-based, mercurial and percussive aesthetic through solo choreography.
Back in Canada since 2015, Zimmer has established her choreographic voice through commissioned works for local companies Votive Dance and Nostos Collective. Although she’s also spent time abroad with short creation residencies in North Iceland and Bulgaria, she’s feeling very grounded in her home town, especially since the pandemic. “I didn’t appreciate Nova Scotia until I left and came back,” she says.
With this year’s cancellations, a part-time job in real estate administration helped Zimmer stay afloat financially. In August, she was delighted to be back onstage in a new work by Vanessa Goodman; Strike Tone was performed at King’s Theatre to a reduced, masked audience as part of the Festival of Dance Annapolis Royal, which featured both indoor and outdoor performances by an all-Nova Scotia lineup of performers.
This November, Zimmer will be choreographing a new work on Mocean Dance, another Halifax company, to premiere in 2022. “It will be the biggest thing I’ve ever done,” she says. Reduced-capacity auditions were held in August, with tape on the floor keeping dancers two metres apart.
McKeely Borger, Ballet Kelowna
Born in Regina, and a member of the Métis Nation, McKeely Borger has carved out career opportunities for herself wherever she’s wanted to go. The 27-year-old has danced for Coastal City Ballet in Vancouver, Atlanta Ballet, Disneyland Paris and Opéra-Théâtre de Metz Métropole in France, and, most recently, Ballet Palm Beach in Florida. Wanting to return to Canada in 2019, Borger reached out to Ballet Kelowna artistic director Simone Orlando, who said there might be a position available if she could fly out the next day. She’s now starting her second season with the BC company.
Borger is thankful she left Florida when she did, the state being a hot spot for the coronavirus outbreak. “When COVID hit, I felt like I had a guardian angel in that moment,” she says. While Ballet Kelowna had to postpone the May premiere of Alysa Pires’ Macbeth, Borger says they’ve maintained a strong company connection throughout the summer. Strips of Marley floor were delivered to the dancers’ homes, and an online regimen organized so they could take class with larger companies across the country.
Ballet Kelowna is resuming its IN MOTION program for recreational dancers, for which Borger teaches classes twice a week. They also have a residency in nearby Vernon in November, for a film project using pieces from their repertoire to be shared online. “We won’t be touring this year, but it’ll be nice to have more eyes, even if it’s virtually,” says Borger.
Having travelled so much in recent years, Borger is excited to put down roots in Kelowna. She has been reflecting on her cultural roots as well, and is considering a degree in Indigenous Studies. “I do feel like there’s a way that my background and my art mesh somewhere down the line,” she says.
