NAC Dance unveils its highly anticipated 2021-2022 season

August 19, 2021 – OTTAWA (Canada) – Today, NAC Dance unveiled its long awaited 2021-2022 season, programmed by Executive Producer Cathy Levy. This season, NAC Dance will feature an almost exclusively Canadian program, reaffirming its commitment to the renewal of Canada’s performing arts sector. From breathtaking contemporary pieces to classical ballet, from intimate interdisciplinary work to spectacular family friendly fare, this season offers something for everyone.  

“The 2021-2022 NAC Dance season is a season of renewal and rediscovery”, says Cathy Levy. “After much anticipation, I am thrilled to once again welcome dance artists on our stages and invite audiences to experience these remarkable works in person”.

The 2021-2022 season features a diverse range of works by 14 companies; 12 from across Canada and two international troupes. Five companies postponed from the last seasons will bring their remarkable works to our stages: José Navas/Compagnie Flak, Alan Lucien Øyen/winter guests (Norway), Guillaume Côté, Anne Plamondon, and Dimitris Papaioannou (Greece).

These programs are joined by an array of new creations, exciting remounts and mixed bills from some of Canada’s brightest creators and performers, some of whom are new to Ottawa audiences: Andrea Peña & Artists, Out Innerspace, Ballet BC, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, the National Ballet of Canada, BJM Danse, Mélanie Demers/MAYDAY, Bboyizm, and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal.

The season includes two works in the spring that have received National Arts Centre Creation Fund Support: Guillaume Côté’s dynamic contemporary piece Crypto, and   In My Body by Bboyizm Dance Company.

For audiences who prefer to experience the dance milieu’s rich world of emotion, unique storytelling and mesmerising movement from the comfort and safety of their own homes, we will continue to offer exceptional digital dance content with  a special edition of #DanceForth and a second season of Digidance offerings.

Finally, after touring several Canadian cities, we are excited to present REBO(U)ND, a unique digital performance that can be experienced outside the NAC on the Kipnes Lantern.

2021-2022 SEASON

 

FALL 2021

#DanceForth (Sept. 7-12) Digidance (Sept. 29-Oct.11) Andrea Peña & Artists (Oct. 6-8) REBO(U)ND (Oct. 18-31) Compagnie Flak | José Navas (Nov. 10-12) Out Innerspace (Nov. 18-20) Ballet BC (Nov. 25-26)

 

#DANCEFORTH
SEP 7-12, 2021
Online and on-demand

We kick off the season with a brand-new on-demand format of #DanceForth! From September 7 to 12, you can finally experience the seven works postponed from the spring. The series features Crazy Smooth and Tedd Robinson (Ottawa), Decidedly Jazz Danceworks / Kimberley Cooper (Calgary), Rosanna Terracciano (Calgary), Laura Taler (Ottawa), Travis Knights (Toronto), Jaz Fairy J (Toronto) and Ebnflōh / Alexandra “Spicey” Landé (Montréal). Seize this week-long opportunity to discover these artists and their works, at your own pace, on your own time.

 

DIGIDANCE - COMPANHIA DE DANÇA DEBORAH COLKER
SEP 29-OCT 11, 2021
Online

Digidance is a partnership developed between the National Arts Centre, DanceHouse (Vancouver), Harbourfront Centre (Toronto) and Danse Danse (Montreal), four of Canada’s leading presenters of contemporary dance. It was created to safely and comfortably deliver full-length dance films, including exclusive behind-the-scenes content, from some of the world’s leading choreographers, to audiences across the country while live programming was restricted.

In 2021-2022, we are selecting four international films to delight your senses and round out your dance season experience. 

In the first Digidance presentation of the season, award-winning Brazilian choreographer Deborah Colker delivers a powerful work blending elements of contemporary, classical and traditional dance, as well as striking images by filmmaker Cláudio Assis, to bring to life the poem Cão Sem Plumas (Dog Without Feathers) by Brazilian writer João Cabral de Melo Neto.

Performed by 14 dancers of astonishing physicality, Dog Without Feathers interweaves classical, contemporary, popular and ritual dances, set against black and white projections captured during a journey where the dance company immersed itself in the world of the Capibaribe, its mangroves and its inhabitants.

 

ANDREA PEÑA & ARTISTS – 6:58 : Manifesto
OCT 6-8, 2021
Babs Asper Theatre, 7:30pm

Columbian-born and now Montreal-based dance artist and choreographer Andrea Peña astounds audiences with her work, maturity, and sensibility. Her company, Andrea Peña & Artists, is recognized for creating critical, alternative, and spatial universes that rupture our notions of a sensible humanity. With a background in industrial design, Andrea’s work borrows from visual art practices and spatial qualities of creative making, questioning the body as a material which exists in relationship to space and time.

