The Dance Centre presents Global Dance Connections:

The 7th biennial Dance In Vancouver

Dance In Vancouver celebrates the energy and originality of the city's contemporary dance scene, showcasing excerpts of recent works by some of British Columbia's most exciting companies.

Program One Wednesday October 14, 7pm and Saturday October 17, 9pm

MovEnt + the plastic orchid factory + Rob Kitsos & Dancers

MovEnt's SURGE is about power, both personal and physical. Three dancers devour Day Helesic's full-throttle, high velocity choreography, to Gordon Cobb's propulsive industrial score, in a riveting tribute to strength and endurance. In the plastic orchid factory's endORPHIN. James Gnam's intricate choreography for three dancers seamlessly meshes the clean lines of ballet with contemporary movement, sound and design to frame the beauty and stoicism inherent in contemporary dysfunction. Rob Kitsos & Dancers performs WAKE, an ensemble work examining the perspectives of individuals living in an urban environment.

Program Two Wednesday October 14, 9pm and Saturday October 17, 7pm

Animals of Distinction  + The 605 Collective

Dana Gingras has earned a dazzling international reputation as part of The Holy Body Tattoo and now with her solo project Animals of Distinction. Two duets from Smash Up combine dance with cutting edge multimedia: Chain Reaction sets the movements of Gingras and Sarah Doucet against the motion of animated projections, while Double Bubble - a new duet for Susan Elliott and Shay Kuebler - spirals into a double dare that runs wildly out of control. Gingras will also show an excerpt from a new piece being created specially for the 605 Collective which exploits the supreme versatility of the five dancers in a work packed with athletic movement and radical shifts in dynamics.

Program Three Thursday October 15, 7pm and Friday October 16, 9pm

Sara Coffin + MOVE: the company + MACHiNENOiSY

Award-winning young choreographer Sara Coffin's new duet Dropped Signal explores our need for togetherness, both real and virtual. Josh Beamish's MOVE: the company returns from sensationally successful tours around North America with Sold Doubt, a fast-flowing and inventive response to the Vitamin String Quartet's reinterpretations of the music of No Doubt. The myth of the mermaid inspires He was swimming the other way, a multilayered quartet created by MACHiNENOiSY's Delia Brett which moves in sad and sensual waves through the absurd, the tragic and the playful.

Program Four Thursday October 15, 9pm and Friday October 16, 7pm

Co. ERASGA + Kinesis Dance

Alvin Erasga Tolentino's PARADIS/Paradise is an intercontinental collaboration with French composer Emmanuel de St Aubin, who accompanies Tolentino's magnetic solo performance live. Raw, bold and surprising palates of sounds, imagery and movement construct an electrifying abstract meditation on the concept of paradise. In Kinesis Dance's BOX4, a quartet of dancers powers through a work of extreme tension in a mysteriously confined space. Choreographer Paraskevas Terezakis pushes his meaty, dense vocabulary to new limits, asking how we can find individual space and freedom in a rapidly shrinking world.

Program Five Sunday October 18 at 7pm

Karen Jamieson Dance

Karen Jamieson's groundbreaking dance works employ a mythic, poetic language to explore the tension between form and energy. Agon: Collected Works presents a reworking of the classic Solo From Chaos (1982), the devastating duet Man Within (1989) and new work Agon (2008).