Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - May 11, 1985, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press May pages entertainment dance fights to survive by Doug Whiteway contemporary danc ers Canada artistic director Tedd Robinson admits to a sense of failure Over the Lack of interest Winni Eggers exhibit in out town dance for something less than pure love of dance and something More Akin to civic Pride have driven locals to fill the seats for performances of the Royal Winnipeg bal let and the contemporary but Book an out province dance company into Winnipeg and you can almost hear the crickets Chir Ruping in the concert and others at contemporary including founding artistic director Rachel Browne and general manager Evelyn pol have determined to Hammer at this Wall of indifference by present ing at the Gas station theatre six Canadian modern dance companies and individuals in an eight Day beginning 20 years billed As the first festival of Canadian modern the event at one a Celebration of contemporary dancers Canadas 20 years in the business the Lon Gest in the but at another organizers Hope audiences will be sufficiently intrigued with the visitors to have and others like this City May be uniquely Xeno phobic As far As touring companies but it shares with the rest of the country a certain coolness toward the Art of modern in the Market for modern a study prepared for the Federal department of Communia said modern dance is certainly not the strongest supported amongst the various Art by organizing the Robin son and the rest Hope not Only to develop a larger audience in Winni Peg for modern dance but also to become part of a concerted nation wide Effort to preserve and enhance Competition for the shrinking entertainment Dollar is increasing and we need a boost for modern Robinson though critically acclaimed and Well received by audiences of dance Canadas modern dance companies in recent years have found it increasingly difficult to Book the Tours which Are their lifes Canada Council funds support 23 modern dance companies Esti mates Ron Community and sponsor development animator with the councils touring at least another half dozen More tour within the the multiplicity of dance companies is a sign of a healthy Art form but the size of the audience prepared to receive them int conducive to Lon term Holgerson notes that there Are Only 16 major Urban centres from Victoria to and if you Divide 23 into it int where dance companies must tour and tour they must is to the Small some 200 Poten tial communities with fewer than this is a prime focus for the Small dance compan As far As size goes Many of the companies have fewer than 10 members modern dance troupes Are Ideal for Small communities there affordable and travel says Jeanpaul dance and theatre Grants coordinator for the Canada councils touring its a difficult Market outside the Large Urban Small centres Are nervous about modern wherever the truth May modern dance has a popu Lar reputation of being and difficult the social or personal concerns of a choreographer in Montreal As expressed through the dance May perplex and a Farmer in big Holgerson agrees there is an image problem or what he Calls a packaging dance tends to be packaged in a somewhat Avant Garde kind of Way and the picture int that he it has to look like something is a lot More Richard general Man Ager of the Vancouver based Judith Marcuse repertory dance Compa says there is a sense that modern dance is difficult but he with proper promotion and a demystification can take it has if a Small Community is turned off by modern he then it May be three or four years before the Community will to try it these companies cant afford to lose As Strong As Gretzky we want to show that dancers Are real he and we want to show there As Tough and As Strong and As versatile As Wayne Gretzky or As Macho As anything else might the image problem is one reason the Canada Council has set up a think tank next month for Mem Bers of the modern dance commune festivals dance schedule the festival of Modem dance which begins wednesday at the Gas station theatre promises to be eight Days of unrestrained dance that this City Hast seen in a Long heres the where and when d thursday Desrosiers dance a Winnipeg debut for the Toronto based headed by 32yearold choreographer Robert described As the wild child of according to one reviewer he spins the most brilliantly bizarre and dreamlike images any choreographer around has to d saturday Margie the name Isadora Duncan follows this Independent Montreal dancer around wherever she unseen in Winnipeg since says the new York times a Knock 2225 contemporary danc ers Canada appears on stage in a program with each of the following companies Toronto dance Toronto leading contemporary troupe 0 vertigo trenchant new wave from Montreal a Winni Peg Judith manuses dance company the Vancouver based company with a accessible repertoire and Karen Jameson also of run by a woman considered to be one of Canadas hottest Young choreographers another Winnipeg Showtime Are 8 nightly and May tickets for Desrosiers and Gilus Are and for seniors and for contemporary dancers and guest tickets Are and Robert at left and with Claudia brings a troupe Here next As Well As for chamber music groups another Porta ble Art form suffering from Ester Holgerson wont say what Strate Gies he would like to see come out of the think but he indicates children and Young already familiar with the form of contemporary dance through Rock videos and Are a natural another focus of the think tank will be the other major problem of modern dance with As Many As 30 companies expecting to tour during the Brief season often just january and according to its surprising they dont crash into each other on the Treyve come because there has been no nation Al modern dance companies have found themselves booking into a City that has just finished with another this has led to disastrous results at the Box office and in the company balance of deficits which the Canada Council ends up having to reduce last says