Barbara Bourget and Jay Hirabayashi

Kokoro Dance in 1986. They met in 1979 when both were dancing with the Paula Ross Dance Company. In 1982, Barbara and Jay joined with Peter Bingham, Ahmed Hassan, Lola MacLaughlin, Jennifer Mascall, and Peter Ryan to form EDAM (Experimental Dance and Music), a volatile collective of strong personalities that began with some very altruistic intentions, produced some highly original work, and eventually disintegrated into a number of separate companies (EDAM, Kokoro Dance, Lola Dance, and Mascall Dance).

Barbara Bourget was born in Port Alberni, B.C. Her father was a Québecois from the Gaspé region with Métis blood; her mother was born in England. Barbara started dancing at the age of five, studied ballet through her school years with Mara McBirney in Vancouver, and then won a scholarship to the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School where she gained her first exposure to world class dance performing in works by Agnes de Mille and José Ferran. From 1969 to 1972, Barbara performed with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens under the direction of Fernand Nault, John Butler, Pauline Koner, and Daniel Jackson. Barbara returned to Vancouver in 1974 and performed for five years with Mountain Dance before joining the Paula Ross Dance Company. She spent part of 1976 in New York studying Graham, Limon, and Cunningham techniques while pregnant. Her first son, Daniel was born in 1977. In 1980 Barbara studied more Graham and Limon in Toronto returning there in 1981 to study Graham under Kazuko Hirabayashi. In 1981, Barbara also worked for Judith Marcuse in a project with Peggy Baker, Sacha Belinsky, Ronnie Gilbert, James Kudelka, and Larry Lillo. She also worked with Sacha on Judith's original school show We Can Dance! In 1982, Barbara worked with Karen Jamieson on her seminal work Coming Out of Chaos. During this period, she also did a lot of freelance work with the Vancouver Opera. Between 1981 and 1986, Barbara choreographed twenty-five dances for EDAM, Kamloops Dance Umbrella, UBC Danceworks, Touchstone Theatre, and Québec Été Danse. Barbara has taught dance since 1975 for the Burnaby Arts Centre, Main Dance Place, Goh Ballet, Karen Jamieson Dance Company, Vancouver Moving Theatre, Simon Fraser University, Dancers' StudioWest (Calgary), Grant MacEwan College (Edmonton), University of Calgary, EDAM, Harbour Dance, and Kokoro Dance. From 1990 on, Barbara focused her attention on butoh studies with Minoru Hideshima, Kazuko and Koichi Tamano, Natsu Nakajima, Yumiko Yoshioka, Akira Kasai, Masahide Ohmori, Gustavo Collini-Sartor, Kinya "Zulu" Tsuruyama, and Diego Piñón.

Since forming Kokoro Dance, Barbara has choreographed over eighty dances. Her choreography, like her personality, is full of emotion. The emotion, however, is translated through disciplined technique. With a penchant for creating full evening works, Barbara Bourget's work challenges her dancers. With her restless spirit always exploring new territory, she also challenges her audiences. Butoh's focus on ma—the space between events—is a continuing investigation. Integration of feminist text into her work is a more recent interest. Revisiting and refining older works is a necessary labour of love. During her career so far, Barbara has received ten Canada Council grants for choreographic and technical studies. Barbara received a Master of Arts degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from Simon Fraser University in 2003. Her graduate studies focussed on the integration of dance and text.

