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International Dance Day is coming up on April 29! To celebrate, we asked some of our participating and resident artists, and Dance Centre staff, why they love dance and what it means to them:

While there are so many ways we’ve been able to define language and create tools for communication, I like that there is still so much unspoken connection and relationship between our bodies and the spaces they occupy. I love how dance can work on defining and articulating this, with so much of it remaining left unsaid. -Josh Martin, Company 605

Dance is how I remember, how I connect to people, how I see the world – a continuous, never-ending choreography of people, places, thoughts, and emotions. -Mirna Zagar, staff

Dance reminds me of my pain and simultaneously takes away my pain. -Arash Khakpour, The Biting School

There is something special about dance being a live art form, an energy that is present within a room where the experience lives in that very moment. I use movement to translate my understandings of the world, and hope to create dialogue through these shared processes. The body is able to cross boundaries that can exist within the verbal language, and that to me…is a gift.-Marissa Wong, Twobigsteps Collecitve

I love dance as a way of expressing what lives inside my heart. -Olivia C. Davies, O.Dela Arts

I love that dance is an embodied way of knowing and unknowing. In this technology-based era, it allows me to sense my body, helps me to connect with others and gives me hope. -Isabelle Kirouac, dance artist

It’s an expression of storytelling that can be done and enjoyed by everyone, and a way to express your feelings. -Lindsay Curtis, staff

Dance, to me, is the expression of a feeling or an idea, that is more profound when it comes from the body, than explained in words. -Gemma Crowe, staff

I love to move and express myself through my body. -Joe Laughlin, Joe Ink

What always stands out to me both as a viewer and performer, is during that brief moment of stillness and anticipation just before a dance begins in which I have a sudden feeling of love and excitement for the dance artists who are sharing their work and about to reveal a part of themselves. -Hilary Maxwell, staff

Dance allows me a safe space to discover and find expression of what I carry in my body. A means to find alignment and harmony in an otherwise chaotic existence. -Sujit Vaidya, dance artist

Being on tour and sharing the dance we do with complete strangers in different parts of the world, reminds me each time how strong of a connecting force it can be.  -Lisa Gelley, Company 605

It brings me joy and takes me to a better place no matter what… -Sheri Urquhart, staff

Initiated in 1982 by UNESCO, International Dance Day is marked annually on April 29 across Canada and around the world.

The Dance Centre is presenting a program of free events in celebration of International Dance Day on April 28 & 29

Photo Credits: Twobigsteps Collective:  Erik Zennström; Joe Laughlin: Michael Slobodian; Company 605: David Cooper; Isabelle Kirouac: Willoughby Arevalo; Sujit Vaidya: Chris Randle; Olivia C. Davies: Chris Randle