Here comes the hotstepper?
Forget Top 40 dance parties — Ace Burpee’s sister Susie is all about modern-dance magic
Amie Lesyk

Choreographer Susie Burpee sits with her legs stretched out in front of her, balancing them on the heels of her dancer’s shoes.

She leans over, places her hands on her knees and looks up, watching a group of dancers as they practise the new piece she’s choreographing for her upcoming Winnipeg show.

“That sounds really good, you guys,” she says, smiling, her eyes still on the dancers.

“They can’t hear me,” she laughs.

While talking to the 35-year-old dance artist, I easily sense her passion for modern dance and choreography.

Passion is a requirement in this game, as dance is not an easy craft. It takes time to learn and entails a great deal of practice. It’s incredibly physical and it’s a demanding artistic pursuit that calls for around-the-clock commitment.

It’s a challenge to make a living as a dancer, and it’s still more challenging for a choreographer to keep her artistic vision intact while struggling to pay the bills.

Burpee has embraced such trials because... well, because it’s what she was meant to do.

She says she’s been dancing since she was a little kid in Cook’s Creek, Man., and says that she and little brother Dave (known to Winnipeggers as Hot 103 morning man Ace) were determined to have an audience early in life. Their parents were forced to sit through many a show, including performances by their band, The Mischievous Cats.

“I believe we wrote a song called On the Road,’” Ace says. “It was the precursor to songs like Mötley Crüe’s Home Sweet Home and Bon Jovi’s Dead or Alive.

“I didn’t actually do anything. She wrote it and played it. My parents were so tolerant of the shows, I mean, because they were terrible.”

Susie laughs at her bro’s memories of their early performances.

“I don’t even think my parents could see us,” she says. “We’d turn off the lights in the living room to try and make atmosphere.”

Susie says Ace was sucked into the world of culture because her parents would drive in to Winnipeg for her dance classes as often as four times a week, dragging him along for the ride.

“My mom would always try to culturally enrich him while I was at dance class, and she’d drag him off to the art gallery and all this horrible stuff like craft shows,” she laughs.

Though she now lives in Toronto, Susie went through (and completed) the professional program at the School of Contemporary Dancers here in Winnipeg.

“I actually transitioned into modern (dance) fairly early,” she says. “It seemed normal to me, doing these bizarre things. I’m sure a lot of my friends thought it was really strange, but it was just a good fit. I never questioned it.”

After graduating from the SCD, Burpee went on to study at the Merce Cunningham Studio and the Jose Limon Institute in New York City. As a dancer, she has performed with companies such as Ruth Cansfield Dance (Winnipeg), Le Groupe Dance Lab (Ottawa) and Dancemakers (Toronto).

But it is clear to Burpee that she wants to make her mark as a choreographer.

“It was really, for me, key to figure out my choreographic voice (through) making solos on myself,” she says. “I needed to go through that journey to get at what I’m really interested in.”

Burpee will get a chance to put her choreography on display in Winnipeg when she returns to the city to present Mischance and Fair Fortune and The Parlour Rollers.

In The Parlour Rollers, she experiments with choreography for five female dancers, Jennifer Essex, Johanna Riley, Sarah Roche, Natasha Torres-Garner and Lise MacMillan. Based on a video clip of show pigeons, the piece draws connections between a flock of birds and a group of women.

“I’m interested in work that builds character, that allows character development,” she says. “The movement I enjoy is the movement that changes the way a person looks… movement that’s transformative.”

As Burpee speaks, the dancers have gathered around a piano on the dance floor in front of us. Local musician Christine Fellows sits at the keys, and the choreographer explains that she’s pushing her boundaries by including vocals in The Parlour Rollers.

“You have a responsibility to yourself and your own ideas. You have to be brave,” Burpee says. “It’s a great risk for me to present stuff that has (vocals) in it. It’s not commonly done. “

Burpee is visibly thrilled by the music that Fellows and her husband, John K. Samson (of The Weakerthans), have created for The Parlour Rollers, and she watches excitedly as the girls make a first attempt at singing their parts.

Burpee and Fellows have collaborated for years despite living in different cities. Fellows and Samson also created the music for Mischance and Fair Fortune, which follows The Parlour Rollers at the Winnipeg show.

Mischance and Fair Fortune — which took home two Dora Mavor Moore Awards in 2005 — was inspired by Ovid’s ill-fated tale of Pyramus and Thisbe, lovers who lived separated by a wall. Burpee will be partnered by former WCD dancer Dan Wild for the performance.

After her show wraps, Burpee is slated to teach some master classes at the School of Contemporary Dance alongside some of her former instructors.

“Its wonderful for out-of-province graduates to come back and our current professional students to see artists… that have gone out across the country,” says Faye Thomson, co-director at the school. “She certainly has her own unique choreographic voice.”

Burpee hopes that voice comes through in everything she creates.

“That’s ultimately what I want to do,” she says. “When I get people in the audience and I’m showing them something.. the ultimate thing is to have them feel... whatever it is... they’re feeling in the moment.

“I think of all the times when I’ve been to live performances… and I actually forget myself... and have a feeling. You can’t put a price on that.”

Burpee will likely get an extra thrill if she can move her Winnipeg audiences, which will include many old friends, family members and peers.

But will she vouch for her brother’s dancing skills?

“He’s got this deep squat,” she laughs, describing one of her brother’s signature moves. “I should totally use it in my show.”