2023 EVENT
The 2023 DCD Hall of Fame event, was held at the Palais Royale Ballroom in Toronto on November 5th. Produced yet again by the amazing Vickie Fagan, the event featured:
- Sumptuous food and cocktail reception
- A silent auction
- Fabulous live performances by the current generation of elite dancers
Please consider a donation to help us cover the cost of producing and presenting this landmark event.
INDUCTEES
The Dance Collection Danse Hall of Fame event honours and celebrates dynamic lifelong contributions to dance in Canada by some remarkable individuals. Honourees are associated with many dance disciplines – including ballet, pow wow, and modern. They include:
Peggy Baker, C.M., O.Ont.
Rex Harrington, O.C., F.R.S.C.
Edouard Lock, O.C., C.Q.
Zab Maboungou
Karen Pheasant-Neganigwane
Jean Stoneham Orr
William J.S. Boyle Dance Luminary Award: Mimi Beck
Community Builders: Lawrence Adams and Miriam Adams, C.M.
Trailblazers: Irene Apinée and Jury Gotshalks, Don Gillies, and Grace Tinning
Sandra Faire Next Generation Award: Robert Binet
Miriam Adams Exploration Bursary: Robert Azevedo
EVENT LOCATION: The Palais Royale Ballroom, 1601 Lake Shore Blvd. West, Toronto, Ontario M6K 3C1
As always, we look forward to sharing with you this recognition of the richness of our Canadian cultural heritage.
PRESENTERS
Assistant Professor, Centre for Drama,
Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Toronto
Photo: Craig Boyko
Directeur artistique et général,
Danse Danse
Photo: J. Artacho
Artistic Director & CEO,
Royal Winnipeg Ballet
Photo: Ian McCausland
PERFORMERS
Performance Producer: Anisa Tejpar
EXCERPT FROM MOVER
Choreographer/Dancer: Zab Maboungou
Musician: Elli Miller-Maboungou
Formulez vos abstractions,
Pendant que nous circulons
Map out your abstractions
While we move through the world
The choreographer persists, presenting a work laden with both oblique and forward-facing gestures, where meaning and orientation intermingle.
The drum is the gamemaster, counting out in time the body’s thoughts as it manifests its ability – and its right – to circulate.
Elli Miller-Maboungou
Elli Miller Maboungou is the founder of Jazzamboka, an Afro-jazz band that won the Stingray Award for Best Music Composition at the Montréal International Jazz Festival in 2017. He was born into the Nyata Nyata dance company, and has been drumming ever since. He studied jazz at college and has a bachelor’s degree in music. In his ongoing work with Nyata Nyata, he has played in Congo, Mali and Ivory Coast, and grew up among master drummers. He conducts percussion workshops in Montréal and in various other parts of the world. Elli’s commitment to the ngoma and other Congolese drums, and to the live tradition of drumming, is renewed and deepened by his yearly sojourns to the African continent.
EXCERPT FROM THE CALL
Choreographers: Robert Binet and Esie Mensah
Dancers: Ewan Hartman and Graydon George,
Apprentices of The National Ballet of Canada
Music: Christopher Gerty
The Call creates a world where tension can be resolved and differences can be celebrated through movement. Bringing together the vocabularies of Esie Mensah, rooted in Afrofusion, and Robert
Binet, rooted in ballet, this project challenges and celebrates our ability to communicate through dance. The Call is an invitation to imagine a future where dance is an essential element of our cultural conversation. Our greatest lessons are learned through the body and it is through the body that we can experience true freedom.
Graydon George
Graydon George is an apprentice dancer with the National Ballet of Canada. He graduated from Canada’s National Ballet School in 2022. As a student at NBS, he danced the lead role in Jera Wolfe’s Arise for the Fall for Dance North Festival’s 2022 Signature Series at Meridian Hall. He originated a leading role in Robert Binet and Esie Mensah’s The Call that made its debut in the Assemblée Internationale 2023 Dance Festival.
Ewan Hartman
My name is Ewan Hartman, I’m from London Ontario and I am 19 years old. I’m currently an apprentice at the National Ballet of Canada for the 23/24 season. I trained and graduated from Canada’s National Ballet School and partook in the Company Life Program for a year. During this year, I started training on pointe and am currently in my second year of dancing on pointe. I have been fortunate enough to dance the principal role in Jera Wolfe’s Arise for Fall For Dance North and many more varying roles in Canada’s National Ballet School’s spring showcases.
Photo by Karolina Kuras, courtesy of Canada’s National Ballet School
this identity: woven
Choreography: Peggy Baker and
Derek Souvannavong
Dancer: Derek Souvannavong
Music: John Cage
this identity: woven was created through a highly collaborative process bridging generations, cultural frameworks and artistic practice. This excerpt is the closing episode in a series of three choreographic scenes.
Derek Souvannavong
Toronto-based emerging artist Derek Souvannavong is a 2022 graduate of the Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours Dance Program at York University, where his achievements in choreography and performance were recognized with the Spedding Memorial Scholarship and the Menaka Thakkar Award in World Dance. He has recently premiered solo work this identity: woven at Dance:Made in Canada/Fait au Canada, co–created in collaboration with Peggy Baker through the RBC Emerging Artists Program. Souvannavong has performed in various works by Rumi Jeraj, dreamwalkerdance, Rock Bottom Movement as well as worked with artists Tracey Norman and Angela Blumberg. He is a former company member of Free Flow Dance Theatre where he has performed in productions by Danny Grossman, Edward Kastrau, Terrill Maguire, and Newton Moraes. Also Intrigued by traditional Lao dance forms, Souvannavong wishes to continue exploring relations between Lao dance forms and the western diaspora of contemporary dance.
