Who do you Think You Are? Who do you wanna be Who do you become in relationship with the one you love?
This can be many different people, but all of you, and these are the deeply personal concepts that Out Innerspace Dance Theater’s artistic directors Tiffany Tregarthen and David Raymond wrestle with in the unusual presentation Me So You So Me.
The wrestling match will make you juggle between laughing out loud and holding on to your emotions so they don’t get ripped straight out of your soul.
The dancers tell a simple true story, but they call on some extraordinary characters. They call out comic-inspired alter egos, inner animals, and comic book heroes on their own, and if you think you’ve got one nailed down, another will replace it.
Is she actually extracting one of his teeth in this scene? Does he untangle them? Or is that all just what they want to show us? Anyway, it’s wild, energetic, wonderfully beautiful, and a bit silly.
The dance between these two contemporary artists is powered by Japanese historical and pop culture, classic Indian tabla rhythms, and cartoons. The music fits the emotion perfectly.
“The work reveals projections of the self, through the eyes of a partner, through the dynamics of a couple, and through the genre-defying music of experimental Japanese percussionist Asa Chang,” said a statement from the Out Innerspace Dance Theater.
Don’t expect this duo team to perform the way you generally see them to perform. Raymond and Tregarthen are considered to be part of a generation of emerging contemporary dance in Canada that is a departure from traditional dance and yet uses all proven skills and disciplines.
Her backgrounds include video design, sound design, hip hop, and general theater.
Raymond grew up in the Okanagan in Penticton and began tapping at the age of four. He built a foundation for urban, classical, and popular dance and then explored other styles of dance.
He started a collective called Over the Influence with four street dancers in Vancouver.
But Raymond said his “hunger for new movements and approaches soon led to exploring alternative uses of his basic forms and his choreographic voice.”
Raymond and Tregarthen worked together in 2004, initially on a few gigs and then in a two-year creative residency in Antwerp, Belgium. They trained, taught, and bought together.
Raymond has danced his way to Brazil, China, France, Belgium, Italy, the Czech Republic, Bosnia and the USA
Tregarthen began his life in Prince George and danced jazz in Ontario at the age of eight and was doing choreography soon after. She brought tap, ballet, jazz and modern dance together. Her professional career took her to various phases from New York to Seoul, Korea, where she taught at Hansun University.
In 2007 they were invited to the Vancouver International Dance Festival, at which time the Out Innerspace Dance Theater was officially established in Vancouver.
The performance of Me So You So Me is filled with their appetite for entertainment, sharpness and opposing viewpoints. Tregarthen says that they “value the body and human experience as unlimited resources for discovery and meaning”.
In addition, “they rely on careful processes, strict free play and diverse inspiration to start something new and constantly change.”
Their movements often capture the physical and emotional space at the same time, which reflects the name of the dance company Out Innerspace. Sometimes they surprise you with sheer power, followed by a flow of nimble grace.
QUICK FACTS
What: I so you so I
Who: Out Innerspace Dance Theater
When: Saturday, February 28, 2015, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Rotary Center for the Arts, Mary Irwin Theater, 421 Cawston Ave., Kelowna
Tickets: Adults, $ 25, students with ID, $ 15, at selectyourtickets.com or rotarycentreforthearts.com.
