Dancing from the Inside Out with Margie Gillis
Monday, January 27, 2025 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
WCD is thrilled to present the workshop, Dancing from the Inside Out with Margie Gillis on Monday, January 27th!
An incredible opportunity for local dancers! Geared towards experienced and professional level dancers.
Move into your body’s experiential wisdom and reveal the soul in motion. Develop your sensitivity to the connection between thought, feeling, spirit and body as you listen in to your body’s inner wisdom, impulses, conversations and emotions. Becoming sensitive to and engaging with this inner life provides information both for expanding well-being, as well as deepening your artistic and creative expression.
What is the architecture of our inner landscape? How can we discover the transcendent moments in ourselves and share this with our audiences? This workshop is for advanced and professional level dancers and focuses on the artist and reaching a profound communication through that art to others.
Register here
Internationally acclaimed dance Artist Margie Gillis is one of the most influential Canadian choreographers/dancers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Her company, the Margie Gillis Dance Foundation, was founded in 1981. Margie has created more than one hundred and fifty creations, solos, duets, and group works, which have been performed around the globe. Her repertoire covers a wide array of topics including the feminine consciousness, the natural world, and the transformative process, all merging in a profound and powerful expression of humanism and emotion. Teaching, mentoring and passing her legacy and creative history are an integral part of her vision. From there
was born the Margie Gillis – Legacy Project Dance Company, which is now performing and touring both new and retrospective works. She has received numerous awards including Officer of the Order of Canada, Chevalier de l’Ordre du Québec, the Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award from the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award Foundation, an Honorary Degree from Concordia University and many more. She continues to develop her craft through experimenting, teaching, creation, innovation and performance. In 2023, Margie Gillis celebrated her 50th career anniversary: 50 years of creation, love, and dance.
Call for Artists
first posting: October 30, 2024
updated posting: December 09, 2024
extended deadline: January 05, 2025
Each season WCD provides multiple entry points for artists to connect, perform and create with WCD. This season we are proud to offer a submission-based, mainstage opportunity and are excited to see who may join us!
WCD’s 24/25 Call to Artists opens the stage to works that are “of today” and/or inspired by the future.
WCD is looking to program 1-2 contemporary dance artists for presentation April 25-27, 2025 at the Rachel Browne Theatre in Winnipeg, Canada. These works will be presented as part of WCD’s 60th Anniversary Season.
Deadline: January 05, 2025
More information can be found HERE
Professional Classes
WCD offers advanced/professional level classes. These classes are typically technique classes, run in conjunction with WCD’s project work, and often serve as company class. Most classes are free.
All current information about WCD class is posted here.
Classes listed here are also open to drop-ins; please register in advance.
To register and reserve your spot please email communications@winnipegscontemporarydancers.ca
UPCOMING CLASSES 24/25:
FALL 2024 CLASSES
November:
November 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
November 12, 13, 14, 15
November 18, 19, 20, 21, 22
All classes run 10:00-11:00am, unless otherwise specified.
*Please do not attend class if you have a fever or are feeling unwell.
All drop-in dancers must complete a waiver before participating in class.
Classes are geared towards advanced/professional level contemporary dancers and most often serve as WCD’s company class. Participants often include WCD dancers, independent dancers, graduates and aspiring graduates of professional training programs, choreographers, and/or those that are working, or aspiring to work, as a contemporary dancer.
Classes are often led by Artistic Director, Jolene Bailie with live drumming by Ian Mikita.
In conjunction with seasonal programming, WCD may also offer workshops with Guest Artists.
24/25 Season Past Classes:
September:
September 05-06, 09-13, 16-19
October:
October 21-23, 28-31
Classes & Workshops 23/24 Season:
In 2023/2024, WCD offered 73 professional-level classes, one workshop, and one Open House event.
scroll down for more info
Masterclass led by Claire O’Neil
Friday, November 17, 10:00am-12:00pm
Free/Pay What You May
WCD is thrilled to welcome Claire O’Neil to lead a masterclass! Claire O’Neil is a co-creator of The Impossible Has Already Happened, a new work being presented by WCD, motivated by the incredible scale and enormity of the climate crisis. Working from our liquid selves, we will practice becoming water – we will flow around obstacles and merge with the ocean’s endless roll. Spaciousness will support our dancing as we expand into our watery beings. Class begins with a warm-up and builds into an exciting rigorous masterclass.
Claire O’Neil Claire is an artistic director, performance maker, dance and movement educator, performing artist , community project builder, mentor and advisor in dance and choreography. She has created, collaborated and presented over 35 performance works. She resided in Belgium for 10 years and developed an international career in performance and teaching dance for prestigious companies in Europe. She returned to New Zealand in 2011 and achieved a Masters in Dance in 2016. Currently Claire is in her first year of a PhD in Creative Practice at the University of Auckland exploring somatic arts and sustainability, whilst continuing her role as Mum to her two girls, Georgie and Iris O’Neil.
Drawing on choreographic excerpts from The Impossible Has Already Happened, this is also an opportunity to experience material developed in process with its co-creators – Canadian choreographer Jennifer Mascall and New Zealand choreographer Claire O’Neil.
Call for Dancers
We are thrilled to commission Guest Choreographer, Jera Wolfe, to create a new work for WCD!
WCD invites Winnipeg-based contemporary dancers who wish to be considered for this project to join us for an in-person open house.
Open House for Dancers
Sunday, November 12th,2024 3:15 pm – 5:00 pm at WCD
About Jera Wolfe:
“Dancing is powerful. It has the strength to heal, tell stories and break down societal walls. Dance has been with us since the earliest moments of existence. Let it be the conduit of ritual, a passing of energy from those who have come before us.” – Jera Wolfe
Wolfe is an artist of Métis heritage. His captivating choreography awarded him the 2019 Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Original Choreography for Trace by Red Sky Performance. His impressive repertoire has been presented by Canadian Stage, Fall For Dance North, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Festival des arts de Saint-Sauveur, Danse Danse, Jacob’s Pillow and more. His choreography has toured Europe, the United States and Canada.
Equally celebrated as a performer, Wolfe has performed across Canada, and on the world stage in the United States and Europe.
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TRY CLASS AT HOME – free online and on demand.
WCD: Class at Home!
Free! Online and on demand!
Geared towards advanced and professional level contemporary dancers, classes are created for a smaller dancing area and as an option for dancers to train at home during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Two versions of each class are available. The first version has a breakdown and teaching of each setting. The second version moves at a much quicker pace, offering the option to run class.
Available for dancers to do at home and at their convenience.
Artist Fees for WCD’s online classes were made possible with the additional support of a Safe at Home grant from the Government of Manitoba.
PAST SEASONS
In 22/23, WCD offered 108 in-person classes and an improvisation workshop with Guest Artist, Daina Ashbee.
In 21/22, WCD offered 88 in-person classes and creative workshops/classes with Guest Artists Sara Porter, Jera Wolfe and Marie-Josée Chartier.
In 20/21, WCD offered 72 in-person classes, free online classes (see WCD: Class at Home, links below) and creative workshops/classes with Guest Artists Syreeta Hector and Marie-Josée Chartier.