Joe Ink
Movement is Joe Laughlin's first language. The Vancouver-based choreographer and artistic director of the dance company Joe Ink, uses body language to create his own "physical vocabulary" to communicate to audiences around the world.
In 1996, he was the co-recipient of the prestigious Clifford E. Lee Choreography Award and, while in residence at The Banff Centre for the Performing Arts, created the ballet L'Étiquette, for the Banff Festival Ballet. A year later, the production entered the repertoire of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet.
Laughlin has created works for other organizations and his own company, including Swing Theory, which premiered in the Great Hall of the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. He also collaborated with South Africa's Moving into Dance Mophatong Company on Sonke Sisonke/Every Body, which made its debut in Johannesburg in 2002 before enjoying a successful tour of international children's festivals.
Laughlin is perhaps best known for Move It!, an imaginative multigenerational community dance project he created that offers participants an opportunity to explore their own creativity and develop a performance work whose content is based on their experience and needs.
Plans are afoot to develop Move It! as a workshop for dancers and their teachers at British Columbia dance festivals in Surrey and Coquitlam, and as a project for the Vancouver General Hospital's Wellness Centre to aid people with or recovering from cancer.
Laughlin is also working with multimedia artist Jamie Griffiths to create a performance piece that will feature real-time video and audio generated by Laughlin's movements - a full-length work that will be Joe Ink's main touring show for the company's 2004-2005 season.
- Christopher Guly