CHOREOGRAPHY: 1975 - Trio for Three Women (Mountain Dance Theatre); 1977 - Solo for Daniel (Mountain Dance Theatre); 1980 - Grouse Mountain - Coraçao; 1981 - Quad; 1982 - Punchdrunk - Hawk Circling - Impending Death - Monkey Business - Teratornis; 1983 - Awkward Moment - Run Raw: Theme and Deviation (in collaboration with EDAM) - The Birds; 1984 - Four Women - Les Grenouilles (U.B.C. Danceworks) - Backstreet Affair, Zaz Turned Blue, Who Can It Be Now? - Paperwork (Québec été Danse) - Hitting the Wall - Tears - Platypuses - Quartet (Kamloops Dance Umbrella); 1985 - The More They Remain The Same (with Lola MacLaughlin) - The Hopes of the Bald - Turbulent Tales (Simon Fraser University) - Going Down for the Count (Peter Eliot Weiss play for Touchstone Theatre, Jessie Award Nomination for best choreography); 1986 - Bach to the Future (in collaboration with EDAM) - Meaningfull Glances - No Retreat, No Surrender; 1987 - Take Five (with Jay Hirabayashi) - Woman - Cocaine - The Board Game! (Tamahnous Theatre play directed by Kathleen Weiss - Dis/0 to the Power - Herd (for Main Dance Place/Professional Training Intensive); 1988 - Episode in Blue (with Jay Hirabayashi) - 37 - The Garden (for Main Dance Place/Professional Training Intensive) - Fog Rolls In On Little Cat's Feet - What'll I Do?; 1989 - Zero to the Power (80 minute new dance/new music Kokoro Dance production); 1990 - Aeon (with Jay Hirabayashi) - Eos (for Main Dance Place/Professional Training Intensive) - Impending Death (1990) - Seven dances for City on the Edge; 1991 - Impending Death (1991) - Sunyata (remounted Zero to the Power and Aeon plus Elysian Fields) - Bats - Part 1 - Bats - Part 2; 1992 - Stacked (50 minute clown-butoh piece with Txi Whizz) - Bats - Part 3 - Bats - Part 4 - Bats (Premiere - 75 minute dance for six dancers and five jazz musicians) - Tomcat (Feature film starring Richard Grieco) - Fulcrum (60 minute solo with text by Elizabeth Dancoes); 1993 - Big Fat Hen (27 minute solo with artist Leah Decter) - Esse (60 minute dance for dancer/2 actors/1 musician with text by Elizabeth Dancoes); 1994 - Ascension (with Jay Hirabayashi) - Dance of the Dead (85 minute dance for six dancers and four musicians) - Butoh for the Badlands (with Jay Hirabayashi for Formolo Dance with 17 dancers in Edmonton) - The Betrothal (42 minute solo to text by Elizabeth Dancoes); 1995 - Wounded - 11 minute solo - Everything Happens to Me - 11 minute solo for Ziyian Kwan to music by Dewey Redmond - Encounters With The Goddess (with Jay Hirabayashi - 60 minute dance for three dancers to music by Robert J. Rosen performed live by Peggy Lee, cello and Adrienne Park, piano) - White Hot Core (with Jay Hirabayashi - 60 minute dance for five dancers performed live with the 18 piece Hard Rubber Orchestra) - gussshhh - 12 minute trio for 3 ballet dancers, produced by Ballet British Columbia - Sleep on It with Jay Hirabayashi; 1996 - Birdland with Jay Hirabayashi - Butoh for Robson Square with Jay Hirabayashi - Butoh for Wreck Beach with Jay Hirabayashi - Truths of the Blood (a new piece with text by Elizabeth Dancoes); 1997 - Sunyata, re-mount of the trilogy, originally created and produced in 1991 - Sade—Childhood/Justine (50 minute theatre dance work with text by Elizabeth Dancoes, 3 actors, 3 dancers) - Moan (12 minute duet choreographed with Jay Hirabayashi with music by Peggy Lee); Bones/Scorched Earth (two thirty minute solos choreographed with Jay Hirabayashi with music by John Korsrud and Tony Wilson) - The River (80 minute work choreographed with Jay Hirabayashi for 12 dancers); 1998 - Sade - Part II (70 minute with text by Elizabeth Dancoes, with 2 actors, 3 dancers, 2 musicians, music by Robert J. Rosen) - Embryotrophic Cavatina (70 minute quartet choreographed with Jay Hirabayashi to live jazz music). 