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Meredith Wrede is a Toronto-based dancer and choreographer who uses the art form to explore the human spirit. Her career has been marked by constantly evolving means of expressions, and in recent years, she has incorporated filmmaking into her work by creating a series of short films. From the early stages of her career, her search for new creative forms was apparent. After studying classical dance at York University and the Toronto Dance Theatre, she worked as a choreographer and instructor in Canada, South Africa and Germany. But she quickly gravitated away from more conventional dance structures by teaming with independent artists in Toronto and becoming an Artistic Director for the Collective Unconscious Collective, which aimed to explore esoteric themes through experimental live performances while breaking from traditional models.
Meredith would soon find freedom in branching out into solo projects. Hoping to push interdisciplinary collaboration to new extents, she worked along with dancers, actors, musicians, photographers, and costume designers and took to the streets where she explored the possibilities of spontaneous creation. She found limitless opportunities in public spaces, where she thrived off of the vibrant energy fields of her surroundings, as well as interactions with passers-by. She reached a level of trust with her environment, allowing the space to influence her performance pieces and drawing inspiration from unseen stories embedded in the air.
Through combining pre-conceived movement rehearsed in-studio, with improvised dance, she found a unique voice that left room for her always-changing creative sensibilities. She has used these creative journeys to build live solo shows performed at various dance festivals around Toronto.
Her work constantly seeks to break down the limited perspective of the immediate physical world, as if attempting to reach beyond it to access a greater truth. The recurring themes in her body of work are inseparable from her own personal passion for seeking a deeper understanding of how our world works, beyond the superficial level of reality we see in front of us.
Her use of film has been in keeping with her curious spirit. She is constantly pushing to find alternative ways of capturing movement on film and editing her stories together in innovative ways, gladly abandoning pre-conceived notions to leave room for something new to appear.
Through distancing herself from more structured approaches to physical expression, Meredith has taught herself to create from a genuinely organic place, that invites true inspiration to emerge not only in her own work, but in that of her collaborators.
With her current projects, Meredith expands her multi media experiences by taking it into the world of techno gadgetry. She is working on interactive objects and spaces for performance.
Meredith is also returning to her roots by once again working with a group of other artists as an associate director for Evolution Dance Theatre. They are working towards the production of “Follow Your Heart” that will be happening in September 2016.
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