When dancer Dominique Hutchinson saw Chelsea Sleep play fiddle at a high school showcase, she was impressed. "Such power and energy," she said of the young violinist. The two met and an idea formed. Hutchinson loves to both choreograph and dance; she was already dancing with a group of women, the DSdanse company, and they had produced a sold-out show, Reflexion, last May. She was looking for something even more magical this year, she says. DSdanse, formerly a group of mostly young women, was opened up this year to women of all ages and experience: Tricia Bruce, Terra Dannes, Zeta Gaudet, Georgina Hardman, Olivia Hubson, Dominique Hutchinson, Anne-Marie Lindell, Sarah Paterson and Christina Smit. Nine women ranging in age from 15 to 51 started rehearsing together last September to mount another production this April called Heartstrings. They are more committed than the average dance student.
"Each person is so integral to the show," Hutchinson says. "We've all helped sculpt our performance."
Hutchinson calls them "spirit dancers" because they're at a place between recreational and professional dancing - a place that is hard to find except through small companies such as this one. Last year, Reflexion was designed to help the dancers develop their artistic side by building the show together and allowing each dancer a chance to perform solo. What the show needed, however, was good contemporary music. This year, nine local fiddlers under the direction of the renowned Oliver Schroer will perform in Heartstrings. They are: Holly Beckmyer, Steven Beckmyer, Johanna Dalgliesh, Tyler Dickson, Sophie Heppel, James Law, Graeme MacGillivray, Chelsea Sleep and Anna Williams. Sleep will play an original piece composed for Hutchinson's solo which she says honours the source - our ancestors. It is especially poignant because it was composed after Hutchinson's mother had a stroke.
"She was missing a piece of herself," her daughter says.
To pull these nine dancers and musicians together for two nights performance takes support. That's when the Sunshine Coast Dance Society kicked in. The Society's Katherine Denham says their aim is to support local and professional dancers on the Coast in what they are already doing rather than expend time and money on mounting one large recital a year. When Hutchinson approached them, mission statement in hand on behalf of DSdanse, it took the Society about three minutes, she says, to decide to help. "That made me feel very good."
In addition to Heartstrings, the Dance Society will also help performer Anne-Marie Lindell to stage her one-woman show at a later date. Plans are already underway for another new work to be performed in the summer and a dance residency at the end of July at the Playhouse. In addition to Hutchinson's solo honouring her mother, Heartstrings features other dances "all about human emotions," she says. One of them is a piece called Clue, a humorous caricature of the board game. Heartstrings runs April 17 and 18 at the Heritage Playhouse in Gibsons.
