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Dance for laughs
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Secret rubber boot slapping and breakdancing on C.O.K.E
by MARITES CARINO
Just For Laughs schedule
The Just For Laughs Festival is not just about giggles and guffaws. This year, festival-goers have a dance option.
In the same staccato, rhythmic vein as Stomp, Gumboots is clomping its way onstage with a North American premiere of this South African show. It's a loud tribute to South African mine workers who worked in wet conditions and had to wear Wellington boots to keep their feet dry. Since talking between miners was prohibited, they developed a sonorous secret language by stomping and slapping their boots. Now, after more than 100 years, gumboot dancing is out of the mines and onto the stage.
Also in the festival's dance department, Cirque du Soleil's Debra Brown presents C.O.K.E., an acronym for Creative Overdose of Kinetic Energy. After a 10-day workshop with artists from all over the world, the final product will debut at the Festival. The show features acrobats, breakdancing, trampolinists, flamenco, Argentinean dancers and live music.
Versatile Japanese performer Jusetsu Watanabe joined the show after Brown saw him auditioning for the Cirque. "When I was a kid, I learned karate. And as you can see, I'm not a big man [Watanabe is just over five feet tall] so I could never become number one. So one day, I changed my mind. I watched a dance movie and I was moved. I said 'I'm going this way now.' So I learned all kinds of dance--hip hop, tap dance and jazz by watching videos and television."
Watanabe shows off his versatility by spinning as impressively on his head as he does on one foot during pirouettes. C.O.K.E. is more than dance, it's a multi-disciplinary movement overload.
And last but not least, at the World Beat Club, French choreographer Abou Lagraa brings his trio Passage where contemporary and hip hop dance merge. :
Passage at the World Beat Club, July 15-19, 11pm, free with a Just For Laughs V.I.P. pass which can be purchased for $5
Gumboots at Salle Pierre-Mercure, July 13-30, Tuesday-Sunday 8pm; Saturday and Sunday matinées at 4pm; no matinées July 15 and 16; $36-40
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