Dancers demonstrate faith through movement
Corps Bara troupe celebrates 10 years
Ten years ago, Karen Sudds had a dream of building a community of dance professionals who would integrate their art form with their faith.
Corps Bara Dance Theatre became that reality and the dance group is now recognized for its unique ability to create work that explores life from a Christian world view.
On its website, the dance company says its mission is to explore the human story and our search for spiritual connection. It does that through small pieces designed for church services to full-length theatrical performances. The company has been able to bridge the Christian community with the arts community.
The origin of the dance group’s name is interesting. Corps is Latin for body, said Sudds, executive director of the dance group, and Bara is Hebrew for “I create,” as in Genesis I in scripture.
“Actually the name came from one of the other ladies that was working with the company at that time,” said Sudds. “She was doing a Bible study and found the word Bara and . . . corps in dance is used a lot. She actually put the two words together.”
Sudds describes Corps Bara as a contemporary dance company. It is one company with two initiatives — a youth company, which is a developmental and mentoring company; and a project company, which is its semi-professional company.
“We call it project because it’s dependent on funding from project to project,” said Sudds.
“When I started 25 years ago, there really wasn’t a lot of dance in the church. So the company really started as a way of bridging the arts, particularly dance, back into the church. And of course, that was a very slow process. As we grew, it was always in my mind anyway with the company that wasn’t its sole purpose. It was one of its purposes.”
She said that expressing faith through an art form is meant to enrich all of society.
“So the drive was always to move the faith-based, inspired arts into the regular arts community in Calgary and to be part of that so that we would have a voice and a presence in the city,” said Sudds.
Corps Bara is holding a 10th anniversary benefit concert Nov. 13 at 7 p.m. at First Alliance Church. For more information about the event and for tickets call 403-2544321 or visit www.corpsbara.com. Tickets for the special anniversary performance and gala are $20. Doors open at 6:15 p.m.
The dance company also performs tonight at St. Mary’s Cathedral in a Concert for Peace that brings together a number of Calgary’s best performing arts organizations to honour Canadians who have served their country through the military.
Admission is free to the concert, which begins at 8 p.m. However, donations will be accepted with all proceeds going to the Captain Nichola K.S. Goddard Memorial Scholarship Fund and the Nichola Goddard Light Up Papua New Guinea project.
The dance group has 17 dancers in the youth company and seven in the project company. The youth company ranges in age from 10 to 18 and the project company has semi-professional and professional dancers in their 20s and 30s.
The dance group performs in numerous venues, including churches of all different denominations, primarily with the youth company.
The project company performs mainly in theatres.
“We’re going back — because this is our (10th) anniversary year — to really looking at our roots, which have their genesis in the early 20th century modern dance,” said Sudds.
It was to create sanctuary in the theatre “and that’s what we try to do,” she said.
“Oftentimes our theme might be something like just community, relationships. One time we actually tackled the history of the church. That was an interesting one.”
Concepts of reconciliation, forgiveness, liturgy, etc. are also themes for the dance group.
Filed under: artist, dancer, teacher | Tagged: Corps Bara 10th Anniversary, Corps Bara Project Company, Corps Bara Youth Company, Karen Sudds | Leave a Comment »
