RUBBERBANDance Group

website: Each being is both at the centre of the world and orbiting around others. Interdependence is obvious and struggles are inevitable. In a space out of time, RBDG’s raw movement expresses all the weight of this adversarial relationship. The five dancers – a family, a nomadic tribe or an entire people – interweave, fight, crave and hustle in an astonishing fluidity of action. All of this, only to survive.

With Gravity of Center, Victor Quijada succeeds to contain the ferocity of hip hop in a perfectly reined choreographic language. Between dynamic rhythms and physical prowess, the company’s unique vocabulary is the epicenter of this eighth creation.

Quijada collaborates on this production with creators dear to RUBBERBANDance Group. Yan Lee Chan sculpts the space with its lighting as Jasper Gahunia, DJ Lil Jaz, creates an atmosphere with music that is the true link to RUBBERBANDance Group’s visual aesthetic.

http://rubberbandance.com/projects/gravity-of-center/

RUBBERBANDance Group’s Gravity of Centre was a complex and exciting piece of extended choreography that reached powerful momentum by the end of a program that ranged form intimate, beautifully lit moments of ensemble work to solo virtuosic flips and contortions that meshed seamlessly with a background of integrated bodies and movement. The narrative force of the overall work, focusing upon the implications of “a family, a nomadic tribe or an entire people” shed a diverse light upon interactive movement that ranged from abrupt hostile explosions to lighter, nuanced moments of gorgeous woven movement.

The sheer length of the evening, never faltering through a relentless commitment to a kind of carefully conceived collective creativity, gradually traces the evolution of adversarial relationships as individuals struggle to survive, compete, cooperate, and thrive within physical and visual aesthetics that test the endurance and vitality of people fighting for secure prominence through both harmony and discord. As powerful groups and mighty individuals searching for a central position within the often destabilizing gravity of being alive on a shaky planet, the artists involved in Gravity of Centre must be applauded for the power of their skill, artistry, and utterly engaging endurance.

Choreographer: Victor Quijada 
Performers: Victor Quijada, Anne Plamondon, Emmanuelle Lê Phan, Elon Höglund and Daniel Mayo
Lighting Design: Yan Lee Chan 
Composer: Jasper Gahunia 
Costume Designer: Julie Charland

A DanceWorks presentation at Harbourfront Centre's Fleck Dance 

Theatre, Nov. 16-17, 2012