Dancers Dancing and SFU Woodward's present 20.20.20, Sept. 24 to 27, 8 p.m., at Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 W. Hastings St., Vancouver. Tickets: $25/$20 available at sfuwoodwards.ca and at the door.
When choreographer Judith Garay marked her 20th year living in Vancouver, she decided to gather 20 dancers and create a performance inspired by 20 city intersections.
The resulting work, two years in the making, is the aptly named 20.20.20, Garay's movement-based homage to the place she calls home. Co-presented by Dancers Dancing, a contemporary company under Garay's artistic direction, and SFU Woodward's, the show runs Sept. 24 to 27 at Goldcorp Centre for the Arts.
"It's a large cast of fabulous dancers and the work is inspired by Vancouver," Garay says of the piece. "I made it because I really wanted to connect with the place I've lived in for the longest in my entire life."
A city is a big muse, so Garay decided to zero in on a few choice locales.
"Being such a large subject, I felt like I needed to narrow it down to something that was a little more graspable to start with, so I chose 20 different intersections," she says. "In intersections, people pass, vehicles pass, there's intersections of different kinds of energy, and so it kind of lends itself very organically to the process."
After perusing lots of maps and conducting site visits, she settled on 20 spots spread across the city that represent a mix of commercial, residential and industrial.
"Some of them are really noisy and some of them are quieter."
For example, Main Street and Terminal Avenue is a busy transit hub that is "really about people coming and going," Garay says. While in the West End, Davie and Denman streets converge at a spot conducive to human interaction. "Everybody there looks so happy. Even if they're not, they look like they're on vacation." Grandview Highway at Boundary Road has a whole other flavour. "It's leaving the city, it's going onto the highway."
Looking at Vancouver through the eyes of a choreographer made Garay hyperaware of the contrasts that exist in the city - young and old, rich and poor, light and dark, urban and green. In fact, she was surprised at just how lush the city is. Even among high-rises and paved overpasses she still found hints of nature.
"You look down in between the buildings in the intersections and you can see parks and trees and mountains. The contrast is pretty amazing," she says. "We know that it's a green city, it's a green part of the world, but it really hit home and I really notice now all the time."
Set to original music by Stefan Smulovitz, and featuring lighting by John Carter and costumes by Margaret Jenkins, 20.20.20 represents a melding together of the inspiration Garay drew from each intersection.
"There are sections of the dance where everybody is dancing either together or not together but at the same time, and then there's duets that are much more intimate, and then there's smaller groups," she explains. "There's also a lot of human interaction in it because I think Vancouver, even though it is surrounded by beauty and has hardedged buildings and all this contrast, it really is the people that make this city."
The theatre will feature two rows of seats on three sides of the stage, making for an intimate experience for the audience.
"At times they'll really feel like they're almost in the dance and I really believe they're going to get a kinesthetic connection to what the dancers are doing," Garay says. "I certainly hope that they will come away realizing that even if they've lived here their whole life, there's
