Amanda Acorn

Watching Amanda’s work develop throughout the years, one gets a sense of the growth within small structures that occurs. A consistent interest in looped movement patterns informed by deep anatomical knowledge (it’s as though Anatomy Trains was turned into a flip book) sits at the seed of the works, but she also deals constantly with environment, aesthetics, and rhythm so dynamically that it’s easy to pass over the deep compositional work happening. Watching dancers investigate small body tremors and circles that turn into large spatial shifts and fluid group choreography is a gift in Amanda’s work, a joy to see individuals navigating movement structures and figuring out tasks as they go. This is Amanda’s final year of her two-year Emerging Artist in Residence position at Dancemakers, and her 6th working intimately here since starting as a company member in 2011. We are excited to close this time with a co-production of her beautiful work “multiform[s]” with The Music Gallery, giving an opportunity to celebrate her long engagement with Dancemakers and burgeoning choreographic career.

At Dancemakers

Amanda Acorn is a Toronto based performer, choreographer and teacher. A company artist with Dancemakers since 2010, she collaborated and performed in Adaptation Project, loveloss, and Hi-Fi: Rumschspringe. Independently, she has performed and developed works with Susie Burpee, Helen Husak, Lady Janitor, Keaja d’Dance, Andrea Spaziani, Heidi Strauss and Cara Spooner among others. Her solo works, you/me/us (prologue) and multiform have been presented in Toronto, Ottawa and Calgary. She has created in residence at Hub14 and Dancemakers in Toronto and Earthdance (USA). Passionate about advocating for the status of the artist, she is the co-founder of the grass roots organization, the Toronto Dance Community Love-In and is a member of the board of directors for the Canadian Alliance of Dance Artists – Ontario Chapter. She is a graduate of the School of Toronto Dance Theatre’s Professional Training Program and has participated in professional development projects in Vienna, Amsterdam, Berlin and Genoa, Italy.

 Amanda Acorn in Around (2014). Photo by Omer Yukseker.  

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 Amanda Acorn in loveloss. Photo by Omer Yukseker

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 Amanda Acorn in loveloss. Photo by Omer Yukseker.

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