Karen Jamieson & Emma Metcalfe Hurst
Interview for Coming Out of Chaos: A Vancouver Dance Story

March 7, 2020

Karen Jamieson, Artistic Director and Choreographer of Karen Jamieson Dance, choreographer and dancer in Coming Out of Chaos (1982), founding member of Terminal City Dance Research

Emma Metcalfe Hurst, Karen Jamieson Dance Archivist/Creative Director of Coming Out of Chaos

This oral history interview has been edited for length, clarity, and accuracy

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: What is your background entering into contemporary dance?

Karen Jamieson: My entry into contemporary dance was pretty amazing, actually. Well the first intro into contemporary dance was through Intermedia. Intermedia was... It was a building in Yaletown before Yaletown was what it is today, it was just complete industrial warehouses and so forth. So, a group of artists got a bunch of money from the Canada Council, and got this building – called it Intermedia – and it was filled with artists and all different media. And this was late ‘60s or so. And a woman named Helen Goodwin, one of the very early people who did dance in Vancouver, was teaching workshops there, so I took her dance workshops and loved them. And actually Helen [Goodwin], I had seen over the years at UBC [University of British Columbia] because she did very informal performances at UBC and I used to go and watch them. And these Intermedia workshops I loved but they didn't really go anywhere. They were what they were. And they were mostly people in the building who would come and take these workshops so it wasn't a bunch of dancers, it was just a bunch of people – of whom I was one. And then I didn't know quite what to do with my life and decided to go and try for a teaching degree. So, I went back to Simon Fraser [University], and did a postgraduate teaching program called PDP. And one of the requirements at that time was that you had to take an extracurricular something-or-other, so I decided to take the dance workshop with Iris Garland. So I started that workshop, and that was kind of it for me. I decided, this is what I'm supposed to do with my life. I never want to teach, thank you very much. All I want to do is dance. So I went through the PDP program but never taught school... I don't even think I went and picked up the degree. And Iris Garland was very, very supportive. Very supportive. And she encouraged me to go to New York, but before I left for New York, Iris [Garland] took a sabbatical and some of us – that she felt were really interested in dance – we danced together, and we improvised, and we created, and we did stuff. Savannah Walling was part of that group, as was [Betsy O'Neill], and Edith Feinstein. We all went to New York. And so going to New York was pretty amazing.

It was an astonishing time to be in New York. It was the early ‘70s. I think it was 1972 I went, I'm just guessing right now. And I was by then about 25 years old. But hell, I decided that I was going to dance. That's what I was going to do with my life. Regardless of whether it was possible or not, didn't matter. That's what I was going to do. So Iris [Garland] had brought a woman named Phyllis Lamhut in, who is from the [Alwin] Nikolais Company. And she brought her in to do a workshop at Simon Fraser [University] and we all took that workshop. So in a certain sense, we're following Phyllis [Lamhut]. And when I got to New York, I went with my ex-partner, David Rimmer, who was interested to see what film was going on, because he was a filmmaker at the time, and we ended up living in an apartment on 85th Street in the Puerto Rican district, an apartment full of Canadians, there were like seven of us all in this apartment. Living just hand-to-mouth. Basically, we lived on David Rimmer's grant from the Canada Council, which he got for film, and he paid for my fees at the Nikolais School, which is where I went. And I spent four years in New York, just studying everything, everything, everything I could. I would take three classes a day sometimes, and see everything I could at night. And that's what I did for four years. It was like the basic training. And I remember Iris [Garland] once coming to New York and going and watching my classes, sort of like my mom. Because my mom came to New York also and came and watched my classes. Yeah, so that was great. And I lived everywhere in New York and stayed for four years. I ended up in the [Alwin] Nikolais company and the Nikolais’ studio was above this theatre company that I'd go down and look at a lot. So I toured all over with [Alwin] Nikolais for a while. Savannah [Walling] didn't last long in New York. She stayed for a while and then left. Neither did Betsy [O’Neill], neither did the others who'd come to New York, but I was hooked. This was it.

And then, after four years, Iris [Garland] invited me to come back to Vancouver and teach at Simon Fraser [University]. So I did, but I realized pretty quickly that I did not want to do this. This was not the dance I was looking for; teaching at a university. So Savannah [Walling] and I, with her partner Terry Hunter, started Terminal City Dance. And I think that may have come out of the interest of Terminal City in Intermedia. I mean, I started in this Intermedia milieu, and then in New York, we were quite blown away by the physical theatre going on. Kind of Grotowski-based– there's a guy named [Jerzy] Grotowski from Poland who did an extraordinary, fairly groundbreaking work in physical theatre that he brought to New York, and we were really taken with that.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: And that was to the States that you toured with the company?

Karen Jamieson: Yeah. We toured all over the United State, as well as Vancouver, we performed at the Playhouse! But here was a lot of pressure in the US at that time to not hire “aliens.” So I was an illegal alien at the time with no papers, nothing. That made Nikolais nervous, so he actually sent me across the border, back to Canada where I stayed with relatives in Ottawa or something, then came back so that I could apply as a student to dance in his company, but it got turned down. So that was the end of that. I was visible. So that was part of the reason why, but I stayed longer after that. Got some money from Canada Council and studied with pretty much everybody. I studied at the [Merce] Cunningham school, and I studied at the [Martha] Graham School, and I studied ballet. That's the three classes. Always just, yeah.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Absorbing.

Karen Jamieson: Yeah.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: It sounds like that was a very profound time for you.

Karen Jamieson: Yeah. It was an extraordinary time to just absorb, see everything, and study everything.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Mhmm.

Karen Jamieson: So then coming back to Vancouver, teaching at SFU [Simon Fraser University], and then starting this Terminal City Dance collective.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: And you left SFU – teaching, in 1980 or so?

Karen Jamieson: Teaching. Let's see. I came back in '75, so I must have gone in '70. Because I was there for four years, so it was back in '75. Taught for a year, so no, it was like '76. I'm not sure when – Terminal City started around there. And lasted about eight years. I can't remember how long.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: And then in terms of your entry into the Vancouver dance scene –

Karen Jamieson: There kind of wasn't a Vancouver dance scene at that time. There was Paula Ross. Was Anna Wyman going at that point? I think so. Yeah. Anna Wyman, Paula Ross period. There was Pacific Ballet Theatre, run and directed by Maria Lewis. I think that was about it. Peter Bingham and those guys, were they around? Yeah, they were around doing contact. They were something called Fulcrum, Peter [Bingham] and Andrew Harwood and the woman's name I've forgotten [Helen Clarke].

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Linda Rubin was –

Karen Jamieson: Linda Rubin was around. So when I say there wasn't a dance scene, there wasn't. There was this, you know, there was this. And there was Norbert Vesak. There was Anna Wyman over there in West Vancouver, there was Norbert Vesak, who kind of came out of ballet, and there was Paula Ross, and Linda Rubin. Yeah.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: And then Intermedia, were there also performances happening after?

Karen Jamieson: Intermedia, now they've... I don't think they were still going at that point when I came back.1 I don't think so. No. There was a lot of things going on at the [Vancouver] Art Gallery.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yes!

Karen Jamieson: Yeah. And a lot of performance. Who was it running the gallery? They were just very open. That Intermedia kind of spirit was still there.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah. There was the curator who brought in a lot of –

Karen Jamieson: Performance art.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Much to the dismay of the conservative board at that time.

Karen Jamieson: Oh, yeah. It wasn't done. But there was a lot of rule breaking at the time. So that was the scene at that point in time, which I would say was the ‘70s.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: So would you say there was an identifiable turning point in which you felt an identity of the dance scene started to develop?

Karen Jamieson: Let me see, at that point, I did not feel an identity. I think a lot of it was because I was really interested in carving out something. But it was not what [anyone was] doing, which is why I felt this need to work in this very different way. So Terminal City was quite a departure from what was going on with, say Anna [Wyman], or Paula [Ross], or Norbert Vesak. They were more rooted in a kind of earlier concept of modern dance that we were springing off from. I think all that had been seen and done in New York. I wanted to go forward to do something, but didn't know what it was yet.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Right, and so Terminal City Dance –

Karen Jamieson: – Terminal City was an experimental collective, is what it was. And its whole raison d’être was experimentation.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: So there was more of a theatrical influence?

Karen Jamieson: There was theatre, and we were interested in interplaying the arts, music, dance, theatre. Just testing the boundaries, asking what is dance. I think of the lot of us, I was the most interested in dance itself and sometimes felt like I wanted to focus more on really the language of dance, and what this art form had to offer. It was the art form that really excited me.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah, but still the interdisciplinary elements?

Karen Jamieson: Oh, yeah, there was enormous stimulation in that process.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Were there any specific common interests or themes that you felt Terminal City Dance was addressing as a collective, that maybe emerged organically or – ?

Karen Jamieson: Nope.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Okay [laughs].

Karen Jamieson: No, I don't. I think Terry [Hunter] and Savannah [Walling] were much more on the same page together than I was. So they may have had all kinds of themes that they thought were the collective themes. But I was kind of going somewhere else and waiting for the opportunity to make a run for it.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Right. Right. And then [Karen laughs] to where you are today.

Karen Jamieson: Yep. Yeah.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: What were some of the personal influences that you were drawing from at that time?

Karen Jamieson: I was always interested in dance as the embodiment of ideas and that may have been a background in philosophy. I had a degree in philosophy and in anthropology. Always interested in culture – culture and cultures. So those are probably major influences.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: And then in terms of some other forces that were happening at that time, back in the ‘70s, ‘80s or so, I was wondering, what was the landscape like in terms of larger social movements that were happening, or even the funding situation? How were those larger things impacting your practice?

Karen Jamieson: Well, let's put it this way, at the beginning of Terminal City [Dance Research], when we first began, we didn't even have a studio. We would run around and look for an empty room somewhere in the city, or a field, or anything, and rehearse, and practice there, and explore, experiment there. So we had no money. Nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing. Then we did find a little space and we all kicked in. So there was no salary. No [laughs]. And so that influenced things, and [I] kept on teaching at Simon Fraser [University] to support my dance habit.

So I would say Terminal City [Dance Research] was the big influence for me and I'm just going to get me out of Terminal City, because Terminal City, I was learning, exploring, exploring, learning, but it was when I went to The Choreographic Seminar in Toronto in '78 – I believe it was '78, that Grant Strate [organized] – he began these choreographic seminars. And it was an amazingly eye opening experience because for the first time I had an opportunity as a choreographer to work with a group of dancers, as opposed to work in a collective. So as I would bring in an idea, these dancers would work with that idea. That was just revolutionary for me. And they would respond physically, as well as emotionally, and intellectually to what was happening, rather than want to sit down and talk about it before we took another step, thank you. So, it was so liberating and so exciting. And I did really good work there because I was just like blowing open this dam that had been waiting for an opportunity to work with dancers. As opposed to collaborators. Let me tell you, it's different. Even though as I'll explain, I've always worked – and I still work collaboratively. But I've learned something in-between. So Grant [Strate] got this idea that he had to get me out of Terminal City Dance [Research]. And at first I was really shocked. Like, what? But he was saying, you got to get out of Terminal City Dance, you've got to, you've got to be able to find this voice, and I think I knew that... just kind of swallowed in the collective milieu.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah.

Karen Jamieson: So, Grant [Strate], after the choreographic seminar was over and sometime later, I guess it was the following year maybe, I don't know when, he proposed to provide me with a commission. And this commission was around some big, something-or-other event going on at SFU. And he said, this is your opportunity, that's why I'm doing this, I'm giving you this funding to hire some dancers and create a piece and produce it, whaddya think? And I was terrified, but started. But here's where I really began to realize that nobody's all of a piece, you know, everything you want, you also don't want. So as I started to collect dancers, well what dancers did I collect? Did I collect dancers? No, I went to my colleagues. So Jennifer [Mascall], I had met at the choreographic seminar she hadn't been in Vancouver before that, she grew up in Toronto. And so she came out to Vancouver, so she was in Vancouver. And there's Terry [Hunter] and Savannah [Walling], but Terry [Hunter] was off doing something else. And Peter Bingham, and Lola Ryan, and Ahmed Hassan, and Lola MacLaughlin, and Barbara Bourget. And Jay [Hirabayashi]. Jay was working with Paula [Ross] at the time, so I ended up with all these colleagues. So guess what? They didn't want to be dancers to my choreography. Not a chance! No way! So here I was, given an opportunity to sort of break free of the collective mold, and I just retreated back into it, some part of me. And I don't know what it was. This is why I just keep thinking: so much of us is not conscious. I wanted, more than anything, just to work with a bunch of dancers, but I didn't go there. And not that there were a lot of dancers in the city at that time anyway, you know. There was not a real dance scene at that time. So, Coming Out of Chaos was born. So the result was – it was really difficult.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah.

Karen Jamieson: It was difficult.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Very challenging.

Karen Jamieson: You can't believe it. I don't regret it for a moment. I think it was great. But It was very, very difficult.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah, but very necessary it sounds like.

Karen Jamieson: Yeah, yep, very necessary part of my development. But it's like I was telling some of the dancers I was working with on Solo from Chaos, that at that point in my life, every single aspect of my life was collectivized; I was in a collective daycare, and I owned a house collectively in Vancouver, owned a piece of property up the coast collectively. Everything it seemed was...

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: “Coming Out of Chaos” [laughs].

Karen Jamieson: And then here was this. It was like I couldn't get away from it. So, we just soldiered through and toured this puppy – and it was a mess – to the East coast, but people seemed to like it. I remember us all in this van, chugging off across the country.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Oh wow, that sounds tight.

Karen Jamieson: Oh yeah. Can you imagine these people?

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Wow, all together in a single van.

Karen Jamieson: Oh, yeah. All together, and we ended up presenting this mess of a piece. But it had energy, I mean, you can imagine those performers. Just throw them on-stage [hits table]. But anyway, yeah. I tried my best to corral them into something, and that was where me sitting up on the ladder came from, trying to get a handle on all this. I've got a story for – where was it? Québec City. Jennifer [Mascall] injured her knee, so in a couple hours before the evening performance, I had to learn her role. So she could sit on the ladder and I could be down there doing her part. So we're working our buns off and then Peter [Bingham] come up the stairs, going: Geez you guys, we're doing all the loading, you can't even help us load? And I threw my boot at him.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Oops.

Karen Jamieson: Because I was really...

Karen Jamieson: We really had our moments.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yes, tensions were high [laughs] and also small spaces.

Karen Jamieson: But then [we] came back, and sort of redid it a bit, and put it on – I think it was one of those theatres on Granville Island, put it on for the big deal. And then that was that. And then came the Canada Dance Festival. And I decided to make a solo out of that [Solo From Chaos (1982)]. I guess it's that solo voice still wanting to be heard. Called Solo From Coming Out of Chaos. And that was the solo, and that was – it's quite a wonderful solo.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Did you ever re-work that solo at all?

Karen Jamieson: Oh, yeah, I mean, I've been doing it ever since. And I just worked it last whenever that was with the three dancers and it was an amazing experience to do that (2) because I realized that piece was really solid. Had a very solid structure, and narrative, but it grew through working with them. That was great.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah, definitely. I was very lucky to be able to see that piece. There were so many different dancing styles that came through, despite performing the same work. It was really powerful. Turning back to the historical context questions again, around location, neighbourhoods, and the studio spaces. I remember reading an interview that you did for Vancouver Art in the Sixties talking about practicing out at UBC.

Karen Jamieson: That was Terminal City. Yeah. Wherever we could find a space. We went to UBC, the auditorium had a space, or you know, we’d just look for empty spaces, and go and work there in fields. It's pretty crazy.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: And then many of the dancers I spoke to for this project also talked about practicing in your living room.

Karen Jamieson: Yeah. Oh, yeah [laughs]. That's right. Yeah.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Savannah [Walling] also made up this really generous timeline of everything going on; events and performances, related to Coming Out of Chaos. And she put down a lot of the spaces as well, and one of them in particular I wrote it down here: the Lim Sai Hor Kow Mock Association? That was the studio...

Karen Jamieson: That was the [Terminal City Dance Research] studio on Keefer St. Yeah, that studio, it was a great studio above a mahjong parlour. And yeah, owned by one of the clans, you know, the Chinese societies. And Terry [Hunter] and Savannah [Walling] lived there and we worked in the studio part of it. Yeah. So that was a Terminal City Studio for quite a while.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: And then did the Coming Out of Chaos rehearsals happen there too?

Karen Jamieson: No, no, no, no, they were totally – oh, maybe they were, yes, they were. They were at that studio. Sorry, my mistake. I was thinking of another one. We had a rehearsal space on Raymur Street as well. Pretty tough neighborhood that was. But yes, the studio on Keefer Street was where most of the rehearsals for Coming Out of Chaos took place. Yeah.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Those rehearsals were really condensed weren't they. It was like an eight-week rehearsal period or something? (2) See Body To Body legacy project, including the Solo From Chaos (1982) recreation with Josh Martin, Amber Funk Barton, and Darcy McMurray, performed on May 18, 2019: https://www.kjdance.ca/now/b2b-2018

Karen Jamieson: No, no, no, it went on, and on, and on. And Grant [Strate] had trouble actually getting the money after sort of commissioning it, and telling me to get it all, and then he didn't come through with the money. It went on for quite a while. We bashed heads and tried to get somewhere and this mess of a piece slowly emerged. I think we took it to Victoria, and Lola Ryan got annoyed for some reason, put her fist through the wall. And that was a bit of a crisis [laughs]. And I ended up taking my son a lot.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: That's actually a theme that's come up through a lot of these interviews; Professional working dancers as mothers, also raising kids. Or even just the experience of being a woman in the dance world at that time

Karen Jamieson: Yeah. Oh, yeah. It was tough having kids at that time because I just would bring my son everywhere.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah

Karen Jamieson: But it wasn't necessarily looked upon favorably at that time.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah. I’ve heard. Barbara [Bourget] – and maybe you can recollect this as well – but my understanding was that she was substituting for Jennifer Mascall, she didn't do the full –

Karen Jamieson: She did it for a little while, and then she went off to work with Paula Ross. So she was just there for a while.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: And then when Jennifer [Mascall] came back, they swapped places? Karen Jamieson: I don't remember that. What I remember is that she was there for a while and then she made a choice to go and work with Paula [Ross].

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: I see, okay. Going back to the studios again, can you give any visual descriptions – anything that stood out to you?

Karen Jamieson: The studio? Well, one of the things we did with the studio on Keefer Street is we re-did the floor. So that was incredible. Like there we were with, you know, those torches, trying to get the gummy-goo off the floor, and then sanding, but it always was a very treacherous floor because it was fir – like soft wood, very old, old, old, old banged up and it would splinter up, and people would get big splinters in their feet. Yeah, but you know what? It was a great studio.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: And did you put in a sprung floor?

Karen Jamieson: Oh, God no.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: [laughs] You work with what you got.

Karen Jamieson: No, I did put a sprung floor later, but that was another one. That was another studio. Farther down the line.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Let's see. So, I know you've already talked about a few memories here, but what is your first memory of Coming Out of Chaos that comes to mind?

Karen Jamieson: First memory. I think just this sense of these milling bodies and the sense of chaos. I mean, it was no misnomer. It was chaotic. And looking for some kind of theme or direction or shape to it. And when I think of Coming Out of [Chaos] – it's the solo that deepened the whole process for me, because that was the story of the descent into chaos and then coming back out of it. So that's my primary vision of it.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah. You had to go through that process.

Karen Jamieson: Yeah, I had to go through that. I had to go through it stage-by-stage-by-stage-by-stage, you know, letting go and going with and learning to –

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: – Kind of be subjected to the chaos as well.

Karen Jamieson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just become part of it and flow with it and see where it goes. Shape it from the inside and run with it. You know, like a stampeding herd not going to, it's going to go where it goes. And you're going to go with it, and see where you can shape it, and influence it, and direct – not direct it, more like coax it in one direction or another.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Prompt it.

Karen Jamieson: Yeah.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: It's a really interesting experience trying to imagine what this piece is because there's no –

Karen Jamieson: – there's no record of it.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Exactly. There are parts. There are fragments of it. I’m trying to piece it together as a whole piece, but it almost seems to me like it never existed in that completeness.

Karen Jamieson: Yeah. That's probably a good analysis.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah So maybe this is an appropriate [laughs].

Karen Jamieson: What?

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: The concept of creating a linear story from this work. It almost seems disingenuous to the piece to try and piece it back together.

Karen Jamieson: Uh huh. Yeah. No, I think it was a process. More than a product. Yeah, it was a process a lot of people went through and we certainly, you know, banged off each other for an extended period of time. And then all crammed into a van and then went to Eastern Canada. Toured around. Yeah, where did we go? Went to Montréal, Québec City. Somewhere. Toronto.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: So all over. Victoria, as well?

Karen Jamieson: Victoria.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: And maybe even Whistler?

Karen Jamieson: That may have been just the Solo. I would think that would be later. Yeah. Because the Solo, it was a different beast. Yeah, quite a different beast. It had a sort of beginning, middle, end, and it had a wholeness to it. And that was what I went back into, to find on my own [laughs]. Finally got the solo voice up and running.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: It's a hard thing to separate, but sometimes you have to go through a process–

Karen Jamieson: Had to go through that. For me, it's something I had to go through.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: It's also a process of realizing what you have to offer and that you have a strong enough voice to go forward. Building that confidence is a key part of the process. Going back to Grant Strate again, you already talked a little bit about your experience at the Choreographic Seminar in Toronto, how you two came to meet each other. And then eventually, what was his role in Coming Out of Chaos other than commissioning it? Like, did he assist in rehearsals, or just step away?

Karen Jamieson: Nope, he just stepped right away.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: His job was done.

Karen Jamieson: Yeah. His job was done. Yeah, it facilitated what he wanted to see happen, which was get me out of Terminal City and work on my own. So that was the end of Terminal City.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yep, at that time.

Karen Jamieson: Yeah, it became Terry [Hunter] and Savannah [Walling] working together. I don't think Vancouver Moving Theatre was their first name... They had some other names, but they worked together and I started on my own. So it was a catalyst for a huge change in my own development.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yep, and also their development.

Karen Jamieson: And their development as well. We needed to part company at that point. We had places we wanted to go, we couldn't go together.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah, definitely. Lola Ryan was asking why you chose these people to work with? Is it as you said before, they were your colleagues?

Karen Jamieson: Yeah. There was no rationale for it. None whatsoever [laughs]. They were just like, right there, Oh, there's Peter!

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Another question [Karen laughs] that Jennifer Mascall asked is do you remember why Terry [Hunter] and Jay [Hirabayashi] didn't participate in Coming Out of Chaos?

Karen Jamieson: Jay [Hirabayashi] because he was working with Paula [Ross]. At the time. Terry [Hunter] had a real desire to try to go deeper into music. So I think for him, it was an opportunity to go somewhere on his own. It was almost like he wanted to go on his own, but he wanted to go into music. I wanted to go on my own deeper into dance. So it's pretty clear to me why he didn't want to, it made perfect sense. You know, he'd been working with me for all these years. And this just seemed like more of the same, and that may have been when he went back East. Because he did do that for a while, he wanted to study music and go deep into it.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: So other people's personal trajectories were starting to form at this point too.

Karen Jamieson: Yeah.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah, that makes sense. Could we talk about costumes?

Karen Jamieson: Oh, Susan Berganzi did the costumes. And I thought they were marvelous.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah, they're amazing.

Karen Jamieson: Yeah. Beautiful costumes she made.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: People had really nice things to say about the costumes [laughs]. Did you work with her [Susan Berganzi] on developing those costumes?

Karen Jamieson: Susan [Berganzi] just came into the studio and spent a fair amount of time there. She was very much trying to get each person's idiosyncratic, energy, shape. And no, she would do it. She did it. I mean, Susan [Berganzi] and I did a lot of work together, but I trusted her to pick up what was needed and create a costume.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: And bring it to life.

Karen Jamieson: Yeah, yeah.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: I think someone had bells on their costume...?

Karen Jamieson: Yeah. I think that was Lola MacLaughlin

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: That's such a great idea. Obviously, that brings in the musical element – we haven't even touched on that yet. That's somewhere. I would like to go next [laughs].

Karen Jamieson: The music was a little bit slapdash. I know that Ahmed [Hassan] contributed some of it live, and then Elyra [Campbell], but it was just like in bits and pieces, sort of like the whole piece. Music came in bits-and-pieces. There was never a whole score developed for the piece, so that was part of the problem in a sense because time was a little bit elastic, you know, it would just kind of do this because there wasn't a kind of score, often the score can give you the time map, Okay, so that ends that section. So if the score is more bits-and-pieces of some text here, a little bit of music there, you don't get that sense of a container that can help to keep the whole thing tight.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Keeping it together. And was Ahmed [Hassan] another contemporary of yours at that time? Was he also “just around”?

Karen Jamieson: Oh yeah, he was right there. It's hard to kind of sometimes keep things in the right order. I think it was later I worked with Ahmed on Coming Out of... Yeah. And then Ahmed created the score for Solo From Chaos (1982). So, Ahmed, I think I actively wanted to work with as a sound musician person.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: And you two obviously found commonalities in terms of what you wanted to do creatively. Could you talk about your creative relationship with Ahmed?

Karen Jamieson: Well, Ahmed had a wonderful ability to respond imaginatively to something you threw out at him. Not everybody can do that. He'd just respond. So, there was a really strong feeling that there was a moving energy that you could build and create with, which I guess I really cherish when I find it in a collaboration. So like, for instance, the idea I had that the score for Solo From Chaos should be all breaths. I actually approached some other choreographers – I mean, sorry, composers, and they went, Nah, that's too limiting. That wouldn't be interesting at all. And I approached two people I'd worked with quite a bit, Toronto composers. Then I asked Ahmed and he said, Sure, and he just started to play. So then I would bring in movement, he would respond. So my relationship with Ahmed, why it was so rich, was that it became almost dialogical, like you throw out the movement idea, back would come up with a sound, a shaping of the breath.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Peter Bingham also expressed a similar relationship with him.

Karen Jamieson: Yeah, well that's Ahmed, and the creative generosity that he embodied. He was just great to work with.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah, it sounds like it. And then in terms of Elyra Campbell, her name wasn't included in the original group and I found her name through the Coming Out of Chaos handbill that Savannah had.

Karen Jamieson: Yeah. As I said, Elyra brought in a few pieces of text, I believe, and maybe a couple of short snippets of music. She wasn't that involved, I don't recall a lot of engagement with her at all. However, she lived for a while with Terry [Hunter] and Savannah [Walling] during the Terminal City period, so they had a much more strong connection with her.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: So they brought her in?

Karen Jamieson: I believe so and she was studying music I think at the time or something, but she and I never really clicked. So I just don't have a really strong memory, either of her or what she did. To be honest, can't remember. I know she brought in some text.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: It just wasn't working.

Karen Jamieson: No. No. Not really.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: In terms of your work with Lola MacLaughlin, could you speak a little bit more about your relationship with her?

Karen Jamieson: Oh, Lola, I didn't know well before this process. So that was the first time I'd worked with her. Yeah. She went through SFU through the dance course there. What was she doing at that time? I think she worked with Jennifer [Mascall], I believe, is my memory. I think they worked together.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: So was it through Jennifer that you brought her in?

Karen Jamieson: I don't remember [laughs]. Because then it wasn't a matter of finding people, that's the odd part. It was just like who's there? Like, right around.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: And then after Coming Out of Chaos happened, how did you see everyone else expand outward?

Karen Jamieson: Oh, well, what I noticed – and it was hard not to notice was that [laughs] I went this way, and they [makes sound] congealed into EDAM. I mean, how could I not notice that? And Jay [Hirabayashi] came and worked with me then as part of my company, and we created Sisyphus (1983).

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Would you say EDAM has more of a contact history?

Karen Jamieson: Not originally. I think with the original group – keep in mind that Peter Bingham was only one member of the original EDAM group. Then there was Jennifer [Mascall] and Lola [MacLaughlin] and Ahmed [Hassan] [and Barbara Bourget, and Jay Hirabayashi]. They were all there. All of them, as EDAM. So, there was a lot of influences, and a lot of pulls, and I remember they did some strong work together. But it wasn't contact. It wasn't till they all decamped in their different directions, because it didn't last long, maybe a year. And then Jennifer started a company, Lola started a company, Kokoro, they started up, and Peter was left. And I remember Peter, hoping that he could keep the funding. And he did.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: And he has.

Karen Jamieson: Yeah. And then that's when EDAM became a contact-based company that it is today.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: And then I guess in terms of your relationship with EDAM, did you ever collaborate with them? Or what were the differences that you saw between what you were doing, and the direction that they went into?

Karen Jamieson: Let me see. Well, I wasn't interested in working with them. I wasn't interested in any more collective work. What I was faced with, and it was really daunting and terrifying, was Okay, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna strike out on my own and start to create work on my own. So that was what was interesting to me. They weren't so interesting to me right then. I mean, I'd go and look at whatever they did. But, no, we weren't collaborating.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah, it wasn't where you wanted to be.

Karen Jamieson: No, wasn't what I wanted to do, wasn't where I wanted to be. I was totally engaged with this other direction that I was going in.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah, and so at that point, you also started working with dancers instead of collectives?

Karen Jamieson: Yep. That was the turning point for me. So that was my journey. I was out of the collective chaos. I was out, I was free. Yeah. I was out, I was free.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: You were on the ladder! The ladder [from Coming Out of Chaos] almost seems like this emblem for your company in a lot of ways.

Karen Jamieson: Oh interesting. Well, what I was interested in with the ladder, in Coming Out of Chaos Solo, was how to create a sense of [verticality]; a journey that moved along the vertical axis. So that sense of depth down to the underworld, coming back up, climbing up to see, and then falling back down. This sense of how much of our life do we experience in terms of climbing and falling and descending and recovery? So that's what the ladder was in order to literalize, create a symbol of that ascending, descending part of our human journey. Also [I was also] kind of sick of this flat space that always seemed to be [laughs]. And I've always liked to turn it this way, rather than this way, on the stage. Try to get depth. So the interest in depth and height and very not interested in the flat, proscenium, like a canvas where you have a visual, but many people think of dance as visual, and I don't. I'm not interested in it as spectacle for the eyes, but more want to draw the audience in, to experience themselves. And I guess that's why wanting to alter space – or perception of space and wanting to draw people in rather than let them sit passively in their seat and receive visual information.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Right, yeah. Like breaking a wall, in a Brechtian sense [laughs].

Karen Jamieson: Yeah, yeah.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Is there a single word that you would use to describe Coming Out of Chaos?

Karen Jamieson: Chaotic. Yep.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yep [laughs].

Karen Jamieson: But chaos is the precursor to new form, new ideas, new perception, new consciousness.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Do you have any other scenes from Coming Out of Chaos that you can share in terms of the choreography?

Karen Jamieson: Why can’t I remember that thing? I think Ahmed [Hassan] and Lola [MacLaughlin] had a duet that I was quite fond of that had to do with the bells. And I think she she had bells on her costume, but with this duet, we gave her all the bells, you know, like the percussionists’ bells, Ahmed's bells. She wore them, and it oddly created some sense of the magical princess, but also chains – sort of chained and it was an evocative and interesting duet.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: There an archival image of Savannah? Someone's got their legs wrapped around...

Karen Jamieson: Yeah, that's me and Savannah.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Do you remember that piece at all, or how you got there [laughs]?

Karen Jamieson: Um, how'd I get there? Nope, just got there. I don't know where that picture... It was sort of disseminated to some extent. So, when I was teaching at Carnegie, two of the people in the Carnegie Dance Troupe decided to try and replicate that. So I don't know what Savannah and I were up to there [laughs].

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: I'm going to show you this image from Lola Ryan that I don't think KJD had in our archives...

Karen Jamieson: I'll haul out my glasses for this. Yeah, I wish I could remember everything about it. But you know what? It was so much more of a process than a product. And yeah, I'm afraid, chaos. Oh, that looks like Lola Ryan! Yeah. Yep, and that's me. Well, that's great! Yeah, so there were lots of duets. And they were quite physical. As you can see, there were people carrying people and hoisting people around and pushing people around. So they were physical, they were... yeah. Ah, that is hilarious! I love it! It's not like I can remember where we went from here.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah. Or how you got there. [laughs]

Karen Jamieson: Or how I got there, how I got into it, or how I got out of it. But damn, good. Yeah, we, you gotta get that into the archives.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: I think this is the first time that I've heard about the duets. Could we talk more about those?

Karen Jamieson: I'm just saying that, as I see it, I remember now, I think people are often interacting in duets. So I'm remembering the Lola [MacLaughlin] and Ahmed [Hassan] one. There's one, I think, I had a duet with Peter Bingham. Um one with Savannah [Walling]. So as you have seen, I can't remember much more about it. As I said, [the duets were] very physical, very effortful. So, there was no dancey-dancing to speak of.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Formally, yeah.

Karen Jamieson: Yeah, there's no formal dance to be seen anywhere. There were no group numbers. What there was when you'd see the group, is that everybody's doing something different. There was quite a bit of that. Where everybody's onstage, everybody's doing something different, and what the relationship is, is anybody's guess. But then they'd resolve into some kind of duet and it would begin and finish.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: So at that time, did you have a clear objective to try and choreograph everyone? Or were you giving people space to express themselves?

Karen Jamieson: Yeah, I tried to choreograph everybody and just gave up after a while when they literally wouldn't do it.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: [laughs]

Karen Jamieson: Like no. Not going to do that.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Oh that's so funny, they wouldn't...

Karen Jamieson: No, wouldn't even try it.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: [laughs]

Karen Jamieson: No. Not going to do that. Or they'd do it and forget. The next day everything would be forgotten, whatever we hadn't managed to cobble out. But when I came back after the tour, I sort of redid the piece for Grant [Strate], basically, and his event, and it was more orderly, at that point. I remember actually putting some structure together.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Right.

Karen Jamieson: There was some structure to it. I remember Peter Bingham saying at one point, I was trying to articulate some idea and he said, “I know what you're trying to say, why don't we just all lie on the floor and then, and then you'll roll on the floor up with us? That's what you're talking about?” He was supposing I was kind of tired of them, tired of the whole process by then. But no, it was, you know, it worked. It worked in its own funky way.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah. Going back and revisiting the piece – redoing it as you said, what was that process like?

Karen Jamieson: Oh, I went back to the Solo, not to the group piece. Oh, no, no, I wouldn't go back to the group piece for love or money. No, no. The solo was kind of what I pulled out of that entire process, and was very excited by it. Felt it was strong and coherent. And it made sense of it, but not sense verbally. To me, the solo made sense of the whole process for me as something that had to be gone through for... to grow. To go to the next stage of development.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah. So it's such a formative piece in that sense. But it's also, as you say, it doesn't have this finality to it.

Karen Jamieson: No, no, that's not a piece for repertoire [laughs]. It was so process-oriented.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Do you remember what your process was at all?

Karen Jamieson: Improvisation. Yeah, sometimes storytelling. Can't remember what the subjects were. So I'd just say, you know, throw something out, see what people did. See where people went, see where an idea went, if anywhere. Then I'd try to shape it and cut out [laughs]. Yeah.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Did you have the name for the piece determined beforehand?

Karen Jamieson: No, not until it was forced upon me to name it, and then Coming Out of Chaos was the idea that this was a process that I was going through, coming out of. Necessary process.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Hence why the name.

Karen Jamieson: Yep, hence the name.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: This next question is kind of funny. Do you think a work like Coming Out of Chaos would be made today? Why, or why not?

Karen Jamieson: I think it would be made. Yes, and no to that. What I've really noticed about what I think of as the current generation that's taking over the Vancouver dance scene [is that they] work very collaboratively, but they work with extraordinary generosity in their collaborations. So, I think they are making works like Coming Out of Chaos, but they're not suffering their way through it. It's not an agonizing process [laughs]. Because I think that there seems to be – just from working with a lot of those people for the Body To Body project, creative generosity is what I would call it. You know, the quality that Ahmed [Hassan] had. As opposed to, you know, This is what I do and I do it this way and just don't bother me please with something that is outside my comfort zone or how I identify myself. My identity, my trajectory, my goals, my dance identity.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: And then I guess that really speaks to the way that your work has developed in terms of this collaborative method?

Karen Jamieson: Well, that's the thing that's so ironic, isn't it? Struggling to get out of the collective. But even so, I always worked collaboratively and–

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: –and closely, and I think with that same generosity.

Karen Jamieson: Well, it works only when there's people who are really willing to move information in this dialogical fashion. And that's what I find I move towards.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: I say it's a funny question, because obviously, we've seen KJD re-mount Solo From Chaos last year (2019) and it's just as relevant – contemporary.

Karen Jamieson: I think so. Yeah. I know that was part of the question behind going back and examining – does it speak today? And I think it does. Because I think that was my notion of mythic narrative that I was examining. And that's what I think mythic narratives are, they're timeless. That they garb themselves in whatever is the, you know, formal clothing of the time, but at essence they're timeless. They all, they're part of our internal architecture. Yeah, I believe anyway.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah. And then in terms of thinking about the contemporary context again, how was the Solo From Chaos perceived by audiences and critics and your contemporaries?

Karen Jamieson: Oh, Solo From Chaos was received very, very enthusiastically. The first time I took it to the Canada Dance Festival it was a hit. Like it was described in reviews as the, you know, the piece. So, that was amazing. And it was, I think, a very strong performance. You know, I think as I said in that showing, for a long time I didn't understand why this piece would be so strong sometimes and just kind of flat others [laughs]. So finally, as I was working with these guys, it became obvious when it was live, when Ahmed [Hassan] was there, it was very powerful. When I tried to do it to recorded breath [breaths], no. I had to have that [collaboration] – it was a duet. That was what we finally realized. And that's when those guys – somebody, Josh [Martin], or somebody went and got a microphone. We started playing with a microphone and realized, It's a duet, guess what! [laughs] Isn't that funny? It's just like everything you know... you go along thinking it's a solo, no it's a duet! You go along thinking that you really want it, you've got to get out of the collective, and then you collect a bunch of collectives around you. So, we are so contradictory and things are never what you think they are. Solo from Coming Out of Chaos was a duet – is a duet of breath and body.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah, it doesn't work with a disembodied voice.

Karen Jamieson: No, no and it became very hard to dance to. I could never really reach the kind of height and depth that I felt I was able to reach in the duet form with [Ahmed Hassan]...

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah, yeah, Solo From Chaos is such a physically demanding piece too.

Karen Jamieson: Oh yeah, oh, yeah [laughs]. Try bourrée-ing on your knees.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah, It was intense to watch. And those moments going up and down the ladder.

Karen Jamieson: Yeah. Oh, I know. That was really hard to watch others do that.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah. How was it for you to see others performing it?

Karen Jamieson: Oh, well I loved it, but I did feel like when they were climbing that I wanted to go and sort of hold the ladder or do something. I think I did actually hold the ladder a lot of times.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah. So another duet relationship that comes out of it.

Karen Jamieson: Yeah. No, I loved watching them grapple with it and enrich it the way they did. They brought so much to it. I was just so excited by that. Yeah.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Great to hear. Could you speak a little bit about those rehearsing the piece in Body to Body? Are there any memories you’d like to share?

Karen Jamieson: Yeah. Really, really good process because they were so responsive, and so ready to go into it. One difficulty that I ran into, is that I wanted to really examine the physical language of it. And so I thought it was necessary, rather than sit around and talk about it before people had actually experienced it as a physical language. So, I wanted the dancers to actually learn the material and then start exploring and deconstructing, or whatever. But that process of learning the material for some felt perilously close to repertoire, you know, now you're learning a piece of repertoire, and then you can do it. And for some, especially those who came out of the ballet world and had done, you know, 100 Nutcrackers, this felt like that kind of process: Now you're gonna learn a classic piece and you're gonna learn all everything now. So that was a difficult part of it. And I don't know how I would do it in future, but I felt that necessity to kind of grapple with the actual, original, physical language, and material, and then challenge it and question it and start to play with it a bit. So overall, it was a really fruitful experience in that it allowed me to see the real power of these pieces, but also how they could be brought into the contemporary perspective. Like some of them, like The Man Within (1989) thad challenged some things, especially in this #metoo era.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah, yeah. I remember, when I saw the Solo from Chaos remount, someone also brought up how Ahmed [Hassan's] breathwork recalled hip-hop...

