February 20, 2003 -

OTTAWA -- Japan's Kim Itoh + The Glorious Future perform Dead and Alive - body on the borderline and I want to hold you in the Theatre of the National Arts Centre on Tuesday March 11 at 20:00. Choreographer-dancer Kim Itoh, "the bad boy of Butoh", continues to be a theatrical, cheeky, ferociously independent hellraiser. His manic, ironic, and occasionally disturbing fusion of ballet, post-Butoh expressive contemporary dance, and Western theatre is too unpredictable to categorize; his impact veers from the ghostly to the effervescent, from edgily sarcastic to sublimely languid. Itoh is a choreographer with a canny sense of theatre, incorporating movement, music and lighting into a witty stage picture that is always electrifying. Reviewers rave about his dramatic Butoh/Western fusion and the irony that dominates the Itoh experience -- from the company name to his manic, comically overtoned performances. Note : there is nudity in this production

This performance by Kim Itoh + The Glorious Future is part of the NAC's Dance Series B, which is sponsored by The New RO Cable 6.

Kim Itoh practiced Butoh (the expressive Japanese postwar avant-garde dance form) under Anzu Furukawa and in 1990, he started his solo work. His past activities include solo tours in Japan and Europe, workshops, guest performances for numerous dance companies and projects, and collaborations with musicians and artists. In 1995, he established his own dance company, Kim Itoh + The Glorious Future. Based on the theme of extraordinary quality in ordinary everyday life, the company expresses ideas with a touch of sarcasm and humour. In 1996, Itoh won the International Choreography Award and National Advisory Panel Award at the 5th Rencontres Chorégraphiques Internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis for Dead and Alive ~ body on the borderline. In 2000, Kim Itoh joined the CJ8 Canada/Japan Dance Partnership's Canadian tour in which a piece he created, Me and I, received rave reviews and was performed in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and Vancouver. He tours annually in Japan and abroad.

There are currently ten The Glorious Future dancers, all of whom have studied dance in Itoh's workshops. Although Itoh is the central figure in creating works, the members present their ideas, and regular practice sessions are the base of their creative activities. Their works include Lord of Flies, Dead and Alive ~ body on the borderline, Body Market, ANATA, rmk, 10-minutes Prince, Sally, _Õ¡Áfai¡Á and 3SEX. Performances in France, the U.K, Germany, Spain, and Argentina have been received with enthusiasm.

"It's left to Kim Itoh to rescue the night. His dance company uses wit and sarcasm to explore the exceptional in the ordinary"

Stage Left, Melbourne Festival

" ...generated such powerful images that they lingered persistently in the mind."

Dance Europe

One of Kim Itoh's most admired works was inspired by novelist Saiichi Maruya's comment "The modern Japanese are neither alive nor dead." Itoh uses powerful movements, punctuated by flawless timing, to bring into focus the elusive delineation between life and death, shape and shadow. His answer to the question 'What is a truly living body?' is Dead and Alive ~ body on the borderline, a quartet that contrives to be both serious and funny at the same time, a piece that employs medical terms such as "brain death" to explore the notion of non-functional existence.

Created in July 2000, I want to hold you examines communication in human relations, focusing on those between men and women, an inexhaustible source of inspiration. Here these are treated with the choreographer's sense of discipline, spareness, and irony. The embrace of absence, the atmosphere of reverie, the harried search for the other are explored in this poignant piece. Nine dancers, including the choreographer himself, draw us along with them into an unending search.

Kim Itoh + The Glorious Future perform in the Theatre of the National Arts Centre on Tuesday, March 11, 2003 at 20:30. Tickets are $37, $34, and $27, and $19.25, $17.75 and $14.25 for students (upon presentation of a valid student ID card). Tickets are available at the NAC Box Office (in person) and through Ticketmaster (with surcharges) at (613) 755-1111; Ticketmaster may also be accessed through the NAC's website at www.nac-cna.ca. Last-minute tickets (subject to availability) for full-time students are $9.50 at the Live Rush Centre in the NAC Foyer after 18:00 on the day of performance only, upon presentation of a valid 'Live Rush' card.

Photos for all dance events can be viewed and downloaded at: www.nac-cna.ca/media/

Information:
Gerald Morris
Marketing and Media Relations,
NAC Dance Department
(613) 947-7000, ext. 249
gmorris@nac-cna.ca