The Response presents Orbits: a movement study, March 27 and 28 at 7 p.m. at the Roundhouse Exhibition Hall, 181 Roundhouse Mews, Vancouver. Part of the Vancouver International Dance Festival. Performance is free with a festival membership, which can be purchased for $3. Visit vidf.ca for information.
Atoms are constantly in motion, perpetually drawn together and driven apart by attractive and repulsive forces.
In her latest work, Orbits: a movement study, choreographer Amber Funk Barton uses contemporary dance as a platform to explore the motion that exists in nature and at the molecular level. Her work-in-progress performance is a duet, featuring herself and 26-year-old West Vancouver-raised dancer Alexa Mardon. Together, they represent two atomic beings "moving through space in relentless unison with movements of irregularity and reaction, the bodies of the dancers striving to portray the sense of chemical reactions we find internally and externally in our universe," according to a description of the work.
Orbits premieres March 26 to 28 during the final weekend of the Vancouver International Dance Festival. For Mardon, an up-and-comer on the contemporary scene, dancing for the first time both in the annual festival and at the Roundhouse Exhibition Hall is a big thrill.
"I've seen so many performances in that space, so it is super exciting to be actually performing there," she says.
Mardon began her training at Vanleena Dance Academy in North Vancouver where she was introduced to a variety of disciplines. After high school, she took a break from dance while she earned her bachelor of arts degree in English literature and creative writing at SFU. But she soon gravitated back into the dance world and graduated from the three-year Modus Operandi training program where, under the artistic direction of Tiffany Tregarthen and David Raymond, she learned she could combine her critical thinking skills and her passion for movement with contemporary dance."It's an area in which to intellectually engage as well as physically," she says of the form.It was at Modus Operandi that Mardon was first introduced to Barton, one of her guest
instructors. Later, Mardon would apprentice at Barton's Vancouver-based dance company, the response. Mardon says the transition from student to apprentice to peer has been a smooth one.
"It's always exciting to work with someone professionally for the first time. There's always a period of time where you are getting to know how the other person works and finding out how your energies work together in rehearsal," she explains. "That sort of back-and-forth always takes a little bit of time to find out how to work together, but Amber's a joy to be in the studio with so it's been a total pleasure."
"I really respect her both as a choreographer and also as a dancer, so it's been really great to be dancing alongside her," Mardon adds. "It's been really great to learn from her, just by observing her, like how she runs rehearsals. .. She's very disciplined in the way that she works, but she also allows for a relaxed environment and we have a lot of fun together in the studio."
Orbits is part of a series of work-in-progress performance experiments that will help inform the next full-length work from the response. The piece is fairly structured compared to the improvisational work Mardon has been doing as of late, but she says there is still a large window for self-expression.
"Amber does a really great job of both being really clear about what she wants but also allowing space for me to bring myself into it," Mardon explains. "Even though it is choreography, it does feel like there's room for me to be myself in the piece."
