Award-winning French dance company explores democracy, immigration, and culture through hip-hop, aerial work, and poetry in gravity-defying motion Vancouver, BC – DanceHouse is delighted to announce the launch of their 2018/19 season with France’s Company Wang Ramirez in the Canadian premiere of their potent and profound work, Borderline, October 26 and 27, 2018 at 8pm at the Vancouver Playhouse.
Performed to layered rhythms and spoken word by composer Jean-Philippe Barrios, best known as LACRYMOBOY, acclaimed choreographic duo Sébastien Ramirez and Honji Wang will join their company of artists to combine hip hop and contemporary dance with the soaring movement of martial arts in a timely and urgent exploration of democracy, immigration, manipulation, and the place of individuals in society.
“Coinciding with escalating nationalist rhetoric and contentious debates on immigration worldwide, Borderline’s open-ended examination of diasporic identity is more relevant than ever,” says Jim Smith, Artistic and Executive Director of DanceHouse. “As Canada is largely a country of immigrants, local audiences will resonate with the work’s illumination of the beauty and the challenges inherent in embodying more than one culture — honouring multiple traditions and languages, while forging a new blended identity of one’s own. Company Wang Ramirez has created a theatrical experience that will linger long after the curtain falls, and stimulate essential discourse about the future of democracy.”
Choreographed in 2013, Borderline consists of several thoughts, ideas, and moments that question the meaning of democracy. Hailed as an “ingenious show by stunning performers” (The Evening Standard), five dancers attached to cables perform a series of 11 intimate vignettes that explore the liminal spaces of human relationships. Social and physical boundaries are evoked by the innovative rigging system that renders gravity optional. The rigger acts in concert with and against the dancers, working alternately as a liberator and a manipulator; a capricious force that upends the story, drags lovers apart, and sends bodies tumbling in space.
For tickets and further information, visit: dancehouse.ca.