Five (six, actually) dance artists to watch in October 2018

BILL COLEMAN

Who: Performer in Allison Cummings’s new ensemble work Exhale, at Dancemakers Centre for Creation (15 Case Goods Lane), October 17 to 20. soreforpunchingyou.com

Why: Coleman is not shy about digging deep during the creative process – a quality choreographers love. Says Cummings about casting him in Exhale, her experimental dance work about breath and the life cycle, “This piece is built on a series of images and physical states as opposed to steps. I knew Bill would commit fully to their exploration

When not bringing his offbeat sensibility to other artists’ works, Coleman creates personal vehicles such as Dollhouse, a thrilling collaboration with sound artist Gordon Monahan, which caused a stir at Canadian Stage in 2016 and last year’s Edinburgh Festival.

The work fully exploited Coleman’s gifts for tap dance, physical comedy and a kind of riveting existential melancholy. So it came as no surprise when he won the $50,000 Walter Carsen Award for Excellence in the Performing Arts a few weeks back. With decades of innovation in the cross-disciplinary trenches under his dance belt, there’s no one quite like him in Canadian performance.

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