In Renegade Bodies: Canadian Dance in the 1970s. Eds., Allana Lingren and Kaija Pepper. Victoria: University of Victoria Press, 2012.
"Comprising 15 essays by Canadian writers and scholars, Renegade Bodies is a book that embraces lively discussion about artistic and cultural shifts along with the social and political transformations of the 1970s. How were dance and its practitioners affected by the vigorous and varying beliefs, the principles and key societal trends of the times?"
Renegade Bodies: Canadian Dance in the 1970s began as an anthology to celebrate the life and achievements of dancer Lawrence Adams following his early death 2003. I was contacted by Allana Lingren early on in the project and agreed to write about Lawrence’s fascination with new electronic technology. Most specifically, how he deployed video to record the work of Canadian choreographers and dancers, and how he and his partner Miriam Adams later started a weekly arts review Night Lights on community television that led to a proposal for a Pay-TV licence in 1981. The book evolved into a larger look at the decade of the seventies in dance. I got to know Lawrence and Miriam then, artists from all disciplines were working together to establish a Canadian-made art scene. I appeared on Night Lights several times and worked with Lawrence in the Artists’ Alliance.
For more background, see the article on Lawrence and Miriam Adams in The Canadian Encyclopedia.
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