About
Following the success of their annual site specific dance show Piss in the Pool, Sasha and Andrew wanted to find another way to move contemporary dance out of the traditional theatre setting. In Short&Sweet, contemporary dance infiltrates a bar/nightclub venue, challenging choreographers with the task of creating short works and presenting them back-to-back in a cabaret style setting.
Short & Sweet follows these simple rules: Invited choreographers are given carte blanche to present whatever they want. as long as it is under five minutes! A timekeeper is present and any artist going over the allotted time frame is immediately cut off.
History
The first Short&Sweet took place at Club Lambi, where more than 250 people came to see a broad spectrum of Montreal choreographers present their work. For this 1st event artists were asked to create a 5-minute piece in 2 weeks, challenging each choreographer to work more spontaneously.
The event caused such a buzz that wants&needs was invited to create a new version of Short&Sweet for the Festival OFF.T.A., which ran concurrently to the Festival Transameriques in Montreal. For this version, Sasha and Andrew curated the event by asking choreographers to submit written proposals that fit the spirit of Short&Sweet: in 3 lines or less. The choreographers were chosen only from the 3-line description of their projects and no biographies or CV's were required. This democratic selection processes allowed the public to discover some great work from choreographers who never get the opportunity to show in traditional dance venues like Espace Tangente, 303, and L'agora de la danse.
New Version
The newest version of Short&Sweet is entitled Shorter&Sweeter. For this edition, experienced and emerging choreographers will be faced with an even greater challenge of creating a consice idea in 3 minutes or less! The challenge will force choreographers to consider what exactly can be accomplished in this time constraint and to really keep their movement ideas presice!
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The Short&Sweet events have been praised for bringing Montreal's
contemporary dance community together, bridging the gaps of language, age and experience. The event has also allowed choreographers a rare chance to discuss their craft with one another.
Although the original goal was for choreographers to question their artistic practice, one of the unintentional benefits of Short&Sweet is the way that audiences have embraced the format of the event. The evening offers an extremely entertaining and un-intimidating format for the audience to see contemporary dance work.
Some of the choreographers who have participated in Short&Sweet have included: Dana Michel, Andrew Tay, Sasha Kleinplatz, Namchi Bazaar, Thea Patterson, Katie Ward, Peter Trosztmer, Audrey Juteau, Fred Gravel, Marie Beland, Katie Ewald, Silvy Panet-Raymond (co-founder of Espace Tangente), Ben Read, Anne Theriault, Andrew Turner, Jacob Wren, Leanne Dyer, Audrée Juteau, Jean-sebastien Lourdais, Emma Howes, Annabelle Savard, Claudia Fancello, David Rancourt, Annie Gagnon, Christiane Bourget, Allyson Wishnousky, Christian Le Blanc, the Chymera project, and the Solid State Breakdance collective. |
