CanAsian International Dance Festival – Museum Dances

Reviewed by Paula Citron

CanAsian International Dance Festival 2010 invited four dance companies to create original pieces to original music inspired by different galleries in the Royal Ontario Museum. The show is called Museum Dances: Ancient Inspiration, Contemporary Interpretation.

The massive, monolithic limestone pieces of the Ming Tomb inspired Vancouver choreographer Chengxin Wei. Because the dancers are dwarfed by the towering structures, Wei succeeds in showing the contrast of permanence and impermanence.

Soojung Kwon was inspired by a vase in the Korean Gallery. This dance takes place in the ROM’s mosaic rotunda as the four women convey the roundness and curves of the vase.

Natasha Bakht’s dance is set in the Gallery of Minerals. Her choreography, anchored in South Asian bharatanatyam, conveys the downward pull of gravity.

Museum Dances continues at the ROM May 14 to 16. The show is free with admission price. Kwon and Bakht repeat this weekend. The third piece is by the hip hop group F.A.M. inspired by samurai artefacts in the Japanese Gallery.

Museum Dances
(Ancient Inspiration, Contemporary Interpretation)
CanAsian International Dance Festival
Choreography by Chengxin Wei, Soojung Kwon, Natasha Bakht and F.A.M.
Royal Ontario Museum, May 7-9 and May 14-16, 2010