Offering
Offering: A Co.ERASGA production co-presented by the Anvil Centre (777 Columbia St, New Westminster)
World Premiere: November 28-29, 2020 Livestream on Youtube
CREATIVE TEAM & PERFORMERS:
Choreography: Alvin Erasga Tolentino
Dancers: Joshua Ongcol, Olivia Shaffer, Marc Arboleda, Antonio Somera Jr., Molly McDermott/ Hannah Richards and Marissa Wong
Composer: Emmanuel Mailly
Lighting: Jessica Han/Jonathan Kim
Costumes: Meagan Woods
Video Livestream: Yasuhiro Okada
“Dancers engrossed in meditation and bathed in joy as if walking on water, it was a reflection of our current state of anxious isolation and the hope of coming out of this pandemic, washed in the healing waters of salvation.”
- Philippine Canadian News
In honour and celebration of Co.ERASGA’s 20th anniversary season, Offering was created throughout the summer of 2020 and presented on November 28 & 29th, 2020 through livestream performance at the Anvil Centre. Co.ERASGA is thrilled to be bringing this work back to the Anvil Centre for live audiences this fall.
This collection of solo works, performed by seven of Vancouver’s finest and diverse dancers, aspires to honour the living practice of dance and dancing and the challenges of keeping this art-form alive during the ongoing pandemic crisis and isolation.
How do our bodies relate, move and dance at this critical time of pandemic adversity? In this new creation, Tolentino asks each dancer to explore movement as a form of devotion and prayer – allowing the dance to transcend with luminous energy. Each work individually and together as a full-evening presentation, Offering becomes a performance ritual, evoking a spiritual reach for universal interconnection, awareness, and healing for the world.
Co.ERASGA’s 20th milestone season faced the challenges and unprecedented times of being in the middle of a pandemic, however we continue to keep dance alive, both now, and over the past two decades. Along with all of our artists, arts partners and audiences, we dance with gratitude, building and sharing together. More than ever, we rise to the gift and healing power of dance!
Images by Yasuhiro Okada.