1999 - Sade—Part III (with Elizabeth Dancoes, playwright and Jay Hirabayashi) - Embryotrophic Cavatina with Jay Hirabayashi (revised work, edited to 31 minutes with music by Zbigniew Preisner); Verdant Stones with Jay Hirabayashi (30 minute outdoor performance with 70 performers); Ex... it! ‘99 with Jay Hirabayashi (three outdoor works performed in Schloss Broëllin, Germany); Environmental works with Jay Hirabayashi performed at Wreck Beach, Vancouver Folk Music Festival, Stanley Park, Round House, Rage Nightclub, Eastern Naturist Gathering, Massachusetts; 2000 - X-Roads with Jay Hirabayashi (70 minute work for thirteen dancers with music by Robert J. Rosen); Rite of Spring (for 21 SFU students with music by Zoë McDougall); Quickening (solo for Michael Whitfield premiering at the Solos Festival); Environmental works with Jay Hirabayashi performed at Wreck Beach, Under the Volcano Festival, Stanley Park, Pacific Armoury, Trout Lake, Western Naturist Gathering in California; 2001 - Pleasure (50 minute work for six performers); Cats and Dogs (40 minute one act play for the SFU Theatre Department); Crime Against Grace (47 minute work for ten dancers set to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring); Stillpoint (14 minute duet set to music by Lee Pui Ming); Environmental works with Jay Hirabayashi performed at Wreck Beach, Commodore Ballroom; 2002 -Juliette (70 minute work for eleven performers for SFU graduating project); Environmental works (with Jay Hirabayashi performed at Wreck Beach); When the Levee Breaks (7 minute solo for Lindsay Prentice to music by Led Zeppelin); 2003 - Sheepman Dreams (with Jay Hirabayashi, 58 minute work for six dancers and one artist with music by Lee Pui Ming, performed at Vernon Performing Arts Centre and the 2003 Vancouver International Dance Festival); Walk This Way (12 minute solo for Dawn Leonard to music by Arvo Part); 2004 - ( ) (71 minute duet choreographed and performed with Jay Hirabayashi to music by Sigur Ros); Still (solo to music by Arvo Part and Jeffrey Ryan); Jesus Christ Superstar (choreography for 50 students at Kitsilano High School); Walk this Way (group work for Main Dance Bridging Program students); 2005 -Tutaj Tam / Here to There (choreographed with Jay Hirabayashi and Jacek Luminski on combined Kokoro Dance and Silesian Dance Theatre companies); Skin / À Fleur de Peau (60 minute solo in collaboration with artist Lyse Lemieux and composer Marguerite Witvoet; Guys and Dolls (choreography for 100 students at Kitsilano High School).

Jay Hirabayashi was born in Seattle, Washington. He left that city at the age of four to live for the next eight years in Beirut, Lebanon and Cairo Egypt. He went to junior and senior high school in Edmonton, Alberta. After graduating in 1964, he spent seven months hitch-hiking in Europe before attending the University of Washington as a French major. After flunking out of school in 1966, he became a ski bum in Aspen, Colorado for a few years where he spent his time washing dishes and working his way up the ski racing ladder. In 1969 he was the Inter-Mountain States Senior A Downhill Champion at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He also got drafted that year. After racing one final season in Canada and the U.S. Jay decided to refuse to comply with the draft orders and lived underground in San Francisco for two years where he worked as a dishwasher, yacht harbour caretaker, and ski shop technician. He also began studying kundalini yoga at this time. In 1971, after six weeks in a yoga ashram in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Jay married Alix McCririck and returned to Edmonton to attend the University of Alberta. In 1972, their daughter, Bodhi Lisha was born. Jay graduated from U. of A. in 1973 with distinction receiving a B.A. in philosophy and religious studies and a Block A award for atheletic achievement on the ski team. Moving to Vancouver in 1973, Jay started graduate studies at the University of British Columbia. He graduated in 1978 with an M.A. in Buddhist Studies. In 1977, an old ski injury deteriorated to the point of requiring the surgical removal of the