Let's Reunite! - Please note that this tour is on hold due to lack of funding from grant applications. We do plan to tour the work to Ontario but it will not be taking place until after the next funding cycle. Thanks for your understanding and support.

Canada lost a unique dance icon on July 29th, 2023. We are still reeling from the news of our long-time mentor and friend's death. Danny Grossman was working right up until his passing and we met just days before to work on some of the planning elements for this tour. It was so very important for him to have this work seen and so the show must go on. We will do him proud.

Here are some of his words from our last meeting while generating his letter of support for this project. 

I would like to speak to the importance of the giving of the knowledge I have gained working in the professional dance world for the past 60 years as a dancer, choreographer, teacher, artistic director, and mentor. It is critical to me to pass this on to the younger generation who is willing to help preserve not only my work but also the history of modern dance. Jackie does this and aims to secure funding for the development of her own new works and also to remount the works of other Canadian Artists such as myself. I am honored and also receive an enormous amount of energy when I am invited to pass this knowledge on. Although I am rarely asked. The importance of keeping the fleeting art of modern dance alive and preserving its own history is crucial.

For many years I have witnessed societal indifference to environmental scientists who have warned of climate change. Jackie and I were thrilled to tackle this issue through our collaboration on Earth Womb of Life which will tour next year. As artists, we need to deal with real issues such as this through our work to help effect change.

Danny Grossman

Danny Grossman was a Canadian Dance icon, mentor, and award-winning choreographer. Free Flow will forever feel his imprint and impact. We were fortunate to work directly with Danny over the past 14 years and his loss will be felt here, across Canada and throughout the dance world. To learn more about Grossman’s life and accomplishments please take the time to read the article below.

Remembering Danny Grossman

Why Tour?

After 23 years it is time for choreographer Jackie Latendresse and the Free Flow Dance Theatre Company to return to their Alma Mater and cities of origin in Ontario with a poignant new contemporary dance concert.  

The show will tour a variety of locations in Ontario in 2024. 

Reunite combines fun and edgy contemporary dance character work and theatrical elements, original choreography by Jackie Latendresse and her long-time mentor Danny Grossman. It heralds a return to Ontario for a company that found its origins there almost three decades ago.

Where are we going? Kitchener/Waterloo, Welland, Toronto! 2024. Please stay tuned for exact dates. The new projected timeline is May 2024.

Choreographic residency at Eastwood Collegiate, Kitchener ON, plus master class with Jackie Latendresse and Eddie Kastrau at the Button Factory Waterloo ON, and showing of Primordial. 

Reunite! At the Registry Theatre

Masterclass and Reunite! at The Bank ArtHouse in Welland ON.

Reunite, showing at the Citadel and  showing of Primordial and special workshops at a variety of locations in Toronto ON

What are we showing?

Pods - Choreographed by Jackie Latendresse is a unique trio inspired by stop-motion films of plant growth in relation to feminine energies. Thus exotic and gorgeous work features three androgynous performers encased inside stretchy fabric pods which also each encompass a mini trampoline. The dancers come to life breaking free from their pods in a beautiful and unusual performative work inspired by the aesthetic of Alwin Nikolais and his tendency to distort the human form through costuming and props. This is one of Jackie's most celebrated and well-known works. 

Earth – The Womb of Life (A Pantomime for Our Time) is a visceral commentary on the state of our planet, our relationships to it, and to each other created in collaboration by Dance Collection Danse Hall of Fame inductee Danny Grossman and Free Flow Dance Theatre’s award-winning artistic director Jackie Latendresse. Video and soundscape by Eddie Kastrau. The work has a recorded original video with a musical score by Anne Southam.

Her relationship with her mentor Danny Grossman is coming full circle as she navigates this touring co-production through areas where they both individually got their start, together sharing knowledge both old and new creating something beautiful, sensitive, and cohesive. The work is so very relevant to the current time we live in and has developed from a certain maturity, and skill level attained through age, experience, and mastery of the craft of choreography. 

There will also be special showings of Primordial - A solo work created and performed by Jackie Latendresse for her 50th birthday. This haunting work, inspired by Mary Wigman, features a dress made out of a full-sized parachute as the artist contemplates human development as we slither out of the primordial goo.

Jackie is thrilled to be bringing these works back to her cities of origin in 2024. 

For more images of Free Flow Dance Theatre - Free Flow Photos

More about the Director.

Jackie Latendresse is an alumnus of the University of Waterloo where she obtained her H.B.A. in Dance with a minor in Fine Arts. She founded Free Flow Dance Theatre in 1995 and has been the artistic director ever since. The Company relocated to Toronto in the winter of 1996 and has since found a home base in Saskatoon. Jackie has been choreographing and producing her own shows since 1993 when she presented her first full evening of dance works at Abstract Machines that Recognise Certain Languages. She has since created a large volume of work and her repertoire includes 20 works (20 min+) and numerous shorter works, Her work has been presented all over Canada at many venues ranging from traditional theatres to schools. The company has toured extensively with the Canadian Fringe Festival Circuit and is invited to present work regularly throughout Saskatchewan. She has received various awards including the Leading Edge Artist Award 1996 and Choreographers Collective Group Award 1997 – Kitchener Waterloo Arts Awards, A Special Merit award for her outreach with the LGBTQ community from Out Saskatoon 2011, been named Champion of the Arts by the Star Phoenix in 2017 and was awarded a Saskatoon Foundation for the Arts Artist award 2018. She received the 2021 Saskatoon YWCA Woman of Distinction award for arts and culture and most recently was awarded the Queen Elizabeth ll Platinum Jubilee Medal for her years of commitment and dedication to the arts in Saskatchewan.

More about Free Flow Dance Theatre https://freeflowdance.com/

More about Danny Grossman - https://www.dannygrossman.today/