Christopher Willes + collaborations...

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christopher.willes@gmail.com — Tue, 08 May 2012 05:07:21 +0000

Adaptation Project

christopher.willes@gmail.com — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 03:12:25 +0000

The ADAPTATION PROJECT re-imagines a dance from the Toronto based contemporary dance company Dancemakers 100-plus repertoire, a body of work amassed over its 38-year history. Wanting to engage in a process other than a traditional remount, resident choreographer Michael Trent and collaborators have created a new dance piece through collectively responding to choreographer Mitchell Rose’s 1974 piece Following Station Identification, originally set to music by Luciano Berio and Lukas Foss.

Working collaboratively in the studio the participating artists have gone through a shared process of encountering a variety of archival materials (rehearsal films, reel to reel audio recordings of the original score, and interviews with members of the original Dancemakers cast) which Trent likens to an archaeological dig – uncovering the original choreography, and finding responses to it, layer by layer. The result is a fresh new work exploring the vary nature of adaptation as process and product.

Photos by: Ömer K. Yükseker

ADAPTATION PROJECT Confronting our past, with love.
Choreography by Michael Trent
Created with and performed by Robert Abubo, Amanda Acorn,Kate Holden, Benjamin Kamino and Simon Renaud
Music by: Christopher Willes and Thom Gill
Lighting Designer: Kimberly Purtell
Costume Designer: Vanessa Fischer

PERFORMANCE DATES:

Wednesday, April 18 ( PREVIEW ) at 8pm
Thursday April 19 – Saturday April 21 at 8pm
Sunday April 22 at 4pm
Wednesday April 25 – Saturday, April 28 at 8pm
Sunday April 29 at 4pm

Tickets $25 |
Student/Senior, CADA, Artsworker $20
Wednesday April 18, Sunday April 22 and Wednesday April 25 – PWYC
ON SALE NOW
Dancemakers Centre for Creation
The Distillery Historic District, 55 Mill Street
The Cannery, Bldg. 58, Studio 313
[directions]

Revoi

christopher.willes@gmail.com — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 16:53:10 +0000

I’ve been working for the past few months on a new piece by Choreographer Meryem Alaoui called ‘Renvoi’. The piece explores themes of the documentary, the sensation of reflection in the body, and looking/feeling out ‘the other’. Meryem, and everyone else involved in the project, is super inspiring and it’s been a great learning experience. An excerpt of the work will be shown March 29th and 31st at Bad Ass Dance Fun, Harbourfront Center and shares a bill with Julia Male (Toronto), kirsch&keenan dance endeavors (Montreal/Germany), and Cara Spooner (Toronto).

Damage-mix

christopher.willes@gmail.com — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:41:40 +0000

ambient mix from various sources (including a pancake)

Sad Dog

christopher.willes@gmail.com — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:19:12 +0000

by Julia Male as part of at the wrecking ball.
Created for Meryem Alaoui
Sound design by Christopher Willes

The moment before

christopher.willes@gmail.com — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 18:29:12 +0000

Next weekend I will be doing live sound design in Andrea Spaziani’s piece “The Moment Before” as part of Dancemakers TWOBYFOUR a festival of duets January 21-23, 2012. The festival as a whole runs January 17-28 and features works by George Stamos (Montreal), Peter Bingham / EDAM (Vancouver), Andrea Spaziani (Toronto) and Martin Nachbar (Berlin).

Andrea’s piece is a duet with Amanda Acorn and finds the two performers suspended in time as they prepare, warm-up, and freak-out in an attempt to come to terms with their scheduled debut. Their rituals, personal voodoo, and self-doubt intensify, as every second brings them closer to the edge of an incomprehensible future. The sound design explores live amplification of the space (feedback, sampling etc.), and the subliminal elements of sound (room tones, background noise), as a way to think about the body state just before and during action.

Click here for more information and tickets: www.dancemakers.org/twobyfour

Cathy Wilkes

admin — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 05:56:45 +0000

“…Ive used the motif, I suppose it is, of the nurse and shop mannequins to try to feel what someone else feels. Looking for yourself in art, trying to see what someone else saw, this is to do with the separation that there is between people and the impossibility of completely feeling what someone else feels. I think that this is most extreme, and most human, and most painful when someone is caring for someone else or someone is nursing someone else and trying to feel what they feel while being a companion to them. This might be in friendship or in actual nursing, or in a relationship, but to try to feel what someone else feels and to accompany them in their experience of life and in their suffering to me is related to what I am looking for in language as I apprehend it from somewhere outside me…”

- Cathy Wilkes

Julia Male collaboration

christopher.willes@gmail.com — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 21:03:12 +0000

Images from our show in August at labspace in Toronto.
unititled performance/video installation with Julia Male

How to feel connected

christopher.willes@gmail.com — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 00:19:45 +0000

performance project in the works

First meetings / first impressions / the awkwardness of friendship.
The realization that we can never fully understand another person really.
What stories can be told about these things?

Pictured: Charlotte Mundy, Alex Samaras
photography by Claire Harvie – claireharvie at gmail dot com

Trio #1

christopher.willes@gmail.com — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 00:16:08 +0000

performed by pisteau

pisteau is:
Matthew Pencer
Daniel Pencer
Christopher Willes