medial meniscus in Jay's left knee. He began dance classes to rehabilitate his leg. His marriage to Alix disintegrated. In 1978, he was hired as a member of the Paula Ross Dance Company. He studied modern dance, ballet, and contact improvisation during this early period. In 1979, his second daughter Kai Tomiko was born to Heather Davis, a former dancer with Judy Jarvis (Toronto). In 1979, he began living with Barbara Bourget. In 1980, he left Paula's company to work with the Evelyn Roth Moving Sculpture Company. Barbara and Jay performed with Evelyn at the 1980 Edinburgh Festival. In 1981, Jay studied Graham technique with Kazuko Hirabayashi in Toronto. Jay worked briefly with Mountain Dance after that. In 1982, while simultaneously co-founding EDAM, Jay worked with Karen Jamieson's first dance company. Jay and Barbara got married in 1982. In 1983, he again studied Graham and Limon styles in Toronto with a Canada Council grant. From 1982 to 1986, Jay choreographed fourteen dances but also found himself drawn to directing and administrating. He became EDAM's unofficial and then official Company Coordinator during that period taking charge of applying for grants and coordinating projects. In 1985 he directed EDAM/MADE, a four hour performance involving fifty artists (including Mel Wong) at the Western Front. In that year, he also made his first contact with Vancouver's Japanese Canadian artists working on a piece with Katari Taiko called Runaway Horses, inspired by the Yukio Mishima novel of the same name. In 1986, Barbara and Jay had a son named Joseph Kiyoshi. In that year also, Kokoro Dance was born. In 1986, Jay received a Canada Council B grant to work on new choreography. He choreographed a work called Rage for fourteen taiko drummers, three dancers, a martial artist, and a stiltwalker. The work received standing ovations at the 1987 Asia Pacific Festival and the 1987 Canada Dance Festival.Rage has been revised nine times since then and been performed over two hundred times across Canada, in the U.S. and in Europe. In 1986, Jay was elected to the Board of Directors of The Dance Centre, Vancouver's umbrella service organization. In 1990, Jay directed a month long installation called City on the Edge in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery involving seventy participants. In 1993 and 1995, Jay was elected again to serve two year terms on the Board of Directors of The Dance Centre. In 1995, Jay won the Canada Council's Jacqueline Lemieux Prize with a B grant to study in Japan with Kazuo Ohno, Yoshito Ohno, and Natsu Nakajima. Jay has had butoh studies with Goro Namerikawa, Minoru Hideshima, Koichi Tamano, Hiroko Tamano, Natsu Nakajima, Soga Kobayashi, Yumiko Yoshioka, Akira Kasai, Katsura Kan, Kinya "Zulu" Tsuruyama, Diego Piñón, Gustavo Collini-Sartor, Masahide Ohmori, Yukio Waguri, SU-EN, and Tadashi Endo. Currently, Jay does most of the administration for Kokoro Dance including funding applications, publicity, project coordination, graphic arts, publications, web site creation, and office management. He teaches butoh classes twice a week. Barbara is responsible for taking care of Kokoro's artistic direction and teaches five modern dance classes a week. Bodhi works as a stock broker's assistant for Nesbitt Burns and has long since moved out of the house. Daniel graduated from UBC where he was a captain of the soccer team and is now a physical therapist at City Sports and Physiotherapy. Daniel married Chiquis Ponce de Leon in 2006. Kai is currently working in Toronto and was married in September, 2004 to André Ethier, a member of The Deadly Snakes. André is also a visual artist and solo singer. Joseph graduated from Kitsilano High School in 2004 where he was in the French Immersion Program and is enrolled in the Vancouver Community College Music Program Bachelor of Applied Music program where his main focus is jazz piano. He also plays guitar, drums, bass, sings, and writes songs for his band The SSRI's.