Deanna Peters | Mutable Subject | Cut Away

JUL 2015: I'm so chuffed to announce that I'm the recipient of the Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award. The $5000 prize, and additional support from The Dance Centre, supports the presentation of Cut Away during their 2017–18 season. I thank my family, friends, dancer colleagues, teachers, all of the choreographers I've learned from, as well as my mentors, students, collaborating artists, and the many producers, managers, administrators and audience members who have supported my 31 year development from bratty dancer to bratty dance artist. The process is far from over…

MAR 2015: See Cut Away to date condensed into this 2 mins video

MAR 2015: As requested, here's the playlist from our recent showings of Cut Away, ft. musicians from the 1930's–present; LISTEN | track list.

MAR 2015: See these pics by Yvonne Chew of us performing this past January @ Dance Allsorts.

FEB 2015: We perform excerpts of Cut Away as a part of PushOff, curated by Theatre Replacement and 605 Collective, Feb 6 @ The Cultch.

JAN 2015: We perform excerpts of Cut Away for New Works' Dance Allsorts Jan 18 @ the Roundhouse. Join Kim and I after the show for a workshop, everyone welcome!

JAN 2015: Check out these pics by Yvonne Chew of us rehearsing at Kim Stevenson's new studio The Happening, Jan 15.

OCT 2014: Welcome to Cut Away w/ choreographer, performer Deanna Peters, performers Barbara Bourget, Kim Sato, Elissa Hanson, costumes Natalie Purschwitz, lights James Proudfoot, inside eye Alexa Mardon, outside eyes Helen Walkley, Justine A. Chambers & project consultant Kristina Lemieux. Cut Away is generously supported by the British Columbia Arts Council, New Works, The Dance Centre Artist In Residence and The Happening.

OCT 2014: We all came together to combine, overlay and mashup our solo vignettes. We taught each other what we worked on inidividually and played with ordering the parts. Seeing each other's interpretation of the scores was a great way to get to know each other more. This lead us to the question: what do we see when we're not told what we're seeing?

OCT 2014: I find choreographing on myself to be a huge challenge, however, I was motivated by my work with the other performers, students I was teaching, training I was doing and a couple of my peers who came into the studio to work alongside me. I developed scores out of my connection to the ground, the rhythm of my breath and 'pumping' (releasing my weight and rebounding).

OCT 2014: I have worked closely with Elissa over the past seven years, first as a teacher, then as choreographer and fellow performer. She has danced in many of my works, from formal to informal venues, and we got to 'tour' NEW RAW to Edmonton last March. Our familiarity with each other has made creating for Cut Away fun and easy, even when the work was physically and mentally difficult. We put ourselves in our most intimate relationships yet, tying our bodies together, moving skin to skin and jumping with our pants down so we could see our muscles moving. See this rehearsal video of Elissa experimenting with some past and new material.

various shots of barbara bourget dancing in the studio

SEP 2014: Working with Barbara has been very fruitful. We generated a lot of vocabulary, facilitated through our familiarity with one another, Barbara's aptness at, and generosity with, each task we tried and our individual and shared experiences. See this video of Barbara writing all 6 of her names with her pelvis. We also had great chats: What's in a dance? How much time and space is required to shift percetion? Whose perception do we want to shift, our own, the audience's, both? Why?

AUG 2014: Some of the questions I'm working from... How does my current improvisational process apply to performers from outside of contemporary dance? Can I create feminist work without directly referring to feminism, femaleness, femininity? What is dance good for/at?

various shots of Kim Sato dancing in the studio

JUL 2014: Utiliziing her abundant skills in, and knowledge of, hip hop dance and culture (as well as other dance forms), Kim and I worked on changing the spatial orientations of hip hop dance, blowing open it's usual use of space and visual perspective. We also played with slowing her dancing down (shown in this video). Kim did locking choreography on a chair, upside down and on her back, cleaning up the dance floor. She also danced to the beat of her heart, told stories of her experiences in dance battles around the world and tied herself into a breakdancing knot.

various shots of Kim Sato dancing in the studio

JUL 2014: Some quotes from the first days of process w/ Kim: