Bliss fills Mind. I’m Giddy.

Eunoia

Fujiwara Dance Inventions, Toronto
Calgary Poet, Christian Bok
Choreographer, Denise Fujiwara
Composer and musician, Phil Strong
Created with and performed by:
Sylvie Bouchard, Claudia Moore, Lucy Rupert, Miko Sobreira, Gerald Trentham, and Jillian Peever (understudy)

When art enters a realm of magic and sensation, beyond what has existed before, there lives a gap in thought, space opens into endless freedom, and time seems to be transcended. I sit and wonder what words to unearth. What languages might be merged together to bring light and depth to the vision that fills my eyes, ears, heart, feeling, and thought? Eunoia is uncharted pleasure, layered with so many constrictions of movement and design, that I find it hard to imagine how they even began; yet, this dance is blown into a dimension of pure freedom: An essence steeped and flowing with the clarity of tropical waters, changing each molecule in the air, and bounds forth to another world. Playful, passionate, sensual, crazy, eclectic, humourous, and divine are expressions empty and knotted compared to that which is created in this performance. Jumbled is the logic that would normally give life to the description of dance artistry.

My senses are graced with more than movement. Live voice and sound effects, music, film, props, costume after costume, games of chance, and character upon character transform each tableau; and yet, there is no ‘multi media’ to be seen; it is only dance without seams. No broken edges. I am enveloped by a formed world that is formless and colourful. Dance filled with such unmapped motion, and weighted beauty that gives comfort inside thrilling joy. I am not just sitting in the theatre; but connected, held in each moment, and the world has fallen away. Funny though, I cannot understand most of the text, and each chapter is in mystical realities teaming with more details than I can take in – but it is perfect. I get it all. It reflects life; crowded with constrictions that I am drawn to pull away from, and desperate and sure that joy is settled on the opposite side. Here, Denise Fujiwara and her cast of enlightened sages, counter all that seem logical; and like panning for gold, they keep adding water to strain out the sands that hide the gleaming element that is beyond all other ordinary rocks. 

By Debbie McDougall

​Debbie McDougall has been a professional ballet and modern dancer across Canada since 1989, an emerging choreographer in 1995 with Brian Webb Dance Company, and remains on the path of dance.