For four decades, Joe Laughlin has been joyfully connecting and building communities through dance. As founding artistic director of Joe INK, he’s created more than a dozen productions, including 4OUR, Dance:Craft, dusk, Retrospective: 25 Years, and GRACE.
Laughlin’s works have been performed on four continents. Along the way, he’s received the Canada Council Jacqueline Lemieux Prize, the Clifford E. Lee Choreography Award, and the Isadora Award for Choreography.
His newest work, I Remember…, combines dance, storytelling, and video projections in what he calls a “relatable reflection on aging”. The Firehall Arts Centre will present this Joe INK production from January 15 to 18.
In advance of the show, Laughlin shared his thoughts with Pancouver on his upcoming performances, his career, and how dance has shaped his perspective on life.
Pancouver: What were your prime motivations behind creating I Remember…?
Joe Laughlin: I had done a solo show in 2018, where I commissioned three dancer/choreographers I admire to each make a solo for me: Amber Barton, Gioconda Barbuto, and Vincent Mantsoe. They have known me for over 25 years, and I thought maybe some of their dancing juju would rub off on me. I was in a learning mode!
After that, I wanted to make a response to that show but then the pandemic hit. When we could go back to work, I was committed to completing Dance:Craft, a big show with lots of folks and objects involved. One day during rehearsals in the Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre at SFU I was in my dressing room, and thinking about how I wanted to be solo again, and revisit my own dancing life. So, once the performances wrapped I returned again to my singular dancing body and started…to remember…
Pancouver: This work includes text, music, and video. How do these different components come together in I Remember…?
JL: The text is me storytelling—illuminating memories, experiences, and remembering people in my life. And the text is physicalized at the same time, through movement, staging, gesture, and sometimes characterization. The projected videos enhance the stage picture, at times support the action and dances, and they introduce people and give context. I dance with myself as a young dancer. I think the entire performance is very musical.
Laughlin still loves to dance
Pancouver: You are now in your 60s. How does the age of your body inform your performance?
JL: It informs it in every way! First off, just by the way I look now. I have come to terms with the fact that at 64 years old, physically I am on the decline and barreling towards the end. Everything is being taken from you. However, I still love dancing and that desire is enabling me to discover new ways of working. I allow myself stillness and space, I listen more closely to my body, and trust the subtleness of gesture.
I am expressing myself with a body that is a reflection of my age. I hope that inspires everyone to inhabit their own body in a positive way, to listen to and use their body to discover that expressing ourselves physically, no matter what age you are, is joyful activity and something human beings need to do.
Pancouver: What’s the most profound lesson that you’ve learned as a performer or choreographer as you approach Joe INK’s 30th anniversary?
JL: To trust myself and my creative process. To go with the first idea, to be instinctual, to return to the initial impulse. To always bring my love of dance into the studio with me because the business of dance can knock that out of you. Sometimes you just have to tune out the noise. Too much feedback is not necessary, but selective feedback can play a positive role.
I realize that my physical ability may be on the decline. However, I feel the most comfortable and steady in my body than I ever have. And this is kind of a surprise. There is a freedom I am experiencing once I let go of my own physical expectations and self-perception and allowed myself to explore me now with the limitations. I possess a lot of know-how and that is a pretty strong foundation for me to riff off of and I still bring a certain performance ability and gravitas to the work.
Pancouver: How has a life in dance shaped your outlook on life?
JL: When I dropped out of university and decided to become a dancer, my Mom told me that it was a hard life. I don’t know how she knew that or why she thought that. But maybe financial insecurity might be the root. However, as I look back on my life in dance, I feel gratitude for all the opportunities I’ve had and all the artists I have worked with.
There is something so elemental about dance, primal and primitive almost. It puts you in touch with the physical life we live and our inner emotional worlds. It gives you the understanding of what it is to be a physical being in this world and to celebrate that. Dance is the reconciliation of the physical and the spiritual, the body and the soul, and, of course, the great joy we get from the release of kinetic energy.
Dancers are tactile animals, sensitive to stimuli, and the creative process is a reflection of the world we find ourselves in. I experience the world through the way I see it moving and I connect with other people through their physical rhythms. Dance brings me joy and in turn, I reflect that back to the world I find myself in.
Watch the trailer for I Remember…
Explaining the Joe INK name
Pancouver: What was your most memorable performance as a dancer?
JL: I would have to say coming back to dancing in 4OUR in 2014, with Heather Dotto, Kevin Tookey, and Gioconda Barbuto. It was an intergenerational work and those three dance artists really helped me get my groove back. They welcomed me back into the fold and supported me in so many ways. I am forever grateful to them. I was inspired and happy to be sharing the creative process and stage together. It was a gift.
Pancouver: You’re the founding artistic director of Joe INK. How did your company get this name rather than the Joe Laughlin Dance Company?
JL: Well, I had to incorporate in order to access funding to make dances, didn’t want to call it my whole name, but liked the Joe part, and there are lots of phrases with Joe, every Joe, average Joe, Joe blow, Joe schmo. I wanted to call it Joe Inc. but that was taken, so I spelled it Joe Ink. And I do love writers and reading, so the Ink was a sort of play on me writing dances.
Pancouver: When the final curtain falls on your career, how would you like to be remembered?
JL: Yikes…This is a difficult question Charlie…especially as I’m trying to be present in the moment!! But here goes… He liked to push the boundaries and limits of what dance can be. He worked with artists from other disciplines and took dance to them and brought them into dance. He loved dancers and supported them in any way he could. He was someone who carved out his own niche in the dance milieu.
He was curious and interested in the world around him. A pioneer of the community dance movement, inspired by his collaboration with the South African company Moving Into Dance Mophatong. He encouraged the community at large to dance and offered dancing opportunities to Every Body.
The Firehall Arts Centre will present I Remember… by Joe INK at 7:30 p.m. from next Wednesday (January 15) to the following Saturday (January 18). For tickets and more information, visit the Firehall Arts Centre website.
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