Dusk Dances is an outdoor dance festival that brings high quality contemporary and traditional dance to public parks. As dusk descends, a theatrical host leads the audience - which invariably includes children, dog walkers and local residents - to eclectic dance pieces that unfold in different areas of the park. Choreographers from various backgrounds are invited to perform a ten-minute piece inspired by the park’s natural environment. Audiences are invited on a pay-what-you-can basis to an innovative site-specific festival, which is not only an artistic event but a social and cultural one as well. 2013 will be Dusk Dances’ 19th season.
Check out our Youtube Channel for more videos about Dusk Dances!
Mandate
As producers, our mandate is to bring dance to the community by making it accessible physically (our venue is a public space), financially (admission is pay what you can), and artistically (our programming is diverse, for all tastes and ages). Our mandate as presenters is to give choreographers a unique opportunity to showcase their work in a non-traditional dance venue, in front of a large and mostly new audience.
Dusk Dances is a member of the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts and Candance network.
History
With a bold vision to bring dance into the lap of an urban community, dancer/choreographer Sylvie Bouchard created Dusk Dances in 1993, using the natural beauty and magic of Trinity-Bellwoods Park's ravine (Toronto) for a site-specific dance event. The event was part of the Fringe Festival of Independent Dance Artists (fFIDA) and united six local choreographers. Dusk Dances was successful beyond her expectations.
Two years later, Dusk Dances was presented again, with David Danzon joining the producing team. These two first productions were entirely self-produced, relying solely on the support of the local business community and the voluntary work of its producers and artists. After much support and encouragement from the communities surrounding the park, government funding agencies and artists alike, Bouchard and Danzon decided to make Dusk Dances an annual event. From 1997 to 2005, Dusk Dances was produced by CORPUS under the artistic direction of Bouchard and Danzon.
Dusk Dances received public funding from all levels of government for the first time in 1997. The event featured twelve choreographers, two programs and ran throughout fFIDA. Once again, it proved to be an artistic and public success. The following year, Dusk Dances separated from fFIDA, and expanded to two parks (adding Withrow Park). That year, Dusk Dances also toured a selection of past choreography to Ottawa, in a co-production with the Canada Dance Festival. In 2000 the festival expanded to a third park in Toronto (Dufferin Grove Park), went to Ottawa for the Canada Dance Festival and was co-produced with the Dancing on the Edge Festival in Vancouver. The festival kept growing in popularity, playing a significant role in increasing the visibility and accessibility of the art form.
2004 marked Dusk Dances’ 10th season. A retrospective programme of nine remounted pieces from past Dusk Dances programmes and one commissioned work, was presented in downtown Toronto. With the support of the Ontario Trillium Foundation and the Ontario Arts Council, Dusk Dances also toured to six regional centres around Ontario (Kingston, Chatham, Guelph, Deep River, Ottawa, Peterborough). In 2004, over 10,000 people attended Dusk Dances.
In 2005, Dusk Dances grew dramatically. Informed by lessons learned in taking the event into new communities, the festival became recognized as an undeniable force in audience development for dance, and as a catalyst for capacity building. The 2006 season marked the first of a three year project, funded by Ontario’s Trillium Foundation, the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council, in which Dusk Dances toured to five regional centres (Kingston, Mindemoya, Chatham, Haliburton and Deep River) and the Jane/Finch neighbourhood.
In 2008, David Danzon resigned as Co Artistic Director and Sylvie Bouchard was made Festival Director of Dusk Dances Inc. In 2009, Dusk Dances initiated an exciting new project: for the next four years, the festival will work closely with co-presenting partners and communities across the GTA, with an aim to build capacity in underserved GTA neighborhoods. In 2010, with the support of the Ontario Trillium Foundation, Dusk Dances’ licensing initiative began its pilot phase, allowing communities around the Province to license Dusk Dances, and learn how to produce the event in their community. As our festival grows, we strive to find new ways to push the boundaries of the art form, to challenge choreographers artistically, and to make the event more visible and more popular.
