Julietta Cervantes

Aszure Barton found time in her crazy schedule to return to Alberta and treat us to Busk II

Alberta-born and New York–based choreographer Aszure Barton is living her dream. Google her and the superlatives spew out on the screen. She has trained with the best and she works with the cream of the dance world. She’s won acclaim for commissions from major dance companies, such as Mikhail Baryshnikov’s Dance Centre and Broadway’s Three Penny Opera. Her choreography has been performed at renowned venues, including Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival and Madrid's Teatro Español. And she’s only in her early 30s.

Currently in residence at The Banff Centre with 11 dancers and her sister, Charise, as rehearsal director, Barton is expanding Busk — a piece created for the Ringling International Festival in Florida. The new piece, Busk II, is co-commissioned by The Banff Centre and the Ringling International Arts Festival, the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art and in association with the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York City.

Barton describes Busk II as “a work in progress,” in response to her longing to cross the border, return home and explore busking even further — with its improvisational twist and tacit pleas for money. As with all her works, it is highly collaborative, intense and evolving.

The Energizer bunny has nothing on Barton. Her thoughts tumble over each other. Some sentences remain incomplete, as her mind, propelled by yet another idea, moves in a new direction. Her work is her obsession and she figures it will take more than a lifetime to complete all the creating she envisions.

While grateful for all the outstanding opportunities and driven by a desire to take on all the projects offered, she has come to a realization that work is taking her farther away from herself. “I feel very blessed to have had that moment of realization and return to self. I am learning how to say, ‘No.’ I don’t want to reach a wall. It is a balance to not become drained because I have that tendency,” she says.

In this transitional time, Barton is absorbing spiritual books and she’s revelling in the cross-pollination of artistic creations during her Banff residency.

Being an Albertan has definitely contributed to her international success and acclaim, she says. “I think coming from a smaller place has always kept me humble and really hungry to do what is honest for myself. I’ve never really had the goal of becoming a famous choreographer or anything like that. For me it was doing what I loved to do and doing what it takes to get there.”

Her creative style is collaborative and project-based because she loves the nurturing intensity that comes with a commission. Her company, Aszure & Artists, are her collaborators but her inspiration comes from any and all forms of art.

“My goal is for someone to leave all their stuff, their own judgments, at the door. To come into the theatre and allow themselves to have their own experience, not try to figure out what the heck is going on, but for them to have their own journey personally and for us to take them completely somewhere else for an hour and a half.”

Despite wanting more time for her inner being, Barton’s schedule is jam-packed after Banff. She goes to Toronto for meetings about details on a commission for the National Ballet of Canada (NBC), then New York to teach at Jacob’s Pillow Festival for a week, then back to the NBC for four weeks before heading once more to New York to do a piece for American Ballet Theatre. If that’s not enough, she then returns to her company for a fall tour, then works with the Julliard in New York and finally hits the road with Azure & Artists on a Busk II tour next year.

Yet, she maintains her creative energy. “Generally, with my work I am thrilled that there is such a range of people who have seen my work — non-dance people, younger or older who have connected with the work. A sense of contrast, a sense of humour. I love that I am not afraid Busk is the name of the piece because that is what we do.”