Beautiful Renegades
A new play about 1970s Toronto, dance, and the troublemakers who tried to change everything.
SEPTEMBER 20 - OCTOBER 2
Tuesday - Saturday at 8PM
Sunday Matinee 4PM
Franco Boni Theatre
The Theatre Centre
Tickets: $15 - $32
$15 Rush tickets are available in person at the box office one hour prior to curtain.
Peggy has commissioned Toronto-based playwright Michael Ross Albert to write Beautiful Renegades, a play inspired by the anti-establishment politics that helped shape contemporary dance in 1970s Toronto. In development since 2018, the work includes new choreographic distillations from 6 ground-breaking choreographers of the era: Elizabeth Chitty, Margaret Dragu, Lily Eng, Louise Garfield, Johanna Householder, and Jennifer Mascall. Directed by Eda Holmes and designed by Gillian Gallow (sets and costumes), Jeff Pybus (lighting and video) and Debashis Sinha (sound), Beautiful Renegades features a company of 6 outstanding actor/dancers: Sarah Fregeau, David Norsworthy, Erika Prevost, Jarrett Siddall, Shauna Thompson and Anne van Leeuwen.
playwright: Michael Ross Albert
director: Eda Holmes
concept, choreographic director: Peggy Baker
choreographic collaborators: Elizabeth Chitty, Margaret Dragu, Lily Eng, Louise Garfield, Johanna Householder, & Jennifer Mascall
acting coach/consulting dramaturg: Mikaela Lily Davies
intimacy director: Siobhan Richardson
set and costume design: Gillian Gallow
sound design, composition: Debashis Sinha
lighting, video: Jeff Pybus
props: Alex Gilbert
assistant designer: Sim Suzer
production manager: Maya Royer
production supervisor: Deb Lim
“This play is inspired by an artist-run dance centre called 15 Dance Lab that operated in Toronto between 1974 - 1980. When it first opened just two dance companies dominated the Toronto scene: The National Ballet of Canada and Toronto Dance Theatre. At 15 Dance Lab, the dancers rejected popular expectations for dance and aligned themselves with leftist politics and the avant-garde in visual and media arts. It was THE social scene for Toronto’s burgeoning independent dance milieu.” Peggy Baker
Learn more by watching Peggy’s pre-show chat video below!
All photos by Dahlia Katz
Beautiful Renegades takes us back to the time when Peggy was just starting out as a dancer; while the work itself marks the final production of Peggy Baker Dance Projects. The play runs alongside PRESENCE, a site-specific series taking place in Lisgar Park and featuring commissioned works from four next-generation dance innovators working in Toronto.
A selection of 9 dance pieces glimpsed in Beautiful Renegades have been made into a an exquisite series of films by William Yong, collectively called Choreographic Gems. Check out the Gems webpage for weekly new releases, as well as Peggy’s introduction video (scroll to the bottom of the page!) to this final suite of projects for her company before its closure.
All photos by Dahlia Katz.
Click here to download a PDF listing the sources and credits for photographs used in Peggy’s introduction video.