Courtyard for a Bird

The Hornby Island Music Festival presents Suddenly Dance Theatre's David Ferguson and Lynda Raino in a two-part special evening of contemporary dance under the sky and stars on beautiful Hornby Island.

The first half of the program features COURTYARD FOR A BIRD, a new live dance theatre duet by Ferguson & Raino with masks and costumes designed by Miles Lowry. Celebrating this outdoor venue, COURTYARD FOR A BIRD contrasts visions of the natural world and wilderness with ritual cloister and the manicured garden. The central image: a bird flying in and out of a courtyard; a wild thing dropping into a tamed place; of vivid stillness and turbulence.

The second part of the program features The Kirby Quartet with Suddenly Dance Theatre's NATURE ECSTASY, a silent dance film made for live musical interpretation, created by Miles Lowry and David Ferguson and performed by David Ferguson and Jung ah Chung. This project provides the opportunity to collect musical compositions throughout the videos evolving existence. Recent versions of NATURE ECSTASY have been made by Giorgio Magnanensi with members of the Victoria Symphony at the News Currents Festival, Victoria, BC and by Eclipse Quartet at the Contemporary Arts Forum, in Santa Barbara, USA. In this performance, The Kirby Quartet will use Maurice Ravels String quartet, in F major (1903) as inspiration.

"Their (Jung-Ah Chung & David Ferguson) tense, tempestuous improvisations of the theme of elemental vertigo was a Romantic recognition of the sublime,... ...The duo ritualistically describes the ecstatic dance of natures celebrants, earth spirits or elementals. From an initiatory baptism in calm, glassy water, through Eros, terror, consummation, and bliss, Ferguson and Chung paint an abstract narrative of tempestuous union, surrender, and relinquishing.
- on Nature Ecstasy, Yvonne Owens, Vie des Arts magazine, Montreal 2005

About Suddenly Dance Theatre:

For fifteen years, Suddenly Dance Theatre has been consistently presenting original dance works to the public through original commissions, collaborations, and through Romp! A Festival of Independent Dance (10 Festivals). David Ferguson and Jung-ah Chung are featured in recent media works in collaboration with visual designer/co-director Miles Lowry, including Opium (2005/2006), broadcast nationally on Bravo! Chum Television and Artv Quebec; and the soon-to-be-released Bravo!FACT short film Aisling, based on a visionary poem by Irish author Liam Mac Uistin. Suddenly Dance Theatre is a non-profit society. We gratefully acknowledge the ongoing support of The British Columbia Arts Council and Capital Regional District Arts Development.

Lynda Raino's extensive career in dance and choreography has taken her around the world. She was one of Margie Gillis first teachers, and has collaborated with some of North Americas most highly acclaimed performers, including Bobbi McFerrin and Crystal Pite. She started Big Dance, Canadas first company for large women, and is the founding Artistic Director of Lynda Raino Dance, a school in Victoria BC, now in its 27th year.