SADONNA
MIGUEL GUTIERREZ (New York)

OCT 3, 8PM
DICKENS PUB

SADONNA is exactly what it sounds like: sad versions of Madonna songs. In this music project, choreographer Miguel Gutierrez shows just how tiny the spiritual distance is between the international pop superstar, who grew up in Bay City, Michigan and himself, an international experimental itinerant artist who grew up in Colonia, New Jersey. Backed by the SLUTINOS, the Sad Latino Boys Backup Singers, SADONNA ekes out the melancholy cry for help hidden within Madonna’s uplifting lyrics.


FLUID FEST LAUNCH PERFORMANCE + PARTY
Co-presented with Calgary Queer Arts Society and part of Springboard Performance’s Signature Series.

ABOUT MIGUEL GUTIERREZ

Miguel Gutierrez lives in Brooklyn, NY. He creates dance-based performances, music and poetry that focus on desire, identity and the search for meaning. He is a 2016 Doris Duke Artist. His work has been presented in venues such as Centre National de Danse, Centre Pompidou, ImPulsTanz, Fringe Arts, Walker Art Center, TBA/PICA, MCA Chicago, New York Live Arts, Live Arts Bard, and the 2014 Whitney Biennial. He has received support from Creative Capital, MAP, National Dance Project, and Jerome Foundation and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, United States Artists, New York Foundation for the Arts, Tides Foundation as well as a Foundation for Contemporary Art award and four NY Dance and Performance Bessies. He recently premiered This Bridge Called My Ass, a group performance that bends tropes of Latinidad to articulate new relationships to identity and form. It was presented by The Chocolate Factory as part of American Realness 2019. He currently performs a music project called SADONNA, where he turns Madonna’s upbeat songs into sad anthems. He runs LANDING, an educational initiative at Gibney, and his book When You Rise Up is available from 53rd State Press. www.miguelgutierrez.org

Gender Splendor:
a CABARET of gender exploration
Calgary Artists & National Guests

Curated by Oliver Twirl

Oct 15, 8pm
Dickens Pub

A night of gender defying grace and debauchery by and for gender diverse artists and performers. In partnership with Fluid Festival; join Oliver Twirl and their fellow trans and non-binary aliens as they dance through the gender spectrum performing spectacles and feats that will Wow you and make you feel things you thought you couldn't. Be encouraged: if you're comfortable the whole time, we're not doing our job!

Co-presented with Calgary Queer Arts Society

THE OTHER HALF
ACTION AT A DISTANCE (VANCOUVER)

The Beauty of Falling Apart
Hilde Elbers (Netherlands) &
Heather Ware (Banff/Netherlands)

OCT 16 & 17, 8PM
DJD DANCE CENTRE

A double bill featuring evocative and uncanny expressions of the female voice in duet form. We welcome back 2018 festival artists Heather Ware and Vanessa Goodman and their collaborators.

WED OCT 16 | POST SHOW ARTIST TALK
Facilitated by Nicole Mion

1HR 40 MINUTES, INTERMISSION INCLUDED

The OTHER HALF
Action at a Distance (vancouver)

A new work from Action at a Distance created by and performed by collaborators Vanessa Goodman, Belinda McGuire and lighting designer James Proudfoot.

It was half their lifetimes ago that Goodman and McGuire last danced together while growing up in Toronto. Collaborating now after 18 years apart, they revisit the shared muscle memory of their youth as a starting point to create a new duet that views their physicality through the prism of an immune system. The shared antibodies of their past fuse with a new collection of pathogens to play off the harmony and conflict of two bodies as familiar with one another as they are foreign. By working to see the world through each other's eyes in "The Other Half" they find ways to re- compose and re-experience what it is like to be one another.

Created with generous support from The Canada Council for the Arts, The City of Vancouver, The Chutzpah! Festival, Dance Victoria, The Chrystal Dance Prize and The Harbourfront Centre.

