Dance In the Downtown Eastside – Carnegie Dance Troupe
Dance in the Downtown Eastside
The Carnegie Dance Troupe!
“Dance connects us to our body, thereby accessing a deep layer underlying our stories, ancient and mythic, raw and immediate. This work hopes to develop and strengthen dance within a community by sowing the seeds of an ongoing dance practice. One of the revelations of past engagement with the Downtown Eastside community is that art might be the most potent tools for survival that human beings have come up with to date and dance might possibly be the most powerful of these tools.” - Karen Jamieson
Our 'Dance In And For Community Program', started in 1990, is a program based on community engagement in dance. Throughout the years this program has been delivered through various projects.
'Dance in the Downtown Eastside' began as a two-year project in 2005, but it went on to become a program of dance education and performance for multicultural and intergenerational residents of this unique and historic neighbourhood. Throughout the years, the program has been led by Karen Jamieson with the help of apprentices including Julie Lebel, Hailey McCloskey, Lindsey Ridgway, and Mirae Rosner, and led by Mirae Rosner and Julie Lebel at some points. In 2022, Rianne Svelnis joined the program as a co-director and now leads the group.
The work in 'Dance in the Downtown Eastside' is less about the movement of muscles and the outer body and more about the movement of the inner self, the invisible dance, the inner architecture, the connections and pathways of energy, information, emotions and fluids. This work allows for absolute inclusiveness for participants – all range of ages and abilities.
The workshops, guided by the participant’s needs and interests, study the basic principles of dance and explore ideas through improvisation.
Weekly workshops at Carnegie Community Centre and SFU Woodwards have led to a number of performed productions and the formation of the Carnegie Dance Troupe.
Stand Your Ground (2007)
Stand Your Ground – Act II (2008)
Procession of Performing Circles (2010)
Techno Carnegie (2010)
Listen (2010)
Connect (2012) - Work in Progress
Connect (2013)
Here (2015) - Working title for what became Metamorphose
Metamorphose (2016)
Recollect (2018) - Work in Progress (2017-2018)
Recollect (2019) - Work in Progress (2019-2020)
Community as Mentor (2022) - Unnamed Showing
Grounded in Community: Carrying it Forward (2023) - Unnamed Showing
We would like to thank our long term partners: Carnegie Community Centre and Simon Fraser University’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement.
Heart of the City Festival and Dancing on the Edge Festival have supported the work of the Carnegie Dance Troupe all these years...thank you!
Long term funding through: Canada Council for the Arts, The Province of British Columbia, BC Arts Council, City of Vancouver
If you are interested in these workshops please give us a call 604.687.6675
