A colour photograph of Peggy Baker seated on stage looking directly towards the camera. She is dramatically spotlit from above, and in her hands she holds a sheet of paper. To her left is an empty black chair.

Unmoored

May 20 — 21, 2022
  • Peggy Baker
  • Sarah Chase
Field:

Performance

Time:

8 p.m.

Location:

EDAM (Exeperimental Dance and Music), Western Front

Admission:

$35

Ticket:

Buy

As Peggy Baker tours Western Canada with her work unmoored, the artist will spend a few days in Vancouver in residency with Western Front, and will perform and teach at EDAM.

Of unmoored, Peggy writes:
“In 2003 I turned to the extraordinary dance artist Sarah Chase to make a work for me. Sarah creates in a genre she describes as dancestories, and preliminary to working together she set me the task of writing two stories for every year of my life. When the time came to go into the studio together, I told Sarah that there was one aspect of my life that I hadn’t written about, and could not share in the public sphere. Sarah agreed to my caveat, and we went on to create a piece titled The Disappearance of Right and Left. In March of 2017, I sat down at a desk, in a small room, in a huge house in Bogliasco, Italy to remember and write the stories I had not been ready to share. Over the next months, Sarah and I worked together to distill my writing as a dancestory titled unmoored. The episodes I recount in unmoored describe events during the 20-year arc of my marriage to the musician, composer, and disability rights activist, Ahmed Hassan.”

Each performance will be followed by a post show talkback.

Masks are recommended.

Choreography and Direction: Sarah Chase
Text and Performance: Peggy Baker
Sound Design: Debashis Sinha
Arabic Vocalist: Maryem Hassan Tollar
Recording of Nina Simone, used with permission
Lighting Design: Marc Parent
Technical Director / Stage Manager: Gabriel Cropley

A colour photograph of Peggy Baker seated on stage. She looks down towards the floor with her arms outstretched to her sides. To her right is an empty black chair.
A colour photograph of Peggy Baker performing. She looks and points a finger towards the direction of the camera.

About the Artists

Peggy Baker has been a vivid presence in contemporary dance since 1973, performing internationally in the work of esteemed Canadian and American choreographers. She established Peggy Baker Dance Projects in 1990, and for the first 20 years she dedicated herself to solo performance, winning praise for the eloquence and depth of her dancing, and accolades for her collaborative partnerships with musicians and designers. Since 2010 her choreography has focused on works for small ensemble. Over its 32-year history Peggy Baker Dance Projects has been presented at major festivals and dance venues across Canada, the U.S., Europe, South America, and South East Asia. Artist-in-Residence at Canada’s National Ballet School, Peggy’s many honours include the Walter Carsen Prize, the Governor General’s Award, the Premier’s Award, the Order of Canada, six Doras, the George Luscombe Mentorship Award, and honorary doctorates from the University of Calgary and York University.

Sarah Chase is a performer and choreographer whose distinctive signature has garnered her an international reputation. Her work has been presented across Canada and Europe for over twenty-five years, at such venues as the National Arts Centre (Ottawa), Festival TransAmerique (Montreal), DanceHouse (Vancouver), the Holland Dance Festival, Klapstuk Festival (Belgium), Salzburg Szene Festival (Austria), Kaaitheater (Belgium), Tanz Quartier (Vienna), Fondation Cartier (Paris) and Theater der Welt (Germany). She has performed and toured with Benôit Lachambre’s Dance par B. Lieux, and German choreographer Raimund Hoghe, and has created work for many Canadian artists including Toronto Dance Theatre, Peggy Baker Dance Projects, Marc Boivin, Andrea Nann, Heidi Strauss and Darryl Tracy, Theatre Replacement, Jacinte Armstrong, and Montreal Danse. Sarah is the recipient of the 2004 Jacqueline Lemieux Award for Excellence from the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Prize of the Festival at the 2006 Munich Dance Biennale for her piece The Passenger. She is an associate dance artist of the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.

Acknowledgments

unmoored was created with the support of a fellowship with the Bogliasco Foundation in Liguria, Italy; and through subsequent residencies at Tiamat House on Hornby Island B.C., (through the generosity of Judith Lawrence); and Ottawa Dance Directive, Artistic Director Yvonne Coutts / Associate Director Lana Morton. Presented in partnership with EDAM - Exeprimental Dance and Music, with the support of the Government of Canada.

Western Front is a non-profit artist-run centre in Vancouver.

We acknowledge the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations as traditional owners of the land upon which Western Front stands.