| Vicki Adams Willis shakes her head.
"One day, we had this idea and the next thing you know, we are celebrating the 20th anniversary," she says.
She is, of course, skipping over the toil, sacrifices, anxiety, uncertainty and triumphs that make up two decades of nursing a dance company from performance to performance and season to season. She is also glossing over the fact that simply surviving 20 years as an innovative performing arts group comes pretty near the definition of "miracle."
On the other hand, Calgary has always made room for its mavericks. Willis and her partners, Michelle Moss and Hannah Stilwell, not only succeeded in building an established pillar of this city’s cultural scene, in the process they created a body of work that has become an outstanding base for this 20th season.
Long-term fans will recall their own highlights throughout the years. Perhaps it was the troupe’s incorporation of live music with dance in 1988’s Dancers and Other Musical Instruments, or the dazzling showmanship of Soul Jugglers (1999), or the breathtaking representation of weather onstage (including blowing leaves and rain) in the lyrical and tender Evanescence from 2000. The company has toured its work as far away as Japan, and has garnered both fans and critical acclaim everywhere it has performed.
"This is a milestone year for us," says Willis. "The season gets underway with Pivoting Echoes in January and we wind it up with 20th Anniversary Jam in June." Original live music and fresh choreography will be featured in both. The June show will incorporate past DJD dancers with the current company and Willis’s two fellow co-founders will also appear.
Between those two bookends, the company will present a successor to its very popular fundraiser, the Black and White Big Band Benefit Ball, called Possessed: A Cabaret.
Full information on the 2004 season, along with the complete history and current activities of the company and its school operations, can be accessed at www.decidedlyjazz.com. |
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