About action at a distance

Action at a Distance is a Vancouver-based company under the artistic direction of choreographer VANESSA GOODMAN. The company is attracted to art that has a weight and meaning beyond the purely aesthetic and uses choreography as an opportunity to explore social, environmental and biological themes in a highly physical manner. The company respectfully acknowledges that it is working on the ancestral and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh people.
www.actionatadistance.ca

BELINDA MCGUIRE graduated from The Juilliard School (BFA 2006) and danced with the Limón Company, Joshua Beamish/MOVETHECOMPANY, Anne Plamondon, The Metropolitan Opera Ballet, Lar Lubovitch, Gallim Dance, Doug Varone and Dancers and The Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre. Through Belinda McGuire Dance Projects, she performs primarily solo work, choreographs and engages in collaboration and production.
 

SHOW CREDITS

Choreographers: Vanessa Goodman and Belinda McGuire
Performers: Vanessa Goodman and Belinda McGuire
Lighting designer: James Proudfoot
Music credits: Buxtehude, Thomas Köner, Sarah Davachi, Bach

Created with generous support from The Canada Council for the Arts, The City of Vancouver, The Chutzpah! Festival, Dance Victoria, The Chrystal Dance Prize and The Harbourfront Centre.

Photo credit for original image: Ben Didier

The Beauty of Falling Apart
Hilde Elbers (Netherlands)
& Heather Ware (Banff/Netherlands)

The Beauty of Falling Apart is an uncanny and yet seductively precise exercise in how two individuals strive to find trust, to inhabit the thin edge of being "just safe enough.”

Choreographers/dancers Heather Ware and Hilde Elbers share a deep rooted passion for the outdoors, for nature. They are intrigued by the moment when the power of nature turns from liberating to threatening, when our own insignificance is put to the test and the drive for survival takes over. This exposure requires us to find our own safety.

Departing from this shared theme, Hilde and Heather created two radically different solos for each other, with Heather dancing in Hilde's work and Hilde in Heather's work. At the moment that the solos began to find their shape, both felt the need to make the works more than a sum of their parts. What would happen if these two realities were brought into contact with each other? How does our understanding of what someone is experiencing change when another is present, and how does this presence affect our empathic potential?

ABOUT THe artists

Heather Ware (Banff, Canada) and Hilde Elbers (Venray, the Netherlands) are two striking choreographers and dancers in the Dutch dance landscape. Heather was one of the defining dancers of LeineRoebana for fifteen years and between 2003 and 2014 Hilde contributed to the work of Conny Janssen, Itzik Galili and Constanza Macras, among others. Both have been creating their own work for several years. In addition to their fascination for the expressiveness of the moving body, they share a deep-rooted love for rugged nature. It is precisely in this rawness that the essence of their combined work lies.
 

SHOW CREDITS

Concept and Choreography: Hilde Elbers, Heather Ware
Performance: Liah Frank, Heather Ware
Music: Arthur van der Kuip
Lighting Design: Ellen Knops
Dramaturgy: Anne-Marije van den Bersselaar and Moos van den Broek
Costume Styling: Lotte Milder
Thanks to: Nederlandse Dansdagen, ICK Amsterdam, LeineRoebana, Rozemarijn de Neve.

The Beauty of Falling Apart is a co-production of DansBrabant and Podium Bloos with the support of the
Performing Arts Residency program of Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (CA) and the City of Breda (NL).

Photo credit for original image: William van der Voort

FluID KIKI BALL
vogueyyc & Ralph escamillan (vancouver)

Oct 18 - 9:30pm
DICKENS PUB

Celebrate the Vogue/Ballroom culture with Fluid Festival this year at the first “Fluid Kiki Vogue Ball”. 
Open to all, serve your art history knowledge and werk your favourite works of art for a chance to win cash prizes and more!

This ball is OPEN TO ALL, highlighting and celebrating the LGBTQ2S+ and BIPOC communities.
Check out the categories below.