In 6.58: Manifesto, 8 dancers, in conversation with the hegemony of a machine, opera singer, and DJ, transverse 3 disarticulated tableaux while experimenting on the notion of flesh and mind, as mediated by external forces.

 

JOSÉ NAVAS | COMPAGNIE FLAK - Winterreise
NOV 10-12, 2021
Azrieli Studio, 8:00pm

To see a solo performance by José Navas is to experience just how far dance can go to stir your spirit and soothe your soul. To create this profound yet enlivened piece, José Navas followed his desire to translate Schubert’s beloved song cycle into movement. Winterreise (Winter Journey), the composer’s final work before his death in 1829, is infused with operatic themes of tragedy that beautifully serve Navas’s own creative process as a maturing artist. This evocative performance, which was originally scheduled to take place in April 2020, elegantly intertwines the solo dancer with live piano and voice.

 

OUT INNERSPACE - Bygones
NOV 18-20, 2021
Babs Asper Theatre, 7:30pm

Out Innerspace Dance Theatre was founded by David Raymond and Tiffany Tregarthen, two former performers with Crystal Pite’s company, Kidd Pivot. The Vancouver based contemporary dance company has dedicated over 10 years to creating extraordinary and integral dance experiences through uncompromising rigour and unreserved ingenuity. Emanating from their vision described as jaw droppingly original, Out Innerspace creates abstract, visceral and challenging work.

Bygones, which was awarded the 2019 Crystal Dance Prize and Dance Centre Artistic Residency, celebrates how we are shaped by what we overcome, and how something challenging can lead to something beautiful.

 

BALLET BC – GARDEN / Bedroom Folk / The Statement
NOV 25-26, 2021
Southam Hall, 8:00pm

This spectacular program from Ballet BC, under the new artistic direction of Medhi Walerski, features three distinct contemporary works by acclaimed Canadian and international choreographers Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar, Crystal Pite, and Medhi Walerski himself.

GARDEN, a tenderly magnificent and sophisticated piece choregraphed by Ballet BC’s Artistic Director, was inspired by Camille Saint-Saëns’ Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 14. Bedroom Folk by Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar, is a signature piece from Ballet BC’s global touring repertoire. In this percussive and deliciously punchy choreography, movement, music, and light are equal protagonists. Finally, audiences will have the opportunity to experience Crystal Pite’s gripping and timely work The Statement, which was originally scheduled to tour with Netherlands Dans Theatre in March 2020.

 

REBO(U)ND
OCT 18-31, 2021
Kipnes Lantern

Escape gravity, float between momentum and falling and defy space and time by experiencing REBO(U)ND, an eight-minute digital dance installation that embodies the ephemeral sensations of abandon and liberty evoked by dance. This special dance presentation was created and choreographed by Caroline Laurin-Beaucage, in collaboration with Montréal Danse, HUB Studio and Lorganisme. REBO(U)ND will be presented in the evenings on the Kipnes Lantern.

 

WINTER AND SPRING 2022

From December 2021 to May 2022, experience classic ballets and discover new contemporary pieces from Canada and Europe. We look forward to continuing our yearly tradition of presenting the holiday special, The Nutcracker, interpreted this year by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in December.

From February to May 2022, we welcome to the stage exceptional works by the National Ballet of Canada (Toronto), Alan Lucien Øyen/winter guests (Norway), Ballet Jazz de Montréal (Montréal), Mélanie Demers/MAYDAY (Montréal), Bboyizm (Ottawa), Guillaume Côté (Montréal), Anne Plamondon (Montréal), Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal (Montréal), and Dimitris Papaioannou (Greece).

Additional program and ticket information for the winter and spring 2022 performances will be made available later this fall.

 

SPONSORS

NAC Dance and the NAC Foundation would like to thank the donors and partners who have made the season possible. Thank you to Hotel Partner the Lord Elgin Hotel and Official Rail Partner VIA Rail.

 

TICKETS 

Single tickets for the Fall programming are now on sale. For additional information, visit the NAC website at www.nac-cna.ca.

 

ABOUT THE NATIONAL ARTS CENTRE

The National Arts Centre is Canada’s bilingual, multidisciplinary home for the performing arts. As part of its Strategic Plan, the NAC’s vision is to lead and support the renewal of the performing arts sector. The NAC presents, creates, produces, and co-produces performing arts programming in various streams — the NAC Orchestra, Dance, English Theatre, French Theatre, Indigenous Theatre, and Popular Music and Variety — and nurtures the next generation of audiences and artists from across Canada. The NAC is located in the National Capital Region on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Livia Belcea
Communications Officer, Strategy and Communications
National Arts Centre
819-329-4269
livia.belcea@cna-nac.ca