PREVIEW
LIME
Decidedly Jazz Danceworks
November 8 to 11
Martha Cohen Theatre (CPA)
Decidedly Jazz Danceworks finds the limelight
Dancer-choreographer Kimberley Cooper brings world of influences to company's latest show
Kimberley Cooper, the best known, and probably most admired, professional dancer now active in Calgary is back with a vengeance after a year’s sabbatical, ready to take on a leading role at the company where she virtually grew up, Decidedly Jazz Danceworks.
"I feel really rejuvenated and refreshed and ready to rock," says Kimberley Cooper, a self-described "Calgarian white girl" with a hipster’s understanding of jazz, blues and funk.
The gifted 30-year-old performer, who has radiated star quality since joining the company at age 18, is coming into her own as a dance creator. She has been appointed resident choreographer at DJD, and she’s the artistic director of the troupe’s fall show, Lime.
The production consists of 15 "tangy" new works choreographed by nine of the company’s dancers. Cooper has created or co-created five of the short pieces: a classic-jazz trio, a couple of African-influenced works, a sexy male solo incorporating karate moves, and the evening’s fun finale. The latter will be previewed at the Black and White Big Band Benefit Ball, a DJD fund-raiser taking place on November ??
Like Whitehorn, staged in the 1999-2000 season, Lime gives the dancers a valuable opportunity to switch perspectives, says Cooper. Instead of trying to enact a choreographer’s vision, they can discover what it’s like to shape and articulate the vision themselves.
"I think it’s important for all dancers to try to choreograph," she says. "To have to put the shoe on the other foot is just a really good exercise. It develops us so much as dancers.... It allows us to develop our own movement style and vocabulary, and to see how much work really goes into creating a piece of choreography."
Employing recorded music and minimal costumes and sets, DJD’s dancer-made shows are intended to have more of a raw, workshop feeling than its elaborately staged June productions. Jazz dance and jazz music, she says, are constantly evolving and mutating as artists soak up and recombine influences. In Lime, a number of the dancers have set their works to the contemporary sound of remixed jazz.
"It may have started out as being very classic jazz, but you would never recognize it now. I’m actually using a Cinematic Orchestra song that’s been remixed twice."
Cooper took last season off from DJD partly because she felt the need to encounter fresh ideas – as she says, to put more influences in her brain and in her body. She traveled and studied widely, with stints in Chicago, Vancouver, Cuba, New York, New Orleans and Banff.
During her month-long residency at The Banff Centre, she began to develop her most high-profile project to date, a work to be presented by DJD at One Yellow Rabbit’s High Performance Rodeo in January. Since she had just returned from her Cuban sojourn when she began the Rodeo work, she titled it Popular, after the No. 1 Cuban brand of cigarettes. She describes it as a collage or journey that incorporates eclectic elements such as cross-dressing and masks.
After all her travels, Cooper appreciates that to have full-time work in an authentic jazz company is a rare gift. In Chicago, she notes, the DJD-like Jump Rhythm Jazz Project provides only part-time employment for its dancers, who must hold down other jobs to survive.
"When you go away, you also see how good it is at home," she says. "I’m glad to have this be my life." |
