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Peggy Baker brings the richness, depth, and immediacy of her physical practice into play in a class driven by dynamism and musicality, and focused on the expressive and kinetic potential of our bodies. The work unfolds fluidly, and with refreshing shifts of focus, through a wide range of vivid and invigorating movement explorations that address essential issues of impulse and action.

October 27, 28, 29, 20 & 31
10-11:30 am
Sugar Foot Ballroom 10545-81st ave
$25 drop in
$100 for all 5 classes

Peggy Baker is acclaimed as one of the most outstanding and influential contemporary dancers of her generation. Her unique abilities are the product of an education in both dance and theatre, pursued initially through the drama department of the University of Alberta, with The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, and in New York at the Martha Graham School and the Herbert Berghof Studio. She began her professional career in Toronto in 1974, as a founding member, and later artistic director, of Dancemakers, toured internationally as a prominent member of Lar Lubovitch’s celebrated New York company throughout the eighties, and joined Mikhail Baryshnikov and Mark Morris for the inaugural season of their White Oak Dance Project in 1990, subsequently forging important creative relationships with Paul-André Fortier (Montreal), James Kudelka (Toronto), and Doug Varone (New York) through numerous performance projects.

She established Peggy Baker Dance Projects in 1990, and for the first 18 years she dedicated herself to solo performance, winning rapturous praise for the eloquence and depth of her dancing, and accolades for her collaborative partnerships with extraordinary musicians and designers. Since 2009 her choreography has focused on works for small ensemble. Over its 23-year history Peggy Baker Dance Projects has been presented at major festivals and dance centres in North America, Asia and Europe including Danspace, The Kitchen, Symphony Space and The Harkness Festival in New York; the Luckman Center in Los Angeles; Jacob’s Pillow; the Copenhagen International Dance Festival; the Time Festival in Ghent, Belgium; MoDaFe in Seoul, Korea; the Canada Dance Festival in Ottawa, The High Performance Rodeo in Calgary, and in three seasons at L’Agora de la danse in Montreal. She has premiered three all-night choreographic events for Toronto’s Scotia Bank Nuit Blanche, situated her hour long choreographic installation move – danced by local community members – in a public market in St. Catharines Ontario, and presented interior with moving figures – four dances, performed simultaneously in four different spaces for a span of 70 minutes – at the Art Gallery Ontario.

Among her many honours are the Governor General’s Award for Lifetime Achievement (2009), the 2006 Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Order of Canada, the Order of Ontario, five Dora Mavor Moore Awards, the Toronto Arts Council’s 2002 Margo Bindhardt Award, Honorary Doctorates from the University of Calgary and York, the 2010 Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts, and a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.

A master teacher, Ms Baker teaches regularly at universities and professional training programs throughout Canada and the U.S. including the Juilliard School, the School at Jacob’s Pillow, American Dance Festival, NYU, UC Santa Barbara, Philadelphia’s Dance Advance, York University, the University of Calgary, the School of Toronto Dance Theatre, and the Contemporary Arts Summer Institute at Simon Fraser University where she was director of dance from 1991 – 1994. She is the first ever Artist-in-Residence at Canada’s National Ballet School, appointed in 1992.

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