Litle Mary Arnold, Cori Caulfield & yours truly at the Firehall Arts Centre  July 10 2017

My friend dance dress designer “Little” Mary Arnold and her paramour Peter invited me to attend the Dancing on the Edge Festival –Eddge 4 this past Monday at the Firehall Arts Centre. We had one purpose and that was to witness dancer Cori Caulfield dance. We had not seen her do this for some years.

In my amateur view of dance in Vancouver I would state that only the (alas!) now gone to Toronto Day Helesic, and Crystal Pite (when she danced) were her equal.

The whole night was a frustration for me as I could not put my camera to eye to take pictures. My camera is noiseless and I use no flash but somehow I suspected I would have been ejected if I had tried. So I took a few with the camera on my lap (unfortunately the person’s head in front of me was in the way).This is my only apology for the lousy photographs.

As an aside I sometimes wonder if one has photographed dance since 1991 I would be given some slack. That is not the case.

The evening began with (excerpt from) Squin) with my Cababayan Ralph Escamillan. His solo performance was truly on the edge. I found it a tad difficult to follow even though I knew how tough it was for him. In the end I came to accept the performance as unique. In modern dance one must be challenged. I was. Not clear in the program but I believe that the music which synchronized and at times purposely unsychronized with the dance was the work of Stefan Seslija.

The second segment was in three parts. It was called The Poets and it featured a solo performance of unique tap dancing by Cori Caulfield’s sister Hailley. The second was by the young students of Cori Caulfield’s Dance School.

We were all eyes for the third part featuring a performance that was slow and hot (for a hot day) that oozed with eroticism. I had never quite seen Cori Caulfield do anything like this before. We were charmed.

Next in line was Compass with Olivia C. Davies as solo dancer and with Rosemary Georgeson (storyteller) narrating the beginning.

This work was dark and mysterious. It involved moves that were not graceful. Perhaps her moves as explained in the program were to state a hard and difficult narrative.