Dance YYC Showcase 2022 Spotlight: Fission to Fussion
Check out Fission to Fussion’s piece by getting your tickets here:
Dance YYC Showcase Weekend!
Why are you looking forward to the 2022 Dance YYC Showcase?
The diversity of this roster is something else. As a new choreographer and dance initiative, it’s intimidating to see Fission to Fusion stacked in line with some amazing companies and collectives like Ballet Bodies and NextGen dance. I think it’s going to be a fantastic show.
What was your inspiration or starting point for the piece you’ll be presenting at the Dance YYC Showcase?
I always joke that if I even returned to school for a Ph.D., it would be purely to enter the notorious “Dance your Ph.D.'' competition. Sadly, when I was in grad school, there was no MSc. version of the competition. Nonetheless, I have always been fascinated by how people have managed to break down very complex academic works into movements. Some of the entries also get pretty high in production value – a Ph.D. candidate from the University of Alberta won one year by producing a musical. However, beyond these (often kitschy) contest entries, very few people have tried to use dance as a form to communicate science. As a trained dancer and scientist always baffled as so much of human movement, or even overarching concepts we are taught within the school, are paralleled and at a molecular level. Moreover, things like chemistry and physics are integral to how we transgress through our day-to-day lives, so movement if anything, seems like the perfect way to bring complex and almost intangible science concepts to life. Hence the birth of the Fission to Fusion Dance Project!
This piece specifically will focus on chemistry and exploring chemical reactions, as they are trojan horses in our lives. Chemical reactions govern everything we do; from that spark of oxytocin you feel when you meet the love of your life in aisle 5 of Safeway to cooking, commuting, etc., nearly everything can be broken down into chemical reactions. This piece simplifies things and will give the audience a good refresher on the basic chemistry they likely encountered in junior high or high school.
On a more personal level, as a professional science communicator, classically trained dancer, and avid performer/instructor within modern dance, l have always been looking for ways to combine what I do in my day job with my passion for the arts. a 5-year-old me who wanted to simultaneously be a biologist and a ballerina when I grew up would be proud of this endeavour.
Who has influenced you as an artist/choreographer/performer/rehearsal director?
Despite growing up in the “ballet world” most of my life, I never felt like I belonged. However, in university, I had the opportunity to study modern dance formally and joined the Orchesis Dance Performance Group in Edmonton. I spent years there working with Kathy Metzger and Tamara Bliss, who helped me adapt my ballet training to the modern space and find movements that fit me as a dancer. I took much quicker to the dance form than I ever had ballet and knew I had found a home.
Because of my balletic routes (and continued ballet training), you still see nuances of that in my choreographed movement (which comes out very lyrical). Still, I take inspiration from both very traditional modern artists, such as Martha Graham, as well as newer and local choreographers, such as Brain Webb. Being of the SYTYCD era, you probably see a bit of Travis Wall in there too.
As a science communicator, my inspirations are endless. I have to credit Jay Ingram for giving me the key to finishing the choreography on this piece. But one of the biggest influences on this work would be Sunita LeGallou. Her podcast Music for Ph.D. 's and its accompanying art show is something else, a prime example of how art can mash with science.
Share a moment that stands out from your rehearsal/creative process!
The absolute willingness of the lovely trainees at Dance Code Calgary to try anything. As well as their commitment to this project – not only have these amazing women had a crash course in learning choreography for the stage, but they’ve pretty much re-learned freshmen chemistry in a month. A hallmark moment was when the group came in saying they were looking for “inspiration” so the,y managed to pull up and read the abstract of my master’s thesis…. That may have been the first person to read it, other than my parents.
What is something you wish you knew before pursuing a life in movement arts?
This is a weird question for me as most of my time is rooted in the hard sciences. However, I would have liked to know earlier that we are not the sum of our academic training and that fields can intersect, and when they do that, truly innovative and amazing things happen. Look at Calgary-born Beakerhead, for example; we need to see more initiatives like that in the community. Teens and young adults are often pressured to select a field and devote their entire ethos to it. It’s a tremendous amount of pressure. Therefore, knowing that science and art can combine (this only being an example of this) is quite liberating.