Mary-Louise Albert bids goodbye to Chutzpah! Festival after 15 years
Credit to Author: Stuart Derdeyn| Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 18:00:54 +0000
When: Oct. 24 to Nov. 24
Tickets and info:chutzpahfestival.com
This year will be the last for Mary-Louise Albert as the artistic managing director of the annual Chutzpah! Festival. Albert took on the position in 2004 after two decades as a professional dancer.
“This is my 15th festival, and my second career,” she said.
“It’s a great festival this year, so I’m going out on top and it felt like the right time. I’m ready to start my third career now, as I have a number of projects on the go.”
Chutzpah! The Lisa Nemetz International Jewish Performing Arts Festival is named for dancer, lawyer and arts advocate Lisa Nemetz and had somewhat humble beginnings. Under Albert’s direction, the annual event has grown into one of the major arts events in Vancouver’s cultural calendar. With a strong focus on contemporary dance, it has presented numerous Canadian premieres of new works from internationally acclaimed artists such as Tel Aviv-based Batsheva Dance, and others.
Chutzpah! also showcases music, comedy, theatre and more with a focus on unique genre-crossing performances.
One such example at the 2019 festival is former Captain Beefheart and Jeff Buckley guitarist Gary Lucas’ live performance soundtracks to the black and white horror classics of James Whale’s Frankenstein and 1931 Spanish Dracula (Oct. 20, 7 & 9 p.m., Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre. Tickets and info: From $24 at chutzpah.com).
“For me, the direction of a small, local cultural festival wasn’t really my interest and wouldn’t have been a good fit with my own passions,” Albert said.
“Things were changing, growing, moving and there was an opening to bring larger scale contemporary dance and unique performance into the city, and that was where I felt we needed to be. A lot of different funding and revenue streams come into a festival and I have been very lucky to have the full backing of the board.”
As a cultural flagship festival for Jewish performing culture, Chutzpah! is one of the main events of its kind in North America.
Albert thinks that whoever replaces her will inherit a brand that is healthy, exciting and ready to be built upon.
She is by no means disappearing: a series of solo dance pieces that were choreographed for her near the end of her first career will be getting a new life in a performance at the Dance Centre in 2020.