Local Saskatchewan Dance choreographer and teacher Ruby Eger is ecstatic after winning the best performance award at this year’s innovative dance film showcase held in Vancouver.
On September 6th the innovative dance film festival, which is an international dance film showcase in its 7th year was being held in Vancouver.
A team from Saskatchewan being led by 2 choreographers Ruby Eger, Olivia Boesch and their videographer RC Equina won the best performance award, with this being the 2nd year in a row a team from Saskatchewan has won at the Innovate Dance Film Festival, with last year’s best picture award going to Ruby Eger and RC equina as well.
Behind the scenes of “Mirrored”. Photo provided by Ruby Eger
Their entry into last year’s showcase was a film by the name of “Me more cowboy than you”, which was a film based on rural life and how local community plays a big part in the prairies, with the film taking a lot of inspiration from old western films.
This year’s film “Mirrored” is a bit more abstract in its messages with the main character played by Olivia Boesch getting stranded in the desert where she is found by a group who are trying to convert her. With the former and latter dressed in black and white respectively representing that they are mirrored. The group is trying to make the main character join them throughout the film with them chasing her near the end. Ruby has said that she welcomes different interpretations of the film.
“Mirrored”, Link provided by Ruby Eger
Both were shot here in Saskatchewan, “Mirrored” being shot at Castle Butte just half an hour from the Canadian American border.
Competition was fierce this year with films coming from Los Angelas, Germany, and all across Canada with massive budgets, recorded on sound stages with 10000’s of dollars worth of rental gear. But with this adversity bred creativity for the sask team with them looking where to but their backyards for inspiration.
The sask team went into the competition with 0 dollars in budget, depending exclusively on the passion of everyone on the team to create this film, whilst using the Saskatchewan landscape to bring their visions to reality. As Ruby said when asked about the decision to use the sask landscape for the film ”If you drive for 2 hours across Vancouver you’re still just in Vancouver”.
Meaning that Saskatchewan has such a variety of landscapes thought out that in a 2 hour drive one can experience all kinds of scenes, with this variety being cited as their advantage going into the competition.
According to Ruby the dance scene here in Saskatchewan is a lot smaller than other cities but focuses heavily on community saying “if you go to any dance event here be it hip hop or contemporary you can basically meet everyone in the community”. It’s all about that small town pride and dedication.
The team was in disbelief when the film won, when asked if the victory felt like when musical artist Post Malone got double platinum for the songs “White Iverson and Congratulations” she agreed, saying she had a lot of imposter syndrome going into it but with the victory, got so much validation for the quality of her art. Now she is taking a step back from teaching dance to enjoy other avenues such as directing and choreographing dance for a personal project with a local musician.
Behind the scenes “Mirrored”, In black Olivia Boesch, Sitting Ruby Eger. Photo provided by Ruby Eger
