Centre in the Square opens with killer BANDALOOP show

Centre in the Square kicked off the 2013-2014 season Friday night with a great free event.  Despite the 9C temperature, WR came out for the food trucks, the live music, and the awesome aerial dance show from BANDALOOP.  If you missed the fun Friday, you can catch more of this goodness on Saturday as the party continues.

Big thanks to all the peeps who made this possible.  Looking forward to seeing Martin Short here next week.  Now, click through for an unreasonable number of pics from Friday…

Construction season wraps up soon, leading to the other Canadian season.  Would love to know the story that necessitated this sign, but regardless: the FLAGMAN has spoken.

Ah, food trucks and lineups…

CDub did some serious climbing at the rock wall.

Show is here.

Mission Control.

Hey, Deb Currie, Director of Engagement & Special Projects here at the Centre.  Deb loves it when I take her photo.

You’d think we were all bundled for the Oktoberfest Parade, but it’s still only September.

Hello, Paul Roorda, artist and teacher extraordinaire.  Good turnout.

Lots of cameras at this gig.

Brock Hart from Overlap and Centre CEO Sandra Bender kick it off.

Over the edge…

and dancing.

These performers make it look easy.

 

Some cool physics at work here.

I’ll be the first to admit: I went berserk and snapped a lot of frames on this shoot.

I found this visually very compelling as well as being a helluva great show in general.

Nice and evenly lit overcast sky is happily blown out for exposure.

 

Was shooting the 70-200mm f2.8 exclusively.

Exposure was a bit tricky as I had light from the overcast 6:30pm sky and spot lights shooting up, so different colour temps.  I wanted a reasonable fast exposure to freeze the action, flowing clothes, and hair, so I shot ISO 3200 mostly.  Shot the aerial stuff at f8 to be reasonably sure that the multiple performers would all be in focus.

[crowd holds breath]

Loss of separation is something to avoid.

Loved the facial expressions here.

Going for a diagonal here.

I was very interested in the juxtaposition (and I rarely use that word) of brick and sky.

Descending.

This was an amazing move.

Lots of negative space.

 

 

The tutu came up great here.

I was looking to get more sky behind the performers so I was running around the other side of the tower, tromping through the gardens.  Tried to use the two different parts of the building as framing elements.

I liked the sprawl and disembodied arm so much…

that I shot it…

three times.

Working.

Shooting through the trees, obviously, and came up with something reminiscent of the Mad Men opener.

Love the contrast of the lines against the sky.

Leap.

Yeah, cranked this composition 90 degrees and went to black and white because it was tonally pretty strong.

This guy’s job is to worry about *everything*.

Where did all these awesome Adirondack chairs come from?  There were dozens of them.  Fantastic.

Round and round she goes…

Cool dog.

Good way to get there.

Jeremy Fisher put on an awesome show.  Super talented and super chilled.

Local cable on scene.  Serious gear.

Hey, musician Frank Chen…

and Brock talking Frank’s brother Sunshine Chen.

Sandra spreading the Centre word in an on the spot interview with Natasha McKenty, host of Grand River Living on Rogers TV.

Wheels.

Amazing sky.  Alright, so get down to the party on Saturday and check out BANDALOOP and the music for yourself.  Deets at the Centre in the Square website.

Peace,
DW