Jolene Bailie is a busy woman.

With a career that has had her touring the country many times, performing hundreds of shows both here and internationally, the modern dance queen still finds time to teach at her alma mater, the School of Contemporary Dancers here in Winnipeg, where she started her modern dance training over 14 years ago.

“I made it a goal when I started to do at least one show a year outside of Canada, and I have done just that,” Bailie said over coffee in her Exchange District stomping grounds last week.

With past performances in the USA and Germany, the movement specialist loves to tackle everyday life issues in her pieces, taking cues from the mother of modern dance, New York’s Anna Sokolow.

“She was a pioneer of modern dance. She brought many human issues onto the dance stage,” Bailie said.

Sokolow is a posthumous collaborator with Bailie’s upcoming self-produced show, Love & War, with her company Gearshifting Performance Works.

A compilation of five dance pieces and one video segment, Love & War will be performed one night only: Tuesday, Nov. 10, at the Gas Station Theatre.

Two of the five dance pieces were choreographed by Sokolow herself, then later licensed by Bailie.

“The rights run out very soon. I have been performing these pieces for a little while and this will be my last go at them. Escape and The End? are both from Rooms, [an] historical masterpiece in modern dance.”

In the upswing of a creative arc, Bailie noted that she has been working constantly, and reported that she will have a new piece ready to go by February of next year.

However, right now it is Love & War that has her exploring all aspects of everyday life.

“Without being overtly sexual, this show explores the most intimate sectors of life. This is a risky production that is distinct from every other [contemporary dance] company in the city. The soul, love and poking at the idiosyncrasies in a relationship all rear their head in these movements.

“Life encapsulates all types of love and all types of war.”

The piece is appropriately set to Bizet’s Carmen.

Bailie spent weeks figuring out the music, which draws from sources as diverse as Shostakovich, Gershwin and Satie to Toronto indie ensemble the Hylozoists.

“This is all real. Events that are all about reality: real life, real people and ordinary life makes the art become extraordinary where the message is pure and simple,” Bailie concluded.

Published in Volume 64, Number 10 of The Uniter (November 5, 2009)