Vision and Mandate

REAson d'etre dance strives to provide artistic expression through movement, inclusive of age, ability, level or background. We create, stage and program dance works based on Contact Improvisation so we can utilize the inclusiveness that can be a part of this dance form. Our vision is for both professional dancers and everyday people to be inspired by and invigorated through Contact Improvisation. This mandate involves initiatives that work to dismantle racism and ableism and other "isms", since their existence hinders us in achieving our mandate. We are committed to examining the art form of Contact Improvisation and acknowledging its history of inequity, ableism, and racism. We strive to engage in a continuing process of educating ourselves and acting for change.

We believe that increasing accessibility breaks down barriers to dance, creating stunning humanity that is the heart of the artistic aesthetic we reach for. 

Our contact dance jams are the root from which all our programming grows. Our jams are a mix of performance, research, rehearsal, and incubator. A musician improvises, sweeping dancers into explorations of different themes. We believe teaming Contact Dance with exceptional live music deepens the form. The jams build community. It's about relationships, with the quality of communication being the aesthetic measure. 

Classes in functional movement help Contact Dancers move with ease and prevent injury. We see healthy movement as beautiful and reach for it as an artistic aesthetic. 

The creative meeting of dancers and musicians at our Jams gives birth to ideas and collaborations that become main-stage professional works. Our productions use multi-disciplinary story-telling involving dialogue, music, and song, with Contact Dance at their heart. Professional dancers, ranging in age, enable inter-generational storytelling that brings meaning to people's lives.

REAson d'etre dance is disability lead and has a disability focus. The current artistic director has a learning disability and Autism. A significant proportion of our creative teams are composed of mixed abilities including creative leads, project leads, and collaborators with disabilities.

  Contact Improvisation is a style of dance that is not codified or owned, so any one definition is simply that person’s definition. 

This is the founder of REAson d’etre dance Kathleen Rea’s definition of Contact Improvisation:

• Contact Improvisation is a social dance involving touch, in which momentum between two or more people is used to create and inspire dance movements.
   
• Contact Improvisation evolved from explorations of a group of dancers (many centred around Oberlin College in the US) in the early 1970s, which included Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith, Danny Lepkoff, Lisa Nelson, Karen Nelson, Nita Little, Andrew Harwood, and Ray Chung.  
   
• Techniques include rolling point of contact, balancing over a partner's centre of gravity, "listening" with one's skin surface, and “surfing” momentum. While there is technique involved, the aesthetic I reach for is the quality of the relationship and communication within a dance.
   
• One of the founders of Contact Improvisation Steve Paxton was strongly influenced by his training in Aikido a Japanese Martial arts practice. Looking at the principles of CI its commonality with Aikido is indisputable.
   
• It is typically practiced in a jam situation in which people gather to improvise together.
   
• Dancers move with a constantly changing physical reality. In  Contact Improvisation there are no set leaders and followers as in other social dance forms. Instead, there is a back-and-forth with dancers sometimes leading, sometimes following, and all variations between these two roles.
   
• The form is potentially accessible to all people, including those with no previous dance training and people with physical disabilities. I say potentially because "-isms" such as racism and ableism as well as misogyny historically have reduced or inhibited access. The -isms and issues that are embedded in the broader cultures in which CI is practiced show up on the dance floor. There has been a growing movement to address these “ism” in CI but also resistance to this as well.
   
• Another limitation to access has been the lack of consent culture in Contact Improvisation communities, both on the dance floor and off.  Since the "me-too" movement there has been a growing understanding of the value of building and supporting consent culture in Contact Improvisation, along with some backlash against this movement.
   
• I believe much of the resistance to addressing “isms" and consent culture comes from the idea that CI is an egalitarian form that transcends “isms”. The reality however for people who are marginalized by society is that “isms” show up on the dance floor.
   
• This definition of Contact Improvisation is my personal feeling of what Contact Improvisation is to me. Others will describe it differently, and this variance and diversity of opinions are for me one of the strengths of Contact Improvisation. One of the founders, Nancy Stark Smith, wrote: “Throughout CI’s development, a gentle anarchy has prevailed      over its organization.” I feel that this gentle anarchy is a fundamental aspect of the form.

• Create and produce dance performances, dance films, festivals, dance workshops, classes, and dance jams.

•  provide scholarships and sliding scale pricing to increase access

• Share knowledge of the creative process, through events such as audience creator chats and creative process blogs that give an inside view of the artist's journey.

• provide inclusive training and programming

• Anti-racism and anti-ableism education and initiatives

1999: REAson d'etre dance  (RDD) was founded.

2009: Incorporated.

1999: Inaugural weekly Dance Jam. Running every week for 23 years, it's the creative heart from which all RDD programming emerges.

2002: "Flux". First collaboration with a musician live on stage; a Now Magazine "Top Ten Show". Inspired Kathleen to include live music as a key to RDD programming. 

2004: "Lapinthrope". Dance film screened at 14 festivals. Fully embraced storytelling in a fable of a woman who grew up with wild rabbits.

2008: "Long Live", a theatrical storyline, live original music, large inter-generational cast. Nominated for three DORA awards. 

2013: The inaugural Contact Dance International Film Festival (CDIFF) which has run every two years since its inception. The 2021 rendition was online due to the COVID pandemic and the next CDIFF will be upcoming in June 2023.

2015: started Lab series which explored the Axis Syllabus to help dancers move with greater ease and prevent injury. This Influenced Kathleen's choreography, which now strives to include movements that work with a dancer's body.

2016: started EVERY BODY Can Dance Jam, providing a place for people to dance using wheelchairs, inclusive of all abilities. Fully embracing the accessibility inherent in Contact Dance.

2016/2017: Kathleen creates "Men's Circle", a stage production that tells the story of men in a therapy group. This piece involved scriptwriting and theatrical direction. Truly multidisciplinary story-telling with Contact Dance at its heart. 

2020: Started the outdoor PROPinquity Dance Jam as a COVID adaptation in which dancers interacted with props in an outdoor setting.

2021 ongoing: "The After Jam Concert Series" provides a platform to showcase new CI-inspired works. Three new works are presented a year plus one or two community performance nights in which the community signs up to perform.

2021: Premiered "Five Angels on the Steps" danced by Kathleen Rea, choreographed by Newton Moraes with lighting by Sharon DiGenova.

2020/2022: Kathleen Rea and Vivian Chong create "Dancing with the Universe", which tells the story of Vivian losing her sight and discovering herself as a multidisciplinary artist.  In 2020, this production was canceled due to COVID just weeks from its premiere. When restrictions were lifted, production resumed, and "Dancing with the Universe" was remounted in the spring of 2022 as part of Harbourfront Centre's CoMotion Deaf and Disability Arts Festival. Vivian Chong received a DORA award nomination for outstanding performance.