Jolene Bailie
Jolene Bailie presents choreographed dance works that express our deeply human experience in an artistic, innovative manner that is at once complex and yet accessible.
Bailie is the Founding Artistic Director of Gearshifting Performance Works, a dance company which presents works annually in Winnipeg (2000-present), tours extensively and includes a performance history of over 350 performances globally.
In 2010, Bailie choreographed Hybrid Human in conjunction with artist Wanda Koop for Koop’s retrospective On the Edge of Experience at the Winnipeg Art Gallery and at the National Gallery of Canada (2011) as well as in a theatre setting presented by The National Arts Centre (2011). This piece features the dancers moving in and around Koop’s Hybrid Human paintings. Hybrid Human explores the constructed notions of robotics and ideas around disembodied experience, consciousness, creativity,
artificial intelligence and surveillance. The dance Hybrid Human was further developed in 2013 for tours to Toronto and Vancouver.
For 2014, Bailie has continued to develop the work for the context of the exhibition in Xian. Including herself and dancers Claire Marshall, Helene Le Moullec Mancini and Krista Nicholson, Bailie has created a poetic piece that tells its’ story through
presence and clarity. The distilled work includes four dancers cloaked in all black, including masks, with no skin or recognizable features visible, to present an arresting image of an unknown entity. The dancer’s who perform the work become a vessel for which one can reflect on how one
Hybrid Human Xian, dance around Wanda Koop’s Brilliant Orange Screen, Jolene Bailie and Gearshifting Performance Works in collaboration with Wanda Koop, 2014
feels when an unknown, unidentifiable and/or extreme presence inhabits one’s environment.
Jolene holds an MFA in dance from the American Dance Festival/Hollins University, a B.A. Honors Degree in dance from The University of Winnipeg, a Teacher’s Certificate with Distinction from the Royal Academy of Dance and is a graduate of The School of Contemporary Dancers. Her personal performance history includes fifteen years of touring her work, including additional work with numerous senior artists and other dance companies, six cross Canada tours, ten international shows and historical projects in New York City.
Representative Works
Hybrid Human Xian, dance around Wanda Koop’s Brilliant Orange Screen, Jolene Bailie and Gearshifting Performance Works in collaboration with Wanda Koop, 2014