In 2000 Kevin Ormsby left Canada to dance with the Garth Fagan Dance Company in New York and returned to Toronto in 2006. “There’s a classical Jamaican saying that ‘If there’s no opportunity out there for you, create your own’. I came back with a passion for choreography and for teaching.
The former assistant artistic director at Ballet Creole says since coming back to Toronto he views dance differently. KasheDance, his dance company, emerged from that longing for a different understanding of what he thinks dance can be in the city.
The inspiration for the piece that will be showcased May 27-29, In Search of Our Selves, came from seeing Wardance, a documentary about war in Northern Uganda and what it did to the children and the Arts in that country.
“In SEARCH of OURselves” is a dance work looking at displacement of people across borders inspired by the documentary War dance, Native displacement and trans –cultural theme of a retrospective optimism of a humanity that questions existence. In SEARCH of OURselves is fueled by one single inquiry; If you knew your life was about to change, what questions would you ask yourself? Do the answers lie within? How we affirm who we are beyond odds? This is where the story begins. The answers to which we arrive become an armour to the spirit of who we are. The movement in the piece includes Dinki and Kumina.“I search for a more human expression than a more cultural or traditional expression,” says Ormsby.
Ormsby says KasheDance is a company in constant maturation, and credits it as the only contemporary dance company run by a Jamaican Canadian.
About the Choreographer
Kevin A. Ormsby unique dance history has taken its form from his training in modern, ballet and African / Caribbean dance over twenty years. He has danced with Garth Fagan Dance (NY), was the Assistant to the Artistic Director and dancer with Ballet Creole and has worked with Canboulay Dance Theatre, Up from the Roots Entertainment, Menaka Thakur, Caribbean Dance Theatre. Kevin has also performed in works by Bill T. Jones, Katti King, Mark Morris, Gesel Mason, Ron K. Brown. He has presented papers on Dance at The Canada Dance Festival (2009) Biannual Conference, Visualizing / Performing Africa at Ohio University (2007), has written for the Dance Current and Expose Entertainment Magazine as well being on the Board of Prologue to the Performing Arts as the Artist Representative. Mr Ormsby has received Grants from the Canada Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council and had sat on the Ontario Arts Council's Dance Initiatives Jury (2007) and Artists in Education Panel (2008) and was recently appointed to a Toronto Arts Council Committee (2010).
About KasheDance
In a state of constant maturation, KasheDance presents contemporary works that transcends cultural boundaries and resonates with the universal human spirit through kinetic movement and rhythmic vitality. Technically versatile in its execution and delivery, movements of traditional and modern dance is fused with ballet to reflect a contemporary synthesis. The Company’s style is explosive, subtle, confronting, virtuosic yet passionate and aims to give voice to the complexity of the human spirit through contemporary dance.
KasheDance artists are Kevin A. Ormsby, Jasmyn Fyffe, Kerry –Ann Wright, Darcel Frederick, Ian Huggins and Tereka Tyler Davis and selected members from the community.
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