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Laborious Song (2020)
by Daina Ashbee

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Drawing on an imagery imbued with her personal history, Canadian choreographer Daina Ashbee traces the contours of a vulnerability that transcends genders.

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Laborious Song explores the interstices between the angst and the playful jubilation of a peripheral and naked body.

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Magnificently precise Benjamin Kamino abandons himself to an obsessive repetitive and accumulative leitmotiv. He appropriates the territory, summoning a self-destructive violence that brings about temporary relief.

 

The piece bathes into being a marshy universe. The falls of the performer are also dives in shallow water. Gianni Bardaro's music infiltrates the hollow spaces of all present bodies and its throbbing drone slowly dissipates the collective pain.

 

Credits

 

Artistic Direction & Concept: Daina Ashbee

Choreography : Daina Ashbee

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performed by & in collaboration with: Benjamin Kamino

 

Music Composition: Gianni Bardaro 

 

Lighting Design: Vito Walter

 

Production: Daina Ashbee

 

Duration: 60 minutes

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Photo: David Wong

Video: Nicolas VanAchter

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Supported by: Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des Arts et des Lettres de Québec, Usine-C, Centre de Création O Vertigo - CCOV

 

Residencies: The Chocolate Factory, New York City - Plataforma 322, Puerto Vallarta

 

Premiere: March 3, 2020 – KVS, Brussels, Belgium

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Calendar

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October 6, 2022

Festival of New Dance

St. Johns, Newfoundland

 

June 11 & 12, 2021

Performance Mix Festival

Abrons Centre

New York City, New York

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October 5 & 6, 2021

actoral festival

Usine-C

Montreal, QC

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July 3 & 4, 2021

Montpellier Danse Festival

Montpellier, France

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October 3 & 4, 2020

actoral Festival

Marseille, France

 

July 7, 2020

Montpellier Danse Festival

Montpellier, France

(CANCELLED) 

 

World premiere 

March 3, 2020

Kaaitheatre's Women Festival at KVS 

Brussels, Belgium

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Work-in-Progress presentation

November 21, 2020

EMERGE

Musée d'Art Contemporain

Montréal, QC

 

Work-in-Progress presentation

June 1 & 2, 2019

OFFTA 2019

Montréal, QC

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