Peggy Baker & Sarah Chase: Unmoored

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Peggy Baker & Sarah Chase, "Unmoored," 2022

Artist Talk: Grow, Deepen, Expand at 11 a.m. - 12 p.m.

Online and Grand Luxe Hall, Western Front

Admission:

Free (registration required for in-person attendance)

To accompany the presentation of unmoored, we welcome dance artists Peggy Baker and Sarah Chase for an open-ended conversation that may reflect on issues of memory, the preservation of performance, and the regenerative possibilities of archives, among other stories and themes related to their practices. This conversation will be moderated by Abigail Sebaly, Western Front’s Documentary Heritage Community Program Archivist, and a one-time dance student of both Baker and Chase. 

Peggy Baker & Sarah Chase: Unmoored

Performance at 8:00 p.m.

EDAM (Exeperimental Dance and Music), Western Front

Admission: $35

As Peggy Baker tours Western Canada with her work unmoored, the artist will spend a few days in Vancouver in residency with Western Front, and will perform and teach at EDAM.

Of unmoored, Peggy writes:

“In 2003 I turned to the extraordinary dance artist Sarah Chase to make a work for me. Sarah creates in a genre she describes as dancestories, and preliminary to working together she set me the task of writing two stories for every year of my life. When the time came to go into the studio together, I told Sarah that there was one aspect of my life that I hadn’t written about, and could not share in the public sphere. Sarah agreed to my caveat, and we went on to create a piece titled The Disappearance of Right and Left. In March of 2017, I sat down at a desk, in a small room, in a huge house in Bogliasco, Italy to remember and write the stories I had not been ready to share. Over the next months, Sarah and I worked together to distill my writing as a dancestory titled unmoored. The episodes I recount in unmoored describe events during the 20-year arc of my marriage to the musician, composer, and disability rights activist, Ahmed Hassan.” 

Each performance will be followed by a post show talkback.

Masks are recommended.

Choreography and Direction: Sarah Chase

Text and Performance: Peggy Baker

Sound Design: Debashis Sinha

Arabic Vocalist: Maryem Hassan Tollar

Recording of Nina Simone, used with permission

Lighting Design: Marc Parent

Technical Director / Stage Manager: Gabriel Cropley

About the Artists

Peggy Baker has been a vivid presence in contemporary dance since 1973, performing internationally in the work of esteemed Canadian and American choreographers. She established Peggy Baker Dance Projects in 1990, and for the first 20 years she dedicated herself to solo performance, winning praise for the eloquence and depth of her dancing, and accolades for her collaborative partnerships with musicians and designers. Since 2010 her choreography has focused on works for small ensemble. Over its 32-year history Peggy Baker Dance Projects has been presented at major festivals and dance venues across Canada, the U.S., Europe, South America, and South East Asia. Artist-in-Residence at Canada’s National Ballet School, Peggy’s many honours include the Walter Carsen Prize, the Governor General’s Award, the Premier’s Award, the Order of Canada, six Doras, the George Luscombe Mentorship Award, and honorary doctorates from the University of Calgary and York University. 

Sarah Chase is a performer and choreographer whose distinctive signature has garnered her an international reputation. Her work has been presented across Canada and Europe for over twenty-five years, at such venues as the National Arts Centre (Ottawa), Festival TransAmerique (Montreal), DanceHouse (Vancouver), the Holland Dance Festival, Klapstuk Festival (Belgium), Salzburg Szene Festival (Austria), Kaaitheater (Belgium), Tanz Quartier (Vienna), Fondation Cartier (Paris) and Theater der Welt (Germany). She has performed and toured with Benôit Lachambre’s Dance par B. Lieux, and German choreographer Raimund Hoghe, and has created work for many Canadian artists including Toronto Dance Theatre, Peggy Baker Dance Projects, Marc Boivin, Andrea Nann, Heidi Strauss and Darryl Tracy, Theatre Replacement, Jacinte Armstrong, and Montreal Danse. Sarah is the recipient of the 2004 Jacqueline Lemieux Award for Excellence from the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Prize of the Festival at the 2006 Munich Dance Biennale for her piece The Passenger. She is an associate dance artist of the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.

Acknowledgments

unmoored was created with the support of a fellowship with the Bogliasco Foundation in Liguria, Italy; and through subsequent residencies at Tiamat House on Hornby Island B.C., (through the generosity of Judith Lawrence); and Ottawa Dance Directive, Artistic Director Yvonne Coutts / Associate Director Lana Morton.