Fluid Fest, an international celebration of contemporary dance, is wrapping-up it’s 26th year.
The event, presented by Springboard Performance, happens annually in October. Performances from international and homegrown artists play across venues in Calgary in celebration of dance and movement.
Dance is at the heart of Fluid Fest, and it comes in many different shapes and sizes. This year’s theme is “This Messy Gorgeous Love,” reflecting the diversity of disciplines, dance and people involved in the festival.
Fluid Fest shows bodies in motion in many different ways. Along with the various performances, there are visual art exhibitions, dance films, theater shows and much more to discover.
The body is the canvas
Nicole Mion, the artistic director for the festival, says that movement can be therapeutic for the artists.
“The body holds a lot of memory. It holds possibility. It holds oppression. And that can be pretty honestly revealed in really profound ways,” Mion said.
She loves dance as an art form because of its transparency.
“The body offers something real and you can kind of cut through the bullshit. A really good performance is usually rooted in some kind of honesty that holds all the complexity of what it means to be alive and moving forward in some kind of way.”
An opportunity for accessible expression
Lukas Malkowski’s Microphone Controller reimagines a rock concert for deaf and hearing audiences. Here, he uses his body as a vehicle for art and an expression of voice.
As a child of a deaf adult, Malkowski says he has always had a different relationship with his voice. His voice doesn’t only live in his vocal cords but also in his body.
“Especially like me as a CODA, child of deaf adult, I don’t think of my voice as just something that is heard, that comes out of my mouth, it’s something that is very embodied and expressed with the body, with the hands, with the face,” Malkowski said.
With Microphone Controller, Malkowski hopes his unique experience bridges gaps between deaf and hearing audiences.
Audience centred shows
Fluid Fest honours diversity with its many interactive shows.
To celebrate Halloween, the festival presented a Goth Cabaret. A collection of short horror stories featuring performance art, drag shows, and more.
Jocelyn Mah and Christina Krentz performed The Build, a surrealist performance about the objectification of women’s bodies. The performance blended dance, collage, light and art which Mah and Krentz used to explore the horrors of the feminine sexual performance.
Like many of the performances in the cabaret, The Build was a quiet show, told entirely through dance and performance, but Mah says some movement does not require an explanation.
“Dance is a universal language everyone can understand, and cultures over time have all expressed themselves through movement,” she said.
Becoming a part of the story
In the intimate rooms of The Grand theatre people sat on pillows and chairs. In each performance attendees had an opportunity to be a part of the story, cheer the performers on and feel the emotions like they did.
While the performers of the cabaret come from different backgrounds, Fluid Fest offers an opportunity for them to come together and invite the audience to do the same.
For Mah, the best part of the festival is getting to cheer on the talented people she is surrounded by.
“Just getting to sit there and celebrate them and witness all of their hard work and artistry, it’s just like, I get so excited,” Mah said.
To end the festival today, Springboard Performance will be showcasing Silvering: Bodies of Experience, a show that brings together dancers between their 50s and 80s to explore artistry as one ages.
You can learn more about Fluid Fest at Springboard Performance.