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Dance Montage - 40th Anniversary presented by U of C Dance
University Theatre
Thursday, November 26 - Saturday, November 28

More in: Dance

Former University of Calgary student Gabrielle Enns has danced onstage with her 21-year-old daughter only once. It was just over two decades ago, during the opening ceremonies of the 1988 Calgary Olympics. She was pregnant with Alicia.

“She didn’t really have to do anything,” remembers Enns, laughing.

During the ceremonies, Enns worked with her former teacher, mentor and friend, retired professor emeritus Shirley Murray. This year, the two women are again reunited for the 40th anniversary of the U of C’s popular Dance Montage.

Montage is a medley of eight different dance numbers, including restaged choreography from past Dance Montage productions. The dances cover a wide variety of styles, from contemporary to jazz, funk and swing. This year the nine choreographers and their dancers — students and professionals — will look back on 40 years of dance and celebrate those who have participated over the years — more than 2,000 dancers and almost 200 choreographers. Some will return to choreograph and perform in both new and old routines.

This time, 53-year-old Enns will dance alongside her young daughter — now a student in the U of C’s geology department — rather than shaking her around in amniotic fluid.

“It’s been really fun to meet up every night, go to rehearsal together, to introduce her to all the people I used to dance with and to Shirley,” says Enns. “It’s a memory that we’re going to have for the rest of our lives.”

Like her mother, Alicia started dancing when she was six years old, and has helped her mother master some new dance moves. “Especially the hip-hop,” says Enns.

It hasn’t been too difficult for older dancers, like herself, to keep up with the younger, more agile ones. Everyone has been more than willing to slow things down until all dancers have learned and mastered each move.

“It takes us (older dancers) a little bit longer, but we can still do it,” she says — although she does admit to swallowing a few ibuprofen to ease her aches and pains. Still, that’s not to say that some dancers, especially the older ones, aren’t anxious about strutting their stuff onstage.

Murray, for one, says she’s a little worried about dancing for an audience. “It’s hard,” she says. The piece is a five-minute contemporary dance depicting her career.

“My background is in ballet, tap and the art of movement,” she explains. “The choreography I’m dancing is very different from what I’m used too. It’s like I’m a student all over again — 40 years later.”

Murray has also choreographed her own piece for the 40th anniversary — a sports-themed dance, celebrating the origins of Montage within the physical education faculty. With 43 dancers, her number has a wide variety of both ages and abilities. Some dancers are university students as young as 18 years old, while others danced in the 1970s and 1980s when Montage was still a fledgling production.

As such, Murray’s piece is a microcosm of the production as a whole. Just as her number has a huge variety of dancers, Dance Montage is a medley of different styles.

Some of the dancers and choreographers have a long history of dance behind them, while others such as fourth-year university student Jessalyn Britton have their whole career, ahead of them. Britton is choreographing a piece with her classmate, Laura Reed, based on the career of choreographer Bob Fosse.

“It’s a good medium to get dance out into the community, because it’s fun and it’s not just university students; we take dancers from all over the community,” says Britton. “You learn so much about the different styles that are out there and the different styles of choreography.”

That’s precisely why Dance Montage is so popular, says Murray. It started out as a mix of students from the university’s physical education program, as well as professional and un-trained dancers from the community, and has stayed that way over the years. In fact, she says, the only thing that has changed is the growing number of dancers who now want to take part.