The Fluid Kiki Ball is co-presented with Calgary Queer Arts Society & Fake Mustache Drag King Troupe

ABOUT BALLROOM CULTURE

Vogue and Ballroom culture emerged in the 1930s and 40s in New York City, birthed by the Black and Latinx LGBTQ2S+ community who were excluded from the pageant world of white America. The development of the Ballroom scene created safe and inclusive spaces for these communities to explore and experience life styles from which they were excluded due to systemic oppression. 

A BALL is an event that hosts a series of competitive categories, each with their own focus. Having been birthed in NYC by communities of Queer Black and Latinx people out of a need for safe nightlife spaces due to the discrimination they faced, balls are typically centered around creating safe space for LGBTQIA2+ POC.

Spectators, competitors, and judges, come together to celebrate people within their communities and compete against each other in different categories. Some of the most popular categories are Vogue Performance, Sex Siren, Hands, Runway, Bazaar, and Face. Each of these categories have specific requirements, and competitors are judged by a panel on how well they accomplish them. Before competing against others, category participants are required to “walk” one by one to receive full approval from all judges, known as ‘receiving your 10s’. Competitors who make their 10s battle one on one against each other to impress the judges until there is one winner. 

CATEGORIES

*OTA = OPEN TO ALL

Virgin Vogue - Modern Art

This category is open to anyone who has not competed in a Vogue Performance category at any other ball before. Competitors must be able to showcase all 5 elements confidently to make their 10s

Get your 10’s in a look that express the power of COLOUR like Rothko and Kooning. You must show us all your 5 elements + give us an photo example of what piece you are referencing.

Face - Renaissance

This category is OTA - there are no mandatory dance elements but it is encouraged for competitors to have an elementary understanding of face category techniques.

Face drowned in fabric. 
Michaelangelo, Botticelli, Raphael painted us flawless faces drowned in a sea of fabric. Show us your work of art in a flowing garment to get your 10s.

Bazaar - Surrealism

This is an EFFECT (LOOKS) category - no dancing involved however movement is encouraged to show off your work and bring your effect to life.

Give us an over the top head to toe surreal fantasy by referencing the surrealism greats Kahlo, Picasso and Dalí. THIS IS NOT ABOUT FASHION, but more about utilizing your creativity to show us what you can create!

Runway - Pop Art

This category is  OTA - there are no mandatory dance elements but competitors should have an understanding of the difference between American (butch) and European (femme) runway styles. Both styles will be competing together with no restrictions around which genders are able to participate in either category.

Pop artists like Warhol, Basquiat, Kusama referenced the world we live in, creating works that made us question our place in society. We want to see you take their ideas to the runway with an effect to make us gag for, with a walk to toot.

HINKYPUNK
FakeKnot /Ralph escamillan (vancouver)

Oct 18, 8pm
DJD Dance Centre

Programming and tour for HINKYPUNK and the Fluid Kiki Ball was built through a creative partnership between the members of the
Prairie Dance Circuit: Springboard Performance, Brian Webb Dance Company and New Dance Horizons.

60 MINUTES

HINKYPUNK is an unidentified identity – an archetype, a hero, the unreachable. HINKYPUNK is the idolized/idealized version of the self, a distant mirage of the here and now. HINKYPUNK is the most real that real can get. HINKYPUNK is the glamorous façade leading the construction of cultural identity. HINKYPUNK is the faceless face we look for and who shapes what we become.

ABOUT Ralph Escamillan

Ralph Escamillan is a queer, Canadian-Filipinx performance artist/choreographer/teacher and community leader based in Vancouver, BC. His arsenal of performance skills include a variety of street dance styles, ballroom, contemporary, circus, and drag. He graduated after 4 years in Modus Operandi, Vancouver’s contemporary dance training program, in 2015. He’s apprenticed with Kidd Pivot and worked with Vancouver companies: Company 605, Co.Erasga Dance, Kinesis Dance Somatheatro, Out Innerspace Theatre and is currently on contract with Wen Wei Dance. In the commercial industry, hes worked with choreographers including AJ Aakomon, Luther Brown, Paul Becker and Tucker Barkely, as well as artists Victoria Duffield and Zendaya Coleman, and was a guest dancer for Janet Jackson’s “Unbreakable” tour in 2015. With his company FAKEKNOT he creates work that strives to understand the complexities of identity using sound, costume and technology. The founder of VanVogueJam, Ralph shares his passion for Vogue/Ballroom culture at his weekly by-donation class and vogue balls, acting as a beacon for the queer dance form in Western Canada.
 

