COCO DANCING

And for their eighth festival and fifth annual COCO Awards they will showcasing and rewarding some of the best local, regional and international dance and choreography.

Sunday Newsday chatted with dancer/choreographers Jacob Cino and Courtenay Thorne about the event which starts this October 22 at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s and continues the following weekend.

Cino is a Canadian national but “fell in love with Trinidad” when he first came five years ago. He has been dancing for 19 years and doing choreography of his own pieces for the past six or seven years.

Cino said while he had been doing choreography before he came to this country, Trinidad gave him an opportunity “to explore as a choreographer”. He explained that as a dancer gets older you can do less and less with your body so you try to “explore through others”.

Cino has choreographed for the festival for the past five years and last year he was the 2015 COCO choreographer awardee with the piece “Identty (actual spelling)/ Where are you from?” For this year his piece is called “LeFT” and also “LeFT Behind”, “LeFT Field”, “LeFT Politically” and “LeFT Turn”. Cino said it is about how things can be interpreted differently. He described the ten minute piece as “quite episodic”.

It was previously put on with Metamorphosis Dance Company back in May for the show Arise where Cino was one of the guest choreographers.

He recalled COCO Dance liked the piece and asked that it be remounted.

On the piece Cino said in the past he would create art for himself and hope the audience understands.

However, in Trinidad he realised certain works are more well received than others so he created a piece for the local audience while maintaining his artistic integrity.

“Powerful pieces and more entertainment rather than just art,” he added.

Cino said one of the reasons the piece was so successful is because it gives something to audiences where they would be satisfied while still not compromising.

On the music for the piece Cino explained there are a lot of songs that move him personally and “makes me want to dance”. For the piece he put on the music to get “structured improvisation”.

The music includes a trap song with Persian or Indian remix, some artists from Canada, Tribe of Red, who do indigenous music and electronic, dancehall artist Cutty Ranks with hard industrial dancehall beats, neo classical German piano music, and Netherlands band Dengue Dengue Dengue.

Cino explained it is a mix of contemporary electronic and almost Caribbean folk with a lot of fusions and music like dancehall and soca. He further explained he tries not to pick a lot of beat driven music as people tend to follow rhythm rather than music inspire you.
“There is nothing typical about my music selection. The continuity in choices is quite varied,” he added.

For his piece “Left”, Cino said audiences can look forward to “enjoying themselves”. He said there is no narrative, which is difficult for people with a very literal mind, but there is enough entertainment with art that everyone can enjoy.
He recalled sitting behind a couple during the first run and heard them remark “this is amazing”.

“The kind of awe you look for when you see a stage performance,” she added.
The festival will also feature the work of 27-year-old dancer/ choreographer Courtenay Thorne who is of mixed Trinidadian and Barbadian heritage. She informed Sunday Newsday that she has been dancing since age three and began choreographing in her teens for fun at school and at clubs. She got into choreography more seriously as she pursued her college degree - a Bachelors of Science Dance, Performance and Choreography at Skid more College, upstate New York.

This year will be Thorne’s first to past” and “remembering and forgetting”. The piece originated from a year long movement study where she collected movement from doing “movement labs”, interviewing friends and “seeing what movement came from it”. She videotaped the labs and was able to put movement together into one piece.
The music for the piece is from famed American contemporary composer Philip Glass who Thorne was introduced to in college and whose music is used by a lot of dancers and choreographers.

“His music is amazing,” she added.
For “Forward” she expressed hope that it will put the audience in a place familiar to them and they can feel the “transition area of living” and that “middle ground where do not like to be”.

“We are so caught up getting somewhere and moving forward, (I am) hoping they have that experience with me and hopefully it is something they can relate to,” she added. Asked for her views on the local dance community Thorne, who recently moved to Trinidad, described it as “super welcoming” and “really friendly. She said that she has met a lot of people and has been taking classes at the Caribbean School of Dancing.

“You can tell all the artists are very invested in what they are doing,” she added.
On his experience of the local dance community Cino said there are “a lot of strong dancers here”.

He stressed that COCO Dance has a very important role to allow contemporary dance to have a stage, adding that he would mostly see dancers supporting soca artistes.
“I think it is a very vibrant and amazing dance scene,” he said.

Cino added that there needed to be more avenues for all different styles of dance as well as more support of the arts. He said despite such a strong, amazing, vibrant arts sector “the only support I see is through Carnival”.

He pointed out that when there is recession and you have economic diversity when you put a dollar into the arts you get back $1.50.

“I think if Trinidad invested more into its art sector they would see a greater return and more international recognition,” he added.

He pointed out that there were Trinidadian dancers performing abroad in shows like The Lion King and called for more financial support through the private and public sector.
The COCO Dance Festival 2016 is being directed by co-founder Sonja Dumas. Speaking last week during a telephone interview she said the festival has grown in “fantastic ways” and they even have calls from outside the region to come and participate in 2017 season.