Fall for Dance North opens with ambitious goal to boost contemporary dance in Toronto | Canada Voices

Fall for Dance North is not falling away. Not if Robert Binet and Lily Sutherland can help it.

Ever since founding director Ilter Ibrahimof announced in March that he planned to step down from the autumn festival that he founded 10 years ago, it seemed reasonable to fear it might not continue. Instead, the 10th annual Fall For Dance North opens on Sept. 26, with Binet and Sutherland ready to not only helm the two-week international festival, but with hopes to bolster contemporary dance in Toronto year-round.

“Getting the spaces we need to put up the work is getting harder. It’s all getting harder. Everything is getting more expensive,” Binet said. “But I’ve always seen Fall for Dance North as an arrow that works really hard to cut through that and make great dance possible in this city.”

Ibrahimof is technically still in charge through the end of October, but the new duo-leadership model was announced in August. Binet will be a part-time co-chief executive officer and artistic director, and Sutherland will be a full-time co-CEO and festival director. Both stressed that this was not a marriage of convenience, or a case of board members asking their top picks to form a coalition.

“We submitted an application together,” Sutherland said. “I was so excited about working together in a co-leadership model with someone who brings different experiences and skills.”

Sutherland has worked part-time at Fall for Dance North since 2018, juggling that gig along with others at Luminato, the Hamilton Festival Theatre Company, Passing Through Theatre and the Toronto Fringe Festival. In 2022, she was one of 30 young arts leaders from around the world chosen to study at the Atelier for Young Festival Managers in Montreal.

“This felt like a really natural next step,” she said of going full-time with Fall For Dance North. “I love this festival so deeply and consider it my own.”

Ibrahimof, who also works as a curator, consultant and talent manager, founded the festival in 2015 as a Canadian cousin to Fall For Dance, an annual event that unites New York dance companies. At both festivals, audiences typically see a potpourri of dance troupes in one evening, with lower-than-usual ticket prices.

Fall for Dance North, however, also welcomes a handful of international companies and has begun co-presenting with TO Live throughout the year. Sutherland knew she was up for continuing Ibrahimof’s work; what she was missing was the international contacts and dance-world cache that Binet brings to the table.

“We really see ourselves as a Venn diagram,” Binet confirmed.

To take the job at Fall for Dance, however, he will be pressing pause on his long affiliation with National Ballet of Canada. A Toronto native, Binet graduated from the National Ballet School but shifted his focus to choreography early. He was named National Ballet’s choreographic associate in 2013 and, since 2018, has served as director of artist development programmes. In that capacity, he’s done everything from create works for students to oversee the National Ballet’s own participation in Fall for Dance North.

Binet has also built his own resume as a choreographer working with New York City Ballet and London’s Royal Ballet, which debuted his immersive installation “Dark With Excessive” earlier this year. (An “unforgettable walk in the dark,” one critic raved.) His partner, Spencer Hack, is a principal dancer with NBC.

In previous years, Meridian Hall served as Fall For Dance North’s home base. Not everyone is thrilled that the 2024 festival will rotate between six alternative venues, including the Creative School Chrysalis at Toronto Metropolitan University, the National Ballet School’s theatre and Fleck Dance Theatre at Harbourfront Centre.

Binet is sympathetic to those who will miss the sense of occasion that comes with a trip to Meridian Hall (and taking selfies in its cavernous mirrored lobby.) But the truth is, many intimate works look better in smaller venues, while Meridian Hall “was built for The Nutcracker and Sesame Street Live,” Binet said.

He’s most excited to see the Canadian debut of tech-forward British choreographer Wayne McGregor’s Autobiography (Oct. 1 and 2), while Sutherland is particularly psyched for The Mars Project, featuring the outerspace-inspired moves of Canadian tap dancers Travis Knights and Lisa La Touche (Oct. 4, 5 and 6).

Other highlights include the Tkaronto Open II celebration of First Nations dance (Sept. 28); Homecoming, two nights that will feature dancers from National Ballet, Ballet Edmonton and Malpaso Dance Company (Sept. 26 and 27); and the Toronto premiere of Burn Baby, Burn, a new climate change-inspired work by National Ballet principal Guillaume Côté (Oct. 5 and 6).

As has been the goal for the past nine years, Binet and Sutherland hope audiences will leave wanting to see more work by each company. And that they come back for another 10 years of Fall for Dance North.

“I just wanted to be part of an organization that was really trying to make important connections,” Sutherland said. “And new experiences for dance audiences to fall in love.”