CanAsian Dance Festival
Toronto 43° 39' 12.53" N, 79° 23' 2.16" W Dance Group Moderator
About Us
Mandate
The CanAsian Dance Festival fosters and promotes diverse expressions of Asian aesthetics through dance in Canada. Through an annual festival and artistic and professional development activities the CanAsian Dance Festival:
Supports the presentation of traditional dance art forms as well as new forms that come out of traditional dance vocabularies, and the integration of contemporary and traditional forms and concepts through the presentation of dance concerts; Supports the creation of original Canadian dance by commissioning outstanding choreographers to create new work and by presenting that work to the Canadian public; Supports the continued professional development of choreographers and dancers through the presentation of dance concerts to the public and through the education of choreographers and dancers through its workshops, master classes, panel discussions and forums; Aims to inform the larger dance community and the general public of the diversity of dance artistry in Canadian society through its public performances, workshops, classes and forums. It celebrates that diversity and promotes greater acceptance and understanding within society.
Artistic Director
Denise Fujiwara
Denise Fujiwara is a choreographer, dancer, actor, dance impresario and teacher with over 28 years of professional experience.
She began her interesting career in childhood, as a gymnast, when she competed internationally for the Canadian Modern Gymnastics team. Upon completing an Honours B.F.A. in Dance at York University, she became one of the founders of T.I.D.E. (Toronto Independent Dance Enterprise). Here she was instrumental in the creation of a diverse body of work for the now-defunct but still notorious company that danced across Canada for 10 years.
In 1991 she formed her own company, Fujiwara Dance Inventions, to house the development of her solo projects. To date her six solo dance concerts, Spontaneous Combustion, Vanishing Acts, Sumida River, Elle Laments, Brief Incarnations and Komachi have garnered praise across Canada. Her work has toured to festivals in the United States, South America, Europe and Asia. Her recent foray into ensemble choreography resulted in Conference of the Birds, a work for 9 dancers and 3 musicians that was called, "- the best thing to premiere at the (fFIDA) festival in many a year" by the Toronto Star.
In addition to her career as a dance artist, Ms. Fujiwara works in film and television. Walls, a CBC Television documentary about her life and work by celebrated filmmaker Jeremy Podeswa, won the 1995 Gemini Award for Best Performing Arts Program. In 1997 she co-founded the CanAsian Dance Festival where she is the Artistic Director.
Fujiwara's approaches to the disciplines of dance technique, improvisation, performance and choreography have developed over more than two decades of intensive research, practice and performance. She has had remarkable mentors and teachers including Tokyo Butoh master Natsu Nakajima, Montreal dance pedagogue Elizabeth Langley, the now disbanded Mangrove Dance Collective of San Francisco, the American theatre director Anne Bogart, and the late choreographer Judy Jarvis.