SHOW CREDITS

Choreographer/Dancer: Ralph Escamillan
Guest Dancer: Janelle Schiffner 
New Media Projection & Lights: Chimerik似不像
      Sammy Chien - New Media Artist 
      Andie Lloyd - Assistant Designer, production assistant and operator for lights, sound and video.
Composer/ Sound design: Stefan Seslija
Dramaturge: Justine Chambers 
Costumes: Sonja Maus
Set Design: Peter Boulanger
Interpretive contributors: Kevin Fraser, Rachel Meyer, Sara Formosa, Ted Littlemore, Cassandra Naud
Voice Actor: Kirk Wilson

Music Credits: 
Shirley Scott "Corcovado" 
Elvis Presley “Devil In Disguise” 
Marilyn Monroe “I wanna be loved by you”
Frank Sinatra “I’ve got you under my skin”
Michael Jackson “Don't stop til you get enough”

Co-Produced by Push Festival (2018) and funded by the Canada Council for the Arts.
Residencies – The Dance Centre, Boca Del Lupo, Plastic Orchid Factory and R Space.

HINKYPUNK (by FakeKnot) Prairie Tour has been funded by Canada Council for the Arts

Photo credit for original image: Richie Lubaton

ROAD TRIP
Susie Burpee (Toronto) & Linnea Swan (Calgary)

I am a genius does anyone here know me?
Lois Brown (st.John’s)

OCT 18, 7:30pm & OCT 19, 5pm
cSPACE kING EDWARD

REDROVER, SEND DANCE RIGHT OVER: AN ARTIST EXCHANGE.
The RedRover Tour is an initiative focused on co-creating touring opportunities for artists in Alberta and Newfoundland.

A collaboration between Fluid Fest and Neighbourhood Dance Works’s Festival of New Dance.

ROAD TRIP
Susie Burpee (toronto) & linnea swan (calgary)

Road Trip seamlessly integrates dance, theatre and Bouffon to create a distinct and irreverent aesthetic. The audience is taken on an exhilarating ride where two women wrestle with the ephemeral, their mortality, and each other on a tragicomic odyssey to the unknown.

“... ravaged by ambivalence and unresolved feminine rivalry. Bouffon and dramatic tension combine in an ambience reminiscent of David Lynch and Monty Python. Deliciously extravagant.” - Festival TransAmeriques

Road Trip was awarded a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Performance in 2013.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Susie Burpee and Linnea Swan have shared a similar path, training at the same professional school, dancing together for many notable choreographers, and studying Bouffon in the tradition of master clown teacher Philippe Gaulier. This shared artistic history was the impetus for creating and performing Road Trip (2012), a Dora Award winning full-length dance work that was performed across Canada to critical acclaim. Susie continues to perform, create work, and teach in post-secondary dance training programs across Canada. She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Drama, Theatre, and Performance at the University of Toronto. Linnea has continued to create and perform new works in her new home of Calgary. She is a video artist of note, creating work alongside and integrated with choreography, and is Associate Artist with Dancers’ Studio West. Road Trip continues to be an ongoing expedition into the fleeting nature of performance.
 

SHOW CREDITS

Creators/Performers: Susie Burpee and Linnea Swan
Artistic Advisor: Marie-Josée Chartier
Original Lighting Designer: Rebecca Picherack
Music: Rachel’s Additional
Sound Design: The Artists
Funding Credits: Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, hub14

Thank yous: DanceWorks, Ottawa Dance Directive, Public Energy, Dancers’ Studio West, Canada Dance Festival, MOonhORsE Dance Theatre, Centre de Creation O Vertigo, Dancemakers, Series 8:08, Luke Garwood, Cathy Gordon, David Han, Emma Kerson, Gerard Roxburgh, Laurence Siegel.

