#DanceForth & Neighbourhood Dance Works presents Long’s Hill Walk: I live(d) Here

“Long’s Hill: I live(d) Here.” is a neighbourhood walking tour by Louise Moyes Docudance, told through those who live and have lived in the Long’s Hill area, in historic downtown St. John’s Newfoundland. In 2016, crisis struck. The Neighbourhood was divided as to what to do. Through dance, photographs, interviews and stories, Long’s Hill Walk reveals our hopes and fears, homes and businesses, our public spaces - and where they intersect. This work brings us face-to-face with the issues that shape a community and how dance, and the act of walking, can express the resilient nature of its people.  

The performance features neighbourhood artists, Inuk throat singer and drummer Sophie Angnatok and Caribbean-Canadian singer/ songwriter Winnie Churchill.

I decided to create a walk in and about our neighbourhood - one of the oldest in St. John’s. I read and researched, walked, took pictures. I spoke with children, business owners, sisters who lived here in the 1950s, street-based sex workers, sociologists, church groups. I read historic works and stories about the streets here by local writers.

Together with a textile artist/ costume designer and composer, both locals, and three Newfoundland dancers, we created a 90-minute walking tour performance in the little-known gardens, alley ways and interconnected streets of the Long’s Hill area, to bring together the different layers of the neighbourhood’s history and the people who live there. Conversations among residents took place between performances. The walk ends inside the KIRK church to chat, over tea and cookies.

I feel more comfortable than ever in my neighbourhood now. I feel grounded in it. With the trees, alley ways and the people - an incredible feeling for a nomad like me.

All text and dances created in collaboration with the performers*

*Karen Fennell of Corner Brook NL performed and collaborated in the first version of Long’s Hill Walk (2018) and appears in photos and video.

Music (in order):
The Toronto Consort & David Fallis:  So ben mi ch’a bon tempo
Handel: Music for Royal Fireworks / Vecchi: Le Veglie Di Siena (2005) ℗ 2005 ATMA Classique
CLB Armory Marching Band
Rawlin’s Cross: Little Sara / Jessie’s Jig by Dave Panting on Living River (1995) ℗Groundswell Music
Geoff Panting: Sound Score Long’s Hill Sounds in Unprecedented
Traditional Inuit Song: Kuviasulipunga (I am happy) sung by Sophie Angnatok
Winnie Churchill wrote and performs Both Ways, from his upcoming E.P. release “us”

This All Happened - Craig Regular Text
Appears in the book This All Happened (2000) by writer Michael Winter and is used with permission from House of Anansi Press and Michael Winter.