there were years when you would see nine companies in Victoria in the space of a month and a it just Doest already the Canada Council has reached an agreement with its companies whereby each company will be eligible for tour funding for two years with a third year reducing to 15 the number of modern dance groups touring the country at any one time at least with Council funds groups May apply elsewhere for tour besides being a first step in rationalizing the sys the reduced says is because theres no its not possible to tour All of he referring to recent cuts to Canada Council funding and the erosion of inflation on its an Nual allotment from cutbacks in Public spending for the arts have to be like it or Holgerson he Doest hold out great Hopes for fundraising from the private sector in Light of the current economic situation though he says corporate sponsorship is largely unexplored there is Only one solution and that is at the Box he raising ticket prices within accept Able limits is a Small part of but the real work is to increase a task All agree is Formi most modern dance compan ies dont have the staff or the exper Tise to mount High profile publicity campaigns to attract new creating a need one of the Hopes of next months think Holgerson is to begin the coordination of Acom prehensile National in the Best Madison Avenue he says the need Tor Modem dance has to be although regretting the he says its like the pet Rock no one needed one of the things until a publicity Campaign convinced peo ple they he the dance companies Are but How much time is there to remedy the situation some observers say it will take a Genera Tion to build the kind of dance audience that Ballet now enjoys in most Canadian centres which took since the 50s to whether the Many modern dance companies in Canada can hold out that Long is there Are few predictions a major upturn in the econ omy will come Marcuse worries that a survival of the fittest will when a company is ineligible for Canada Council touring funds for a year and cant raise funds it May degenerate into a group just paid to rehearse and do the Odd show at and the company might the danger of falling by the Wayside is definitely there for a lot of Gagnon a conservative trend in program Ming is seen As another potential to Appeal to donors and artistic directors May feel pressure to make their shows More popular or though no one wants to alienate an audience or a no particularly modern dancers who see themselves on the cutting Edge of the Art wants to pander to them despite a Host of some kind of crazy optimism there Are and a Lousy and a population mesmerized by but theres one people will still want live dance Marcuse bet Amax formats share of videocassette Market shrinks by Jonathan Takiff Knight Ridder newspapers while unit sales climbed dramatically for All videocassette recorder manufacturers last the Beta Max formats share of the Market dropped to 19 per cent from 25 per and this despite some potent technological the be tampax format could be taking it even harder on the since some Loyal allies Are deserting the longtime bet Amax manufacturer Sanyo has just begun Selling vhf format decks in Japan As they have been elsewhere in the world under their Fisher Brand bet backing company in which Sony holds a sizable Finan Cial has informed its i sound and sight marketing Force they will have new vhf decks to sell alongside their Beta format Vars by another Early Beta has been carrying inventory in both video formats for a year that leaves product Developer Sony and Aida a Sony subsidiary As the Only Var manufacturing companies devoted strictly to the Beta Aida reportedly was planning to introduce a two Mouth dubbing Var a combo unit with we Beta transport and one vhf transport for simplified program transferring Between but that scheme has been scotched by voluntary agreement of the electronic tries association of Japan not to make or Export two none dubbing video decks a concept that has already raised the copyright infringement ire of the motion Pic Ture association of introduce Tion this summer will be a Beta Var with a Builtin decoder for extracting the sur round sound process encoded an Many motion Sony is moving into new territory this june with its downsized video format camcorder and company officials predict that 9mm is the video wave of the but at the same Sony is reiterating its 10year commitment to Beta and the formats base of 5 million units with a new upscale to line of four Superb Eta Vars and a Superb Eta camcorder each promising 20 percent better picture Resolution than the log dial system Sony new flagship Superb Eta Model slhf900 list has a unique and rather exciting jog dial shuttle ring which brings semiprofessional editing capabilities to a Home the Model also offers Builtin its multichannel to sound reception in preparation for the stereo broadcasts that Abc plans to Olfer in the in july the excellent sounding Beta wifi audio recording other special touches include Pic Ture swing an extra Antenna output input Loop for pay to de a second set of audio video output and an editing Mode circuit for optimum Quality dubbing from another the bidirectional jog dial works in the fashion of film editing for manipulating Crys Tal Frame Frame picture movement on the surround ing shuttle ring lets you spin and search at variable speeds from 15 slow motion to betas can fast Speed in Forward and used with the decks electronic curing the jog dial shuttle ring makes it a snap to mine the opening and closing shots of eight program segments for Fer on to a second the dubbing process becomes even More convenient with Sony cute Little video which has the brain Power to shuffle and preview the tape segments in any order and then neatly Transfer the lot to a second Var with Handoff the jog dial also is used to pro Gram the Vars timer and tuner Superb Eta technology delivers sharper picture detail by shifting the luminance picture brightness car Rier signal up to 800 Khz and by narrowing the video head Width to minimize interference from Adja cent reducing tape ;