Toronto Files

Toronto Files

2009

about the piece

Toronto Files was created at the invitation of Christopher House, artistic director of the Toronto Dance Theatre for his ensemble. The point of departure was to question the mechanisms of such commissioned choreography. What can actually be exchanged between dancers and choreographer? What does the work refer to and what can become together at all under these circumstances?

videos

credits

Choreography: Christoph Winkler | Dance: Naishi Wang, Luke Garwood

reviews

"Christopher House, artistic director of Toronto Dance Theatre, feels it is important to bring international dance voices to the city. It turned out to be a supremely engaging event, and one that brought Europe to Toronto in terms of sensibilities. With Winkler, it was the droll, sly, wise sophistication that infected his work, so different from a society that is more open, immediate and obviously in your face. His was a piece of subtlety and whimsy, and we had to reorder our brains accordingly. Parts of Winkler’s riotously clever The Toronto Files were laugh out loud funny. The witty choreography used bits and pieces of the five dancers’ personal stories to make a statement about the relationship between life and art. The movement was cheekily ironic and totally irreverent in relation to the text. In rereading the Winkler part of the review just now, I can see Toronto Files is a piece that defies the written word. It is impossible to capture in text Winkler’s amusing transitions, and how he chose to encase each story in different but astute movement vocabulary. You had to be there."
Paula Citron.

"By the end, Winkler and the company have made it clear that everything influences one's art - and life. The work seems to affirm that our lives are more than the sum of their parts, and, put another way, that dancers are more than phenomenally flexible limbs"
NOW.