Over the course of the pandemic, Vancouver-raised and New York–based dancer Rebecca Margolick has been reflecting on the role of performing artists in responding to the world’s most pressing challenges.

“I think, as artists, we have a responsibility to, first and foremost, be good citizens,” she tells the Straight by phone.

So when the pandemic cancelled many live performances, she began advocating for the rights of freelance dancers.

“It forced me to step away from the art,” Margolick adds. “I’ve been in this interesting balancing act.”

At the same time, she recognizes that art can be very healing for audiences.

“We need direct action, but we also need a place to process and we need a place for the general public to see these issues in a different light—to hear them told through a different medium,” she continues. “Not just reading it in the news but seeing it in movement.”

It’s in this spirit that Margolick will join Ballet BC dancer Livona Ellis in their first collaborative duet, Fortress, along with two solos each at the Scotiabank Dance Centre on December 17 and 18.

One of Margolick’s solos, Allen Kaeja’s Trace Elements, was danced by her mother, Mary-Louise Albert, two decades ago. It includes text of a conversation that includes references to Nazi propaganda. The discussion is between a German man and a woman who is indifferent to the suffering of her mother’s generation in the Second World War.

“So the movement and the text are kind of countering each other,” Margolick notes. “A lot of the movement is reacting to the text.”

She points out that for many years, lots of people felt that discrimination against the Jewish community was on the wane. But this sense of indifference, which is on display in Kaeja’s text, has been punctured by intense antisemitism within fascist movements gaining momentum in several countries, including the United States.

“It’s the oldest form of white supremacy,” she says. “It’s ancient—thousands of years of hate.”

For her, a turning point came when she went to Auschwitz in Poland in 2018, right before starting the solo.

Nowadays, Margolick is inspired by Jewish women who challenged the Nazis during the Holocaust. They were written about earlier this year in the New York Times.

The author of that piece, Judy Batalion, is the author of The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos.

When asked if these women inform her interpretation of Trace Elements, she replies: "Yes, absolutely."

Margolick is also inspired by her mother’s resilience and humility. “The act of giving away a solo that was once your own is an act of generosity and vulnerability,” she states. “And she did that with such enthusiasm and grace.”

Ellis is interpreting another of Albert’s solos from the past, Peter Bingham’s Woman Walking (away). Ellis and Margolick, along with Vanessa Goodman, were all scheduled to give live performances of Albert’s solos at the Scotiabank Dance Centre in November 2020.

However, they were forced to perform them on video after a provincial health order banned live shows that month. Margolick's mother was going to dance live for the first time in 20 years, but also ended up doing her performance on video.

Goodman has since had a baby, so she’s not participating this time. Nor is Albert.

In advance of developing Fortress, Margolick says that she and Ellis talked at length about the influence of their mothers and grandmothers on them. The two have known each other since they attended Arts Umbrella in their youth.

“This feels personal, like…a way to blend the past of growing up here in Vancouver with her into this new phase that we’re in in our lives—both in our 30s now—and thinking about where we want to go and where we’re at,” Margolick says.