a new dance. Toronto dancer Andrea Nann accompanied
me in the interpretation of the full-length dance
evening. Our creative bonding highlighted a passionate
new generation of Asian Canadian - Filipino, Chinese
and Japanese - in the field of contemporary experimen-
tal performing arts. The power of live music allowed my
choreography and dance to collide and weave with the
intricate experimental score with sensitivity and
bravado.

In BODYGlass, | used glass as a subject and metaphor to
access choreographic inspirations that compared and
depicted the body’s resilience and fragility. BODYGlass
emerged as the first co-choreographic creation work in
collaboration with Toronto choreographer and dance
artist Peter Chin. Developing this work for an ensemble
cast was my first experience of creatively interacting
with and thinking through another choreographer’s
mind. This unique partnership demanded from me a
willingness to negotiate a shared creative space and to
co-discover divergent artistic ideas, movement vocabu-
lary and choreographic influences. The 2006-07
production became the second co-presentation with
Centre A exhibition space, newly moved to Vancouver’s
Downtown Eastside, at Hastings and Abbott Streets.

An international creative partnership project, PARADIS/
Paradise was produced in France and Canada in 2008.
The French bruiste-noise composer and musician
Emmanuel Mailly was the first European artist to fully
commit to working with me and developing a full-length
creation. Rather than looking outward for an external
paradise, Emmanuel and | searched instead for the
paradise within. Our creative expression motivated this
search, driving us to access the physical and emotional
state where movement and music originates. In the
course of our research process and performances, the
duet came alive as an intuitive, abstract conversational
piece.

For each performance, Emmanuel and | conversed
through hearing, sensing and seeing as we sought a
methodic and unified structure that was also open to
improvisation and encounter of dynamics, rhythm,
timing and synchronicity of sound and movement. From
the start of our first encounter in the studio through to
completion, Emmanuel freely offered his collaborative
musical sensitivity and compositional method.

PARADIS/Paradise was dedicated in honor and memory
of my good friend and artistic collaborator, Larisa Fayad,
for her profound love of dance and the arts.

Can dance liberate the body and free it from the
imposed restraint of gender? Is there gender in move-
ment? My ongoing quest to question gender in dance
continued in the choreographic exploration and realiza-
tion, ADAMEVE/Man-Woman. Talented Vancouver danc-
ers Alison Denham and Billy Marchenski were my muses
for building this duet. In their physical forms, states and
movements, | found the mystery and architecture to
investigate and question the stereotypes and roles of
gender.

| wanted to strip these roles into a pure experience of
body and movement. Through the energy, location and

movement of yin and yang in the body, we explored
memory and traits that are defined, redefined, inherited
and inhibited as part of human existence. In the end, the
dance provided the answer to my question: yes, move-
ment freed the body into a third dimension normally
hidden by societal precepts surrounding gender.

In 2010, Co.ERASGA celebrated its tenth anniversary
and paid homage to the City of Vancouver, which was
celebrating its 125th year. This homage, titled Shadow
Machine, involved five dancers and four multimedia
artists collaborating on a site-specific work in Vancou-
ver’s historical Storyeum in Gastown. A co-presentation
with W2 Media Arts, Shadow Machine presented the
stories of the city’s early workers and builders. The
production reflected on the beginning of our industrial
era, and how industry affected the environment and
influenced our concerns about globalization. Shadow
Machine was dedicated to the workers’ past and legacy
— how their work shaped the present and how their lives
have influenced ours.

-Alvin Erasga Tolentino

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