When a young French-born choreographer named Serge Bennathan arrived in Vancouver a bit over 20 years ago, he was eager to connect with the dance scene and explore his art form. An upstart, unjuried event called Dancing on the Edge was launching in 1988 and offered the perfect opportunity for him to debut a new work.

The brainchild of the Firehall Arts Centre’s Donna Spencer, the festival was meant to boost contemporary dance presentations in a city where few venues had any interest.

In the next two decades, Bennathan would leave an indelible mark on Canada’s dance scene. For 15 of those years, starting in 1990, he headed Toronto’s Dancemakers, and he’s choreographed for a list that includes Ballet B.C., the National Ballet of Canada, Le Jeune Ballet International de Cannes, the Metropolitan Opera Company, and the Canadian Opera Company. Of all the Edge’s earliest alumni who went on to do great things—Kokoro Dance, Brian Webb, Lola MacLaughlin, to name a few—he may have gone the farthest.

So it’s fascinating to find the artist coming full circle. Bennathan has moved back to Vancouver and, on the day he meets with the Straight, he’s ensconced in a rehearsal studio with three dancers, working on a short, experimental commission for the 2008 Dancing on the Edge festival.

Speaking later in the Scotiabank Dance Centre lounge, he compares his appearance at the event in 1988 with this one in 2008. “At the time of the first festival, it just kind of grounded me because there were all these people performing, and to be included in this community was an important moment for me,” he says, his speech still rich with a continental-French accent.

“Now it’s similar. I just spent 15 years in the Toronto community and it’s a bit destabilizing to come back. I have some friends that are the same, but for the most part, I have to start at zero again. Dancing on the Edge puts me back into that sense of community again.”

Bennathan’s story speaks to the effect Edge has had on this city’s dance scene, and to the integral role it continues to play for its artists. Not only has it connected choreographers and launched careers, it has always offered a rare opportunity to innovate.

That the fest has managed to survive—just barely, in some years—is a miracle that seemed to demand some kind of recognition for its 20th anniversary. With the help of grants from Arts Partners in Creative Development, tied to the Cultural Olympiad’s run-up to 2010, Edge is sponsoring the 10 for 20 Project—commissioning an unprecedented 10 short works when the festival runs next Thursday (July 3) to July 12. Seven of these commissions have gone to people, like Bennathan, who debuted at that first 1988 festival; the other three have been given to favourites from more recent years.

“It was meant as a big thank you,” says festival producer Donna Spencer over the phone from the Firehall Arts Centre. “It also was a way to support developing new work that normally we wouldn’t have the funds to do.”

The resulting premieres boast now-well-known artists like MacLaughlin, Webb, EDAM’s Peter Bingham, Kokoro Dance, Joe Laughlin, and Karen Jamieson—all of whom took part in the original Edge. Elsewhere, newer names like the Tomorrow Collective, Amber Funk Barton, and Alvin Tolentino round out the 10 for 20 offerings.

For Bennathan, the commission comes at a perfect time. He left Dancemakers in 2006 to try to push himself artistically again. “At Dancemakers, I felt I was starting to function inside a box, whereas my mind had evolved,” he says candidly. “There was a lot I could have still done for the company. But sometimes, to go deeper, you need to break some walls.”

He’s set up a company here in Vancouver, called Les Productions FIGLIO, as a platform for all his artistic pursuits: an avid painter and author of children’s books, Bennathan has also just directed a one-act opera in Toronto—the Canadian Opera Ensemble Studio’s Renard, recast in a Mexican-style wrestling ring—and late last year debuted his play The Invisible Life of Joseph Finch with theatre artist Jonathon Young, at the Chutzpah! festival.

For Edge, Bennathan is creating Slam for a Time Traveller, an utter departure from his dance style. Once again, Edge is allowing him carte blanche.

Drawing on a text he wrote for Vancouver dance icon Grant Strate’s birthday last December, he is attempting to mimic the gut instincts of slam poetry—both in words and movement. At the rehearsal, dancers Donald Sales, Anne Cooper, and Michelle Rhode can be heard muttering fragments of text as they hurtle around the studio. The physically demanding choreography follows a stop-start rhythm, where the performers slow down and then vault into action.

“I have a desire to go back to a rougher artistry. I don’t want to see and I don’t want to create dance that is too clean. I think you become almost too enclosed when you try to make things perfect,” Bennathan says afterward.

In the same way that Bennathan is changing, he has returned to a city where the dance scene has transformed since 1988. Now there are several venues, from Performance Works to the Dance Centre, that present the art form on their stages. There are even several other contemporary-dance festivals or series besides Edge.

On Edge’s 20th anniversary, Spencer and her board are reassessing the function of the festival. After all, it’s not easy staging the summer event, which now regularly features big headline acts and several site-specific works (see sidebar below). “Dancing on the Edge has always run on a very, very tight budget, with very little going into the administration and most going to the artists,” Spencer explains. “Every year, it seems to be that we’re going, ”˜How are we going to do this?’ And then something amazingly uplifting happens and on it goes. There have been years where I go, ”˜What’s the point?’ And then you get something from an artist or audience where you go, ”˜Oh, this is why!’ ”

Those experiences have given Spencer a renewed clarity about what sets Edge apart: “The role has always been about supporting the artist and making sure they get the chance to be seen.”

For Bennathan, even though he’s now a certified veteran of the Canadian arts, that role is still as relevant as it was in the infancy of Vancouver’s contemporary-dance scene. “It’s good to prove that you still have the courage to go further in what you think you are as an artist,” he says. “That’s why I’m thankful that places like Dancing on the Edge exist.”