Photo Credit: Kevin Konnyu

I AM A GENIUS does anyone here know me?
lois brown (st. john’s)

Microphones, paper, foil wrap, and an out-dated dictionary Lois inherited after her Dad died of dementia create a sonic choreography in I AM A GENIUS does anyone here know me?

Lois Brown and James O’Callaghan invite the audience into a playful investigation of memory, patience, boredom, democratization, things and relationality.

About Lois Brown

Born in Newfoundland (Canada), Lois Brown is an original member and past Curator of Neighbourhood Dance Works (1982-89, 1990-92), past Artistic Animateur of RCA Theatre Company (1993-97), and past Artist In Residence and Associate Dramaturg at Playwrights' Workshop Montréal (2004-5, 2010-13). Her work has toured HarbourFront (Toronto), Tangente (Montréal), and Live Art (Halifax). In 2005, the Canada Council for the Arts awarded her the Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award for outstanding achievement in theatre. She has received numerous recognitions, most recently, inducted into Encore! The Dance Hall of Fame (Canada). Lois holds a BA (Drama) from the University of Alberta, and a Master's from Memorial University, where she has taught theatre. Her currents interests are (Dis)arts aesthetics and social art practice.

James O’Callaghan (b. 1988) is a composer and sound artist based in Montréal praised for his “mastery of materials and musical form.” (Electromania, Radio France) His music has been described as “very personal... with its own colour anchored in the unpredictable.” (Goethe-Institut) His work intersects acoustic and electroacoustic media, employing field recordings, amplified found objects, computer-assisted transcription of environmental sounds, and unique performance conditions. He has been awarded over 30 national and international prizes.

SHOW CREDITS

Creator/Performer: Lois Brown
Composer/Performer: James O'Callaghan
Lighting Design: Phil Winters
Projection Design: Pat Dempsey
Stage Manager: Emily Austin
Dramaturgy: Emma Tibaldo and Thea Patterson
Additional Creative Support: Andrea Cooper, Tedd Robinson, Marlene Cahill, Kirsti Mikoda, Ann Connors, Kenneth J. Harvey, Lisa Porter

Creative development was supported by Playwrights' Workshop Montréal, The Canada Council for the Arts, ArtsNL, The City of St. John's, Neighbourhood Dance Works,and the Arts and Culture Centre, St. John's. I AM A GENIUS DOES ANYONE HERE KNOW ME? premiered at the Festival of New Dance in 2018. Early versions were presented at Sound Symposium XVlll, First Look, the LSPU Hall, and the Arts and Culture Centre (Corner Brook). It was previously presented at SummerWorks Performance Festival as a part of the SummerWorks Lab in 2019.

Photo credit for original image: Kenneth J. Harvey

to name an other
Jeffrey Gibson (New York)

Oct 19 - 3pm
Atlantic Avenue Art Block Lobby

In this special performance, as part of Jeffrey Gibson’s exhibition Time Carriers at Esker Foundation, fifty performers will be brought together for a drumming event to give names to our current political climate.

The performance is produced in partnership with Springboard Performance, the Fluid Festival and Esker Foundation, as part of Jeffrey Gibson’s exhibition Time Carriers.

ABOUT JEFFREY GIBSON

Jeffrey Gibson is an interdisciplinary artist based in Hudson, NY. His artworks make reference to various aesthetic and material histories rooted in Indigenous cultures of the Americas, and in modern and contemporary subcultures. He currently has two solo museum exhibitions traveling; Jeffrey Gibson, LIKE A HAMMER, organized by the Denver Art Museum, and This Is The Day, organized by The Wellin Museum.

