Manahatta and Totem
New works from ruth cansfield dance
Jared Story

“I am man, hear me roar.” Men aren’t exactly the suffering side in the game of gender inequality, so that line doesn’t exactly paint the right picture — unless you’re talking about the world of dance, where women have been kicking ass for years, leaving boys with stereotypical, one-dimensional roles.

Not anymore, thanks to Ruth Cansfield’s latest creation.

“Totem is a piece about identity, and it features a male dancer, which is a bit of a departure for me,” Cansfield says. “When you’re a female choreographer, often you’re drawn towards people within your own gender to highlight. I’ve done that for a number of years and decided to expand my scope and delve into the male psyche. I had a willing dancer in Michael Blais.

“It’s very strange. It’s a strange piece, because what I didn’t want to do was a stereotype,” she continues. “Often when a woman starts delving into a man’s feelings or emotions it turns into one of two things: one is the suffering male being oppressed; the other is the jock-like image.

“Although those are characteristics, they seem to be overplayed until it almost seems to be satirical. It doesn’t seem honest or sometimes even relevant. I think contemporary dance should reflect today.”

But when Cansfield calls Totem “strange,” she doesn’t mean the this-is-so-messed, David Lynch kind of strange.

“Strange, but not heavy strange,” Cansfield clarifies. “It’s light strange. It’s warm, it’s tender, it’s intellectual, and it’s humorous, and that’s hard to achieve.

“You find in contemporary dance it’s easier to go to angst and more difficult to do the light work, to depict honestly and not do something that is so overdone. “

Because this is a new venture for Cansfield, Totem has taken quite a while to produce.

To be honest, it isn’t even finished.

“This piece has actually taken a couple of years to develop,” she says. “Even though it’s about 18 minutes long right now, it’s a preview of the piece. There is still more to come.”

She adds: “When you’re going into a new arena — this new concept and new idea and the desire I have to explore with working with male dancers — of course it’s going to take me longer because it’s new. It’s complex. When you’re dealing with the psychology of some other person it’s complex. You have to pay homage to that in a respectful fashion.”

Another new piece in the latest presentation by Ruth Cansfield Dance is Manahatta. The piece features the whole company exploring the idea of community, and it was inspired by a visit to New York City.

“I think it’s a city that’s filled with optimism, vitality and exuberance. It’s very busy. I was very influenced by the way things interact and how bursts of communication hither and flither,” says Cansfield, who has been choreographing in Winnipeg for the past two decades. “Coming back here… It’s a smaller sense of community,” she says. “Those two influences came together in this piece in an abstract sense.”

Also on the bill is the repertory piece Black Angels.