Montréal’s Compagnie Virginie Brunelle headlines just-announced 2024 Vancouver International Dance Festival
Running February 25 to March 9, Kokoro Dance event also features FakeKnot’s whip, Ferenc Fehér’s Disco Boys, Tony Chong’s Invisible, and more
THE 2024 VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL DANCE FESTIVAL has just announced its 24th annual programming for the event from February 25 to March 9.
Amid the offerings at the Kokoro Dance-produced fest is Montréal’s Compagnie Virginie Brunelle, whose Les corps avalés (Swallowed Bodies) explores power relations and social disorder with live classical music accompaniment performed live by the Molinari Quartet, February 28 to March 2 at the Vancouver Playhouse.
VIDF had announced Spain’s Israel Galván Company as the second headliner, but it has now had to cancel the scheduled performance at the Vancouver Playhouse due to logistics issues. The festival team says it is actively exploring options to reschedule the performance for 2025.
Elsewhere, Montréal’s Catherine Gaudet is at the Annex with Se dissoudre, a riff on solitude and slow-dissolving. The same venue hosts Japan’s Conan Amok with the solo butoh piece The Folds.
Both Hungary’s Ferenc Fehér with Disco Boys and Vancouver’s Jennifer McLeish-Lewis with New Skin hit the stage at the Roundhouse Exhibition Hall.
Vancouver’s FakeKnot presents whip, a duet performed entirely in leather hoods, at the Roundhouse Performance Centre, while Montréal’s Tony Chong brings the meditative, multidisciplinary Invisible无形 to the same venue. Additionally, Vancouver’s Modus Operandi will perform at Woodwards Atrium.
The VIDF will also host dance workshops, free life-drawing classes, and an Art and Photography Exhibition by Vancouver’s Ken Clark and Vincent Wong. New this year is the VIDF Jazz Club, open at 9:30 pm after performance days, where VIDF patrons can join in dancing to local jazz musicians at KW Studios.
The full program and tickets are available now here. In a new effort, VIDF will also subsidize tickets at a special rate of $25 for those who face financial constraints (exclusively available online). Learn more
Janet Smith is an award-winning arts journalist who has spent more than two decades immersed in Vancouver’s dance, screen, design, theatre, music, opera, and gallery scenes. She sits on the Vancouver Film Critics’ Circle.
Related Articles
Programming includes world premieres from Chimerik 似不像 and rice & beans theatre, BOGOTÁ by Andrea Peña & Artists, and beyond
In full-length work, five dancers explore paradoxical themes through vigorous physicality
In DanceHouse presentation of Montreal-based choreographer’s latest ensemble work, simple moves create feelings of restriction
Company to host auditions in Vancouver, Toronto, New York, and Amsterdam for five ballet-based training programs
The local artist is appearing at Dance in Vancouver with his latest piece, which requires a new garment to be made for every performance
Following the company’s West Coast tour of Nutcracker this holiday season, aspiring artists are invited to pursue the prestigious training program
Ne.Sans Opera & Dance’s About Time acknowledges relentlessness of news cycle, while Livona Ellis and Rebecca Margolick’s Fortress examines femininity and matriarchs
A standing O for Frontier’s awe-inspiring visual magic and multiple, moving layers of meaning; plus, an erotically charged Heart Drive and an ever-shifting Cloud Poem
Performance at noon features exciting young artists from Arts Umbrella’s renowned training program
Famed Tchaikovsky ballet with added Canadian elements lands in Vancouver from December 13 to 15 and—for the first time—Surrey on November 23 and 24
Strength and vulnerability meet in new work inspired by the choreographer-dancers’ mothers and grandmothers
The 2025 prize is worth $10,000 to research, develop, or produce new work
On the DAWN program, the renowned choreographer reimagines a work whose black-hooded puppeteers embody the unknown
Performance at Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival sees artists break away from traditional gendered movements and costumes
The a cappella work by Joby Talbot is meant to be seen and heard
At The Cultch, Tentacle Tribe gets kaleidoscopically inventive; at the Playhouse, a masterful live band accompanies a show that roots out the soul of Argentina’s beloved art form
As part of the Canadian Arts Coalition’s national call to action, the Canadian Dance Assembly has launched an advocacy campaign
Through visceral synchronized rhythms, the full-length work challenges mandatory conformity and cohesion
Presented by plastic orchard factory, the solo is performed partly in the nude
Benefit at Scotiabank Dance Centre features the principal dancer with the National Ballet of Canada
With projections and a live band, the show celebrates the inclusivity of Argentina’s essential dance form
Le Radeau production sees Yaffe cultivate an exchange between performer and audience with unguarded emotion and humour
Colour, light, reflection, and hip-hop-influenced moves as Montreal troupe’s kaleidoscopic new piece hits The Cultch
Aerial dance show created by Gabrielle Martin and Jeremiah Hughes explores the space between holding onto—or letting go of—one another
Six emerging dance artists from Vancouver and Surrey share performances after months of movement and writing mentorship
Canada’s leading contemporary dance company presents a Pierre Pontvianne premiere, the return of a Dutch choreographic duo, and a large-scale Crystal Pite creation
The Biting School’s new dance work looks at struggle and letting go, with a surreal array of hazard tape, bread dough, mic cords, coffin tents, and more
The Dancers of Damelahamid’s most ambitious production to date explores the precious artistic legacy passed down by Elder Margaret Harris
At The Dance Centre, Anusha Fernando directs an expressive piece born from a year’s worth of nonhierarchical gatherings
When an inquisitive young woman wanders into a fantasy world of astounding acrobatics, she learns that humans have the power to shape the natural world