Photo credit for original image: Andrew Kist

SPLIT
Lucy Guerin InC (Australia)

Oct 19 - 8pm
DJD Dance Centre

60 MINUTES, NO INTERMISSION

RECEPTION + POST SHOW ARTIST TALK: WOMEN IN ART
with Lucy Guerin, Lois Brown and Linnea Swan, facilitated by Nicole Mion, Pil Hansen and Christine Brubaker

Revelling in Lucy Guerin’s sharp, elegant choreographic investigations, Split (2017) reflects the dilemmas of negotiating with oneself and others in a world of increased pressure and reduced resources.

“This for me is the joy of dance making, a chance to burrow into the pure elements of choreography—time, space, structure and the movement of the human body—and to allow content to develop from that process which has resonance in the world.” Lucy Guerin

ABOUT LUcy Guerin INC.

Lucy Guerin Inc (LGI) is an Australian contemporary dance company established in Melbourne in 2002 by Artistic Director Lucy Guerin to create and tour new dance works. Renowned for the skill of its creative team and the originality of its productions, LGI is dedicated to researching, challenging and extending the art of contemporary dance.
 

SHOW CREDITS

Choreographer: Lucy Guerin
Composer: Scanner
Lighting Design: Paul Lim
Sound Designer: Robin Fox
Dancers: Ashley McLellan and Lilian Steiner
Production Manager: James Lipari
Producer: Aneke McCulloch
A Lucy Guerin Inc production

Commissioned and presented by Arts House as part of Dance Massive 2017

Photo credit for original image: Gregory Lorenzutti

BIOGRAPHIES

LUCY GUERIN | Choreographer/Director­

Born in Adelaide, Australia, Lucy Guerin graduated from the Centre for Performing Arts in 1982 before joining the companies of Russell Dumas (Dance Exchange) and Nanette Hassall (Danceworks). She moved to New York in 1989 for seven years where she danced with Tere O’Connor Dance, the Bebe Miller Company and Sara Rudner, and began to produce her first choreographic works. 

Guerin returned to Australia in 1996 and worked as an independent artist, creating new dance works including Two Lies (1996) Robbery Waitress on Bail (1997), Heavy (1999) and The Ends of Things (2000).

In 2002, she established Lucy Guerin Inc in Melbourne to support the development, creation and touring of new works with a focus on challenging and extending the concepts and practice of contemporary dance. Recent works include The Dark Chorus (2016) Split and Attractor (2017) and Make Your Own World (2019). 

Guerin has toured her work extensively in Europe, Asia and North America as well as to most of Australia’s major festivals and venues. She has been commissioned by Chunky Move, Dance Works Rotterdam (Netherlands), Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project (USA), Lyon Opera Ballet (France), Skånes Dansteater (Sweden) and Rambert (UK) among many others.

Her awards include the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award, a New York Dance and Performance Award (a ‘Bessie’), several Green Room Awards, three Helpmann Awards and three Australian Dance Awards. In 2016, Lucy received the Australia Council Award for Dance.
 

MELANIE LANE | Dancer

Melanie Lane is a Javanese/Australian choreographer and performer. Based in Europe from 2000–2014, Melanie worked with artists such as Arco Renz, Club Guy and Roni, and Tino Seghal performing internationally.

In Australia Melanie has performed with Lucy Guerin Inc, Antony Hamilton Projects, Chunky Move and has collaborated with artists Ash Keating, Bridie Lunney and Amos Gebhardt. In 2015, Melanie was appointed resident director at Lucy Guerin Inc and has created new works for Chunky Move (2016) and Sydney Dance Company (2017). Melanie has established a repertory of works presenting in international festivals and venues such as Tanz im August, Uzes Danse Festival, Arts House Melbourne, O Espaco do Tempo, Festival Antigel, Dance Massive and HAU Hebbel am Ufer Berlin. She has been artist in residence at Dock 11 Berlin, Tanzwerkstatt Berlin and Schauspielhaus Leipzig. Melanie was a 2017 Helpmann award nominee for ‘Best female dancer’ in Lucy Guerin’s Split and received the Leipziger Bewegungskunstpreis 2018 for her choreographic work Wonderwomen. Melanie won the 2018 Keir Choreographic Award.

