It’s taken nearly two years and three tries, but Live Art Dance is now ready to welcome audiences back to the theatre with Red Sky Performance’s Trace.
Originally scheduled to run almost two years ago, just as the pandemic was taking hold, Red Sky Performance’s Trace was rescheduled for 2021. But as COVID restrictions continued, the show would once again be postponed.
With restrictions now easing, the contemporary Indigenous performance group stops in Halifax for a single performance on March 12 as part of its 2022 North American spring tour.
“Most presenters of any kind of performing arts have been stuck on the Ground Hog Day treadmill of book, cancel, rebook, repeat,” says Live Art Dance’s artistic director Randy Glynn. “I have to say it’s pretty exciting to now have one that is actually going to launch. Don’t miss this one-of-a-kind show; it’s magic.”
Conceived and directed by Toronto-based Red Sky artistic director Sandra Laronde, Trace is inspired by her Teme-Augama-Anishinaabe origins, taking audiences on a journey that weaves in and out of many worlds: earth, sky, star, water, spirit.
We are traceable to the very beginnings of the universe, our ancestral origins stretching across the Milky Way to the atoms burning inside of us in the ‘here and now’ on earth. Trace is a highly kinetic contemporary dance work inspired by Indigenous (Anishinaabe) sky and star stories, offering a glimpse into our origin as well as our future evolution.
Now in its 22nd year, the award-winning Red Sky’s vision has been to lead in the creation, elevation, and evolution of contemporary Indigenous performance, with much of Sandra’s inspiration coming from the land and culture of her roots with the Teme-Augama-Anishinaabe (People of the Deep Water) in northern Ontario.
Taking its name from the first two words of Laronde’s spirit name Misko Kizhigoo Migizii Kwe, which means “Red Sky Eagle Woman” in Anishinaabemowin (Ojibway) language, under Laronde’s leadership, the group has performed across Canada and internationally since 2003.
“I wanted to create a company that was exciting, inventive, and fresh that aligns itself with the future,” says Laronde on the company’s website.
Live Art Dance presents Red Sky Performance’s Trace at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium (6101 University Ave, Halifax) on March 12. Visit liveartdance.ca for tickets and information.