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So much dance! Where’s the cherry B?

It's late March and spring should really be here in Vancouver, but the air has been crisp and cold! At times, even snowy! I missed the early cherry blossoms that appear in our west coast rainforest of BC. I stayed in Vancouver for most of February and March and postponed my project/trip to Asia. My longing connectivity for the EAST will wait until late December 09 when I can re-kindle with everyone. My time with Co.ERASGA moves forward with administration, planning, meetings and rehearsals of new and old works, Super busy!

Deprived of time for myself, I tried best to catch up with old friends on some fine nights (even some classes with Jane Ellison's Boing: so good to be back there again!).

March was a burst of dance scene in Vancouver! Dances from around the globe grace Vancouver finally.

I budgeted strategically: what I can afford and whom I should see as a priority and fairness to my sanity. From one spectrum to the other, there were dances to see and admire. I ponder: what makes a dance show real, unique and tasteful. As an observer, viewer and listener, here are few of my thoughts

From the Dance Centre's Global Dance Series was Montreal's Lynda Gaudreau. Her latest dance offered brave minimalism of space and movement. Voila! Less is more!

Accumulated Layout by Japan's Hiroaki Umeda was about his super solo performance, and showed all he can do: lights, choreography, video, music and dance it, too. Holy! Talk about a smart economical production.

At Vancouver International Dance Festival 09 (VIDF) Celebrating 50 years of Butoh!

Jerome Bel and Pitchet Klunchun in their poignant, East meets West, simple, silly, serious, effective and very smart dance and discourse. Hey, I would never ask for my money back, that's for sure!

A class workshop of the Butoh master Yoshito Ohno provided us the glimpse and meaning of Butoh and a few revealing stories that makes this unique dance form 50 years in celebration. From the workshop, I took home, a bundle of silk, a yellow plastic rose, a Japanese washing cloth and tissue paper , the rest to be remembered, practised and re-created.

The dance landscape of Montreal's Louise Bedart in Enfin Vous Zestes is a never ending re-appearance of life in fragments and tales told in a movement language that is truly Bedartism.

I also attended works of Vancouverites Wen Wei Wang, Day Helisic, Jai Govinda and Jennifer Mascall.

Seeing Vancouver dancer Chengxin Wei dance in two works of Day and Jai, his dancing lingered long in my mind with images as beautiful as ever. He does not really move in space; the space moves him. That makes his dancing on the verge of awe!

In The Museum of Anthropology (MOA), In the great hall was the venue for 2nd edition of The We Yah Hani Nah Coastal First Nations Dance Festival. The opening gala included performances and celebrations of indigenous dancers of the northwest coast of BC. Dances included storytelling of the people and land, a culture of immense mystery and art, where dance is truly not spectacle, but a practice where daily life becomes ritual.

In March we lost one of our great dance artists, Lola MacLaughlin. Members of the Vancouver dance community attended her traditional Russian orthodox service. We said farewell to her for the last time. We will miss her. I danced my first dance gig in Vancouver in LoLa's Eternal Return. I remember cubism, being an old man and improvising in a studio filled with feathers.

As days of rainy March depart, April is soon to come , more light, a wish for warmer temperature and more sun. I look forward to my time teaching and being with Italian dancers in Salerno, Italy. I am haunted by Tinikling (bamboo dance), which I began to research with the Kababayang Pilipino dance troupe. I long for the offering of spring, cherry blossoms, the scent of fresh greens and times of renewal.