As a teacher, she has taught for companies such as Carte Blanche Norway, Sasha Waltz and Guests, Chunky Move, Danish Dance Theatre and Skanes Dansteater among others.

LILIAN STEINER | Dancer

­Lilian Steiner is a Melbourne-based dancer and choreographer working within dance, the visual arts and experimental sound performance. 

Since graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2010, Lilian has worked with Lucy Guerin Inc. across many projects (Structure and Sadness, Weather, Motion Picture, The Dark Chorus, Split, Make Your Own World, and amongst others has worked with choreographers Phillip Adams’ (Balletlab), Shelley Lasica, Melanie Lane, Brooke Stamp, Leah Landau and Rennie McDougall, visual artists Sally Smart, Brooke Andrew, Ash Keating, Mikala Dwyer and Alicia Frankovic, architect Matthew Bird (Studio Bird) and sound artists JLIN, Anna Homler and Richie Cyngler.  Lilian received the Green Room Award for Best Female Dancer in both 2017 and 2018, as well as the Helpmann Award in 2017.

Lilian’s own choreographic projects have been presented as part of both national and international contexts and most notably include Memoir for Rivers and The Dictator (Dance Massive 2019, with an excerpt originally commissioned for the Kier Choreographic Award 2018 and presented at Constellations Festival (Toulon, France) and Les Plateaux de la Briqueterie (Paris, France)), Metal Under Venus - The Fall of the Sun (Hong Kong International Choreography Festival, 2017), Admission into the Everyday Sublime (Next Wave Festival, 2016), BUNKER (Melbourne Fringe Festival, 2015), Noise Quartet Meditation (Melbourne Fringe Festival, 2014, Dance Massive 2017, Rencontres Chorégraphiques Internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis, Paris & Féte de la Musique, Geneva 2018), Meditation (Melbourne Now, NGV, 2014) and The Call to Connect – Voyager Recordings (Lucy Guerin Inc.’s Pieces for Small Spaces, 2012).  Noise Quartet Meditation received the 2015 Green Room Award for Concept and Realisation.

ASHLEY MCLELLAN | Dancer

Ashley McLellan graduated from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts in 2010 with an Advanced Diploma in Performing Arts (Dance).

During and after her training, Ashley performed with the West Australian Ballet, under the directorship of Ivan Cavallari until 2011.

She has worked with artists such as Melanie Lane, Graham Murphy, Garry Stewart, Ivan Cavallari, Nana Bilus Abaffy, Tony Yap, Alisdair Macindoe, Melanie Lane, Kyle Page, Amber Haines, Geoffrey Watson, Stephanie Lake, Ross McCormack, Lee Serle, Lucy Guerin Inc. and Gideon Obarzanek.

Ashley joined Dancenorth Australia as a full-time dancer in 2015 and is currently still performing with them.

Ashley has choreographed and performed in a few short works; Other in 2013, Pearl for Lucy Guerin Inc’s season of Pieces for Small Spaces in 2014, and Free Dive with Dancenorth in 2017.

SCANNER | Composer

Since 1991 Scanner, British artist Robin Rimbaud, has been intensely active in sonic art, producing concerts, installations and recordings, connecting a bewilderingly diverse array of genres. He scored the hit musical comedy Kirikou & Karaba (2007) and Narnia ballet (2015), Philips Wake-Up Light (2009), the re opening of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and in 2016 installed Water Drops at Rijeka Airport in Croatia. His work Salles des Departs (2003) is permanently installed in a working morgue in Paris. Committed to working with cutting edge practitioners he has collaborated with Bryan Ferry, Wayne MacGregor, Mike Kelley, Michael Nyman, Steve McQueen, Laurie Anderson and Hussein Chalayan. Scanner worked with Lucy Guerin on the 2016 commission for Rambert, Tomorrow.

