Artistic Director Martha Carter’s creations through MMP are recognized for giving audiences immersive, participatory experiences, including Xdance (2002) at the Canada Dance Festival and iDUB: an interactive digital urban ballet (2004-2006) at the Dance Centre, High Performance Rodeo in Calgary, and Festival of New Dance in Newfoundland; as well as The Spell Remains (2005) & Ri’zilyent (2007) at The Shadbolt Centre for the Arts and Zagreb Dance Week Festival. Her autobiographical work TWiSTED (2009-2012), which premiered at The Dance Centre, and was later presented at Museum of Anthropology, Canada Dance OFF-Festival, Festival Corps Atypik in Montréal, and Crimson Coast in Nanaimo, was lauded for its raw storytelling and tour de force production. Speaking in Ligeti (2013-2016), with the renowned Microcosmos string quartet, was a salute to some of Carter’s earlier works, where musicians and dancers interact and exchange roles onstage.
Fascinated with finding ways to combine ballet, contemporary, and urban dance forms, over the years, Carter’s choreography evolved as an experiment in ‘rehearsed spontaneity’ letting the dancers find their own movement logic inside specific parameters. As a producer of several large-scale ‘interactive’ productions, including ‘Heat the Streets’ at Olympic Arts Festival (2010); HoP, Jump and Jive for Vancouver’s 125th Anniversary (2011); and 10x10x10 as a collaboration between the Dance Centre and the Canadian Music Centre (2011), MMP secured its role as a creative innovator, as well as a leader in training, mentoring, and uniting community.