Me, myself, and I: Sarah Chase.

The story’s the thing. It’s what, I’d imagine, starts things off for Canada’s premiere dance storyteller, Sarah Chase. Her graceful words and movement intermingle with wonder and loss. Born in the Vancouver area, and formerly based in Toronto, Chase returned to her West Coast roots just a few years ago, with a move to Hornby Island in British Columbia (that is where her company, Sarah Chase Dance Stories, is located). She is a keen observer of her surroundings and explains, “I don’t choose the work, the work chooses me.

I try to notice what’s knocking at my door,” she says. Dances and stories start percolating in her, linked to a particular place and particular events. Indeed she actively absorbs moments of life and death and those images and ideas filter into her work.
 
It all began over a decade ago, in 1996, when Chase commissioned Benoît Lachambre to create a solo for her. Through their process, he recognized her storytelling gifts, and prompted her to incorporate some of her tales into a personal, narrative solo called “Secrets and Stories.”

Chase is now considered a master of the dance and spoken word scene, and her solo works have been celebrated throughout Europe and Canada. ...