PAUL LIM | Lighting Designer

Paul is a Melbourne based Lighting Designer with a broad range of experience in theatrical and event production. His multifaceted knowledge has been used to provide integrated solutions for theatre, festivals and events around the world. Lighting design credits include: The Dark Chorus & Split (Lucy Guerin Inc); The Magic Flute (New Zealand Opera); Changes 變 and Siva (Black Grace Dance Company); Fault Lines (Le Shan Modern Dance Company); Trapper and Robot Song (Arena Theatre Company); Hot Brown Honey, Briefs: Close Encounters, Briefs: The Second Coming and Yana Alana: Queen Kong (Briefs Factory). Paul is a director of Additive, providing lighting design and technical solutions to the entertainment industry.

ROBIN FOX | Sound Designer

Robin Fox is an artist working in sound and light across performance, installation, interactive systems and contemporary dance. His AV works with lasers (Monochroma, RGB) have been performed worldwide to critical acclaim. In dance he is a frequent collaborator with Lucy Guerin and has also collaborated regularly with Stephanie Lake, Antony Hamilton and Gideon Obarzanek among others. His music is released internationally through Editions Mego. Current projects include Sky Light, a citywide laser installation commissioned by Melbourne Fringe, Double Vision a collaboration with electronic music legend Atom tm, and he is co-founder of MESS (Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio) which opened in April 2016. 

A double bill featuring two cellular investigations of wildness and flow in the body-mind world.

POST SHOW ARTIST TALK
Facilitated by Pam Tzeng

70 MINUTES, WITHOUT INTERMISSION

The Space Where you Dream & I Live
Su Lin Tseng (Calgary)

Are we humans as different as animals captured in a zoo?
The Space Where You Dream and I Live explores the relationship between audience-spectators and performers-captured animals.

ABOUT su lin tseng

Su Lin Tseng is a choreographer, a movement researcher, and a passionate dancer. She graduated from the University of Calgary with a BA in Dance in 2003 and an MA from York University (Toronto) in 2005. Tseng is originally from Taiwan with a background in Chinese dance, modern and ballet, but it is after her intense study with Davida Monk and Melissa Monteros, that she found her heart in contemporary dance. In 2005, Su Lin was invited to the Gui Zhou University (China) as a visiting scholar, and she returned to Canada one year after for PhD. In Calgary, she has performed in Davida Monk’s LYRIC, Peggy Baker’s Move, Dance Montage (2016, 2017), Metamorphosis of the Dance Action Lab (2017), Fluid Festival (2017) and Alberta Dance Festival (2017). This year, Tseng has performed in Pam Tzeng’s choreography, That ch*nk in y/our armour, at CanAsian KickStart Festival (Toronto) and Fluid Fest (Calgary) and choreographed for Alberta Dance Festival and Dance Montage.
 

SHOW CREDITS

Choreographer: Su Lin Tseng
Performers: Brandon Maturino, Marynia Fekecz, Su Lin Tseng

Photo credit for original image: Andre Goulet

OBLIVION
Mari Osanai (japan)

A solo dance performance by Mari Osanai, Aomori Japan.

ABOUT Mari osanai

Mari Osanai dancer, choreographer and Noguchi Taiso trainer comes to us from Aomori, Japan. After training in Classical Ballet, Modern Dance, Jazz, Tai Chi, and traditional Folk Dance, Mari became interested in exploring movement in new ways. She went on to study dance choreography under Mr. Hironobu Oikawa and Noguchi Taiso training and its philosophy with Professor Michizo Noguchi (1914-1998). Mari stands by the theory that materials that constitute our body are undoubtedly of this Earth and have participated in and experienced the creation process of the Earth. Therefore our body, having lived here and now, includes the entire history of the Earth. What we call ‘life’, ‘body’ and ‘mind’ are precisely phases of change and flow of the earth. There is no absolute standard for all things. Mari Osanai’s unique and complex movements are created by interweaving a combination of techniques she has studied over her career as a dancer. Her approach to movement research and exploration begins with a heightened awareness of gravity’s influence on the body and the body’s connection with the centre of the earth. Over the years, Mari has performed and taