Draft:Maxine Heppner
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Maxine Heppner is a Canadian international dance and inter-medial creator, performer, director and teacher of contemporary movement and interdisciplinary performance. Her work is characterized by a dedication to somatic intelligence as the source of all arts expression and positive human interaction. Heppner is known for her bold large-scale ensemble pieces and intimate chamber works, and has received numerous awards, grants and commissions in Canada and abroad since the 1970s.
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Early influences and education
Born in Montreal, Heppner's formative influences were the sounds, images and stories of her multilingual multi-ethnic community from 1954 -1973.
Elsie Salomons was an early mentor who taught modern dance and improvisation highly influenced by European expressionists, particularly Mary Wigman and Kurt Joos. Heppner was also a dedicated student of one of Canada's first Tai Chi Chuan masters, Sifu Li Shui Pak. And she studied with Seda Zare (Vaganova technique) and Eva von Gencsy (founder of Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal).
Expressionist and philosophical influences that started in Montreal with Salomons and Sifu Li, continued in Toronto in the 1970s at York University, particularly with Julianna Lau and her use of Laban analyses as a foundation for dance therapy methodologies. Heppner's pre-professional training also included studies with George Manupelli in Toronto's burgeoning New Music, performance art and World Music scenes and New York's seminal theatre artist Alwin Nikolai.
In the 1990s she became bi-hemispheric working with improvisor Ruth Zaporah's Action Theatre, Larry Reed's Shadowlight Productions, Gamelan Sekar Jaya, and with contemporary artists in dance, music and visual arts in Far East Asia and Eastern Europe (including Guismiati Suid, Hanafi, Farida Oetoyo, Alma Yoray.
Early Career
During this period, Heppner was active with The MusicDance Orchestra, 15DanceLab, Pavlychenko Studio, the Theatre Centre and collectives that became established as ArrayMusic, The Glass Orchestra, Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan, Danceworks and Dancemakers. As co-director of Phyzikal Theatre with Philip Shepherd and Jay Fisher[1], Heppner deepened her explorations of inter-arts creation and performance. She worked closely with voice master David Smukler and his interpretation of Linklater vocal techniques, as well as theatre director David Fox, composer R.W. Stephenson, and designer Mary Kerr.
From 1990 onward Heppner's career expanded throughout East Asia, Europe, Australia, and, online, to Africa, India and South America. Collaborations spanned performance to science (for example, the 5-year Memory Project with Dr. T. Kennedy of the Montreal Neurological Institute), photography and screendance (Toronto, Montreal, Berkeley, Melbourne, Singapore, Tokyo, Yokohama, Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Athens), medial installations, and writing. She has also been a production manager and designer for stage and film including productions for National Geographic, The History Channel, Discovery Network, PBS, Japanese TV documentaries and Italian, Canadian and Indian feature films.
Across Oceans Arts
Founded in 1996, Across Oceans Arts[2] (AOA) is Heppner's current platform for facilitating artist programs and single projects for professional development, live performance, film and video creation, publications, public forums, advanced research, production, and community ensemble projects.[3] AOA is based in Toronto, Canada, with participants from across Canada, the Caribbean, China, across the European Union, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South America, USA, Vietnam. Heppner's conviction that all people live first in their bodies, so all forms of expression originate in embodied experience is the foundation of all AOA programming.
