Dave Wilson

The Parahumans/Artistic Director – Dave Wilson Dave’s dance company, The Parahumans are an interdisciplinary and experimental dance company, with a main focus on Post-Contemporary Dance. This style (formally founded by the company, May 11, 2017, and developed out of 2015 research) blends selected contemporary dance techniques along with everyday actions, theatre, novel movement, and semi-structured performance presentations. This style also balances choreographic impulses derived from Body, Space, Dynamics, Relationships, as well as experimenting with the audience-performer connection. Dave began training in creative dance techniques as a child, in physical education dance classes, in Rudolf Laban’s system of dance, and later at P.E. college in Laban movement analysis and notation. He strengthened his ideas about dance performance in Toronto and Vancouver in the hippy days of the 1970s when ‘freedom of expression’, and ‘live and let live’ were concepts valued and achievable. He trained with Linda Rubin at Synergy (Halprin tradition, California), where the typical class was a two-hour group improvisation with twenty dancers and Rubin changing lights and music on a whim, and with Til Thiele Centre of Movement, Toronto (Wigman/Palucca, German tradition). Most sessions were preceded by a Somatic (Mind-Body) class, the topic of Dave’s M.A. (Interdisciplinary Studies) from York University. He recently retired from McMaster University, Hamilton, after 30 years as a Professor in the Department of Kinesiology. The company was founded in 1992 with the inaugural production of ‘Parazone Future.’ The Parahumans performed in London, England in 1995 at The Resolution Festival at The Place and later toured England (Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Derbyshire) in 2002 and 2003 (grant from Foreign Affairs & International Trade, Canada). The company have performed in Canada’s Fringe Festival of Independent Dance Artists (fFIDA) many times and in festivals and productions in Toronto (Dance Ontario Dance Weekend), Guelph (Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival), and Hamilton (Art Gallery of Hamilton). The company has a strong focus on supporting emerging local dance artists - professional and pre-professional, in varied productions such as – ‘Experimental Solo Dance Showcase’; ’21 Chopin Nocturnes’; ‘The 77 Minute Dance improv’; ‘coexisDance’; ‘Short Dances/New Blue Festival.’ Innovative past projects have included – ‘Boy Dancer’ - a 47-minute documentary film involving young boys learning and performing hip hop dance, which received the Fan’s Choice Award at the 2011 New York – Long Island Film Festival; Dance for Parkinson’s choreography to help patients strengthen movement and regenerate brain tissue; Plato Was A Raver (2001/2011), a 20-section dance/theatre story; ‘New Jazz Dance Improvisations’ – creating novel choreography and improvisations to the music of classic jazz artists; Reconstruction/Interpretation of two 1880s dances from Japanese artist, Hokusai’s ‘How To Teach Yourself Solo Dancing.’ Dave recently performed in Pina Bausch’s ‘Nelken Line,’ hosted by Claudia Moore’s MOonhORsE Dance Theatre, and choreographed (on Lauren Runions) for ‘Nesia,’ a dance film by Mikel Guillen (Best Local Film – aluCine film festival, September 2022; Best Cinematography – Experimental Dance & Music Film Festival, August 2023). Last October’s production was, ‘The Parahumans 30th Anniversary Show.’ In April, 2024, the company performed, 'Wake-Up: The 77 Min Dance Improv.'