Dance festival aims to lift up the art form in Hamilton

This weekend’s Here&Now by Hamilton contemporary dance company Aeris Körper will feature established choreographed works, alongside works in development.

One of Hamilton’s only festivals dedicated to dance is taking the stage at L.R. Wilson Hall at McMaster University this weekend. 

Aeris Körper, the Hamilton contemporary dance company, is hosting the three-day dance festival Here&Now from April 25-27. Here&Now is a mixed program of established choreographed dance works and works in development, where each event includes a chance for audience members to engage in conversation and reflection with the choreographers involved.

“The festival is very multi-tiered in terms of interacting with dance,” Mayumi Lashbrook,  artistic director of Aeris Körper, told HAMILTON CITY Magazine. “Here&Now has several different components to it. It has the Mainstage, which are short length, finished works from choreographers from across Canada. Then it has the Prospects stage. Prospects features work-in-progress showings. These are works that are at a certain point in their creation process. The audience actually gets to engage in the creation and offer their insights and feedback from seeing the works, so the choreographer then can take that and evolve the work further.”

Capping off the weekend is an all-levels movement workshop featuring Montreal-based choreographer Camille Huang, taking place at McMaster University.

“I feel that there aren't a lot of dance festivals or programming in general that supports dance projects from the research and creation phase, all the way to their exhibition,” said Fareh Malik, an award-winning author, poet and artist who is one of the choreographers for the Mainstage. He is also co-founder and director of the Hamilton competitive company RXD, and was the co-founder and choreographer for Hamilton's Vie Division.

“I think investing in your dance community and dance artists is hugely impactful for both our arts scene, and Hamilton as a whole. Funding and platforming projects is such a fruitful way to illustrate that art without the need for a competitive lens," said Malik.

Priyanka Topé, an emerging dancer, choreographer, vocalist, and dance educator who will perform on the Prospects stage, says Here&Now serves an important purpose.

“I absolutely love the work that Aeris Körper is doing to highlight and support local Hamilton artists and bring a sense of dance community to our city," said Topé. "I think incorporating workshops and working with other local arts organizations has been an incredible push to activate our city.”

Lashbrook says dance as an art form "struggles to be seen” in Hamilton.

“Dance is a very important form because it is a wordless form, it transcends language, it allows diverse populations to engage with it – but there are very few presentation platforms, the infrastructure to actually support dance is lacking across the city,” said Lashbrook, who is also the curator for Hamilton Arts Council’s hArt Dance Film Series and a practitioner of Butoh (a Japanese dance-theatre art form).

“That can look like a lack of space, a lack of presentation platforms, a lack of audiences. What we’ve found over our 10 years of activity is that the audiences actually really do want dance. It’s really fulfilling to us to make sure that this is available for folks who are interested.”

This year’s Here&Now ticket pricing is based on The Green Bottle Method, an economic justice tool that offers a sliding scale based on access to resources. Aeris Körper is offering three levels of pricing; true-cost tickets, general admission tickets, and subsidized tickets.

Discover more about Here&Now and order tickets here.