Karen Jamieson: While I know it sounded like beatbox, and people were going, Just a minute now, when did you make this piece? 19-what? '82. He was doing that before beatboxing became popular. Isn't that amazing?And knew that that's when it [Solo From Chaos] was done. And actually, it was before it became popular. He was already playing with his voice in that kind of way.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah, yeah. And as you said, his willingness and generosity to experiment.

Karen Jamieson: Yeah. Risk-taker.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: For the last part of our interview, I was wondering if you could tell me the Nanaimo bar story again? [laughs]

Karen Jamieson: Oh! All of us in this big station wagon driving, heading east, and Jennifer had made Nanaimo bars. Melted in the side compartment of the car.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Can you tell me the Nanaimo bar story again? [laughs]

Karen Jamieson: Oh, the Nanaimo Bar story! Yeah, I remember we were heading off in a station wagon [for the Coming Out of Chaos tour], must have been a big one because we were all in it. And Jennifer had made Nanaimo bars for the journey. Oh, goody. And then when we went to look at them, in the heat of the car, and the sun, and the highway, they had just completely melted. I can't remember whether we ate them.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Lola Ryan also had another question, do you recall how the piece ended?

Karen Jamieson: No. No, I can't recall how it ended.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: No one else did! [laughs] I figured just because, as you said, it never had cohesion to it–

Karen Jamieson: –Well, it never really developed a structure and a sort of beginning, middle, end destination. It was like you were just plunged into this experience. And then it was over.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah. So it's not chronological, necessary

Karen Jamieson: No, no, things happened and they happened and they happened and they happened and then they stopped happening. There wasn't either a through-line or a structure that, you know, could help you move your way through it and know where you were.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: It seems like this is a really relatable piece in a lot of ways for any artist who's ever done collaborative work.

Karen Jamieson: Oh, yeah, yeah [laughs].

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: I was wondering, do you remember if anyone documented the performance?

Karen Jamieson: I don't know if anybody was. We didn't seem to have the same awareness of documentation. I remember trying sometimes with some pieces just thinking, Gotta get this. But no, I don't think so. I think we were lucky to get a few pictures. And they were probably Chris Randle. I can't remember when I first started working with Chris – I think it may not have been Chris, he may have come on the scene later. I'm not sure if he was there or not. I'm not sure if those pictures are his or not.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah. Okay, going to this last section here: desired outcomes. What would you like to be explored by looking at Vancouver dance history through the model of oral history and storytelling? And to add on to that, what kind of stories do you want to hear, and in your opinion, need to be told?

Karen Jamieson: Yeah, that's an interesting question, not sure how to answer it. I mean nothing pops into my mind as something that I think people need to tell their stories if they need to tell them. But that just sounds like a tautology, you know, but I guess that's kind of what I'm saying. If they need to be told, then they should be told. But not everybody has the same need to tell their story. I think sometimes dance history, or the lineage of dance is important to be told and passed on because it's a non-verbal art, it's an art that is passed on from person-to-person. It's experienced, at least in my view. Where things have come from and how they've evolved, and developed gives us a sense of the art form as a whole. I think it's important to know that. I think that a lack of a sense of history and dance, and a lack of a kind of theoretical framework gives dancers, sometimes, a bit of a sense of inferiority complex almost, the way they’re borrowing language from other art forms, borrowing language from the visual arts or from theatre, rather than looking to find the language within this art form, because it's rich. I don't know if that's making any sense.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: I think there's sense to it, yeah. The reason I asked that question was thinking about how, it seems to me in a lot of ways, the story of Vancouver's the story of Vancouver dance has been untold in a lot of ways, or representation and access has been lacking.

Karen Jamieson: No, I think that's a good point.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: I think goes back to your response of just thinking about the lineage of dance, specially. I’ve been compiling a timeline for this project, as I’ve seen a lot of other people do that individually. Karen Jamieson: Yeah, but how to put them together into something that becomes a collective [laughs] story of our community.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Exactly. Yeah. And I think this project is really trying to provide that collective narrative.

Karen Jamieson: Well, yeah, I mean, in a sense, it's about the collective – and always was, I guess. Whether I wanted it to be, or not, it was [laughs].

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: As much as you try and distance yourself, you'll always be brought back into the collective.

Karen Jamieson: Well, I just think in my own work, one of the themes that's gone through it like a clear line is this tension between the individual and the group. Over and over again, Sisyphus (1983). Over and over, the individual and the group. And that tension – which is probably something within my own life, but also something that I see, and you know, individual rights and the collective right to how much do we protect the rights of an individual? Or how much do we protect the rights of a group? For survival? It's a multi-layered issue that's interesting, throughout. And so with Coming Out of Chaos, that was the struggle. I've come to think that there's a healthy tension; that if either side wins, the result is dysfunction. And I think we have dysfunction right now [in our present moment] from the individualism, but nothing worse than when the group wins, and then you have the situation of the suppression of the individual and individual rights being trampled upon in the name of the collective. Healthy tension. The only way you get absence of tension is if either side falls off the edge on either side, you know, and then it's not absence of tension. It's just dead. And in terms of a healthy living society or group or... It's a tension. It's a state of balance that’s shifting, has to shift and be flexible and alive. That's my personal point of view, from exploring all this through dance for many years.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah, well, I think those are all of my questions! Thank you!

Karen Jamieson: Oh, my pleasure.