Alvin Erasga Tolentino – Then and Now (right- Undivided Colours, 2014) (Photo: Co. Erasga)
Updated: Sept. 4, 2019, 9:20 AM
Updated: August 30, 2019,4:00 PM
As Tolentino mounts a retrospective of his works today, we repost an article we did last April 2018.
Vancouver ,B.C.
Opening Reception and Artist Talk tonight, September 4th, 6:30-8:30pm
By Ted Alcuitas
Acclaimed Vancouver choreographer and dancer Alvin Erasga Tolentino will present his body of works in an exhibit to celebrate his 30 years of dance.
The exhibit of archival materials will be at Britannia Art Gallery in Vancouver from September 4 -27, 2019. An artists reception and talk will be on September 4. The gallery is located at 1661 Napier Street in east Vancouver.
“Twenty years of his choreographic body of works have been created for Co.ERASGA which will celebrate it’s 20th anniversary in 2020,” says an artist’s statement.
“In light of this milestone achievement, Tolentino reflects and is doing an artistic inventory by looking at choreographic materials that have supported or have been imbued in the dance creations he has created over time.
In his archival treasures are choreographic artifacts –these materials have been part of Tolentino’s dance research, creation and presentation for cultural stages. Tolentino is reimagining these memorable objects utilized once as props, sets, and costumes, images including photographs, books and notations to another dimensional creative entity.
Tolentino is gathering these items to create a compositional collage of artifacts, a collection of objects for people to view, enjoy, re-experience and interact with.
“This project stems from my wish to expand the elements behind choreography – to allow my previous inspirations of objects to re-appear in other creative iterations in the way of an art exhibition. Reassembling these existing materials that were once pivotal in the context of movement and dance provides an extended creative representation to channel ideas, memories and inquisitiveness.”
Co.ERASGA acknowledges that our artistic programming and community work takes place on occupied and unceded ancestral, traditional territories of the Coast Salish people of Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. We are very grateful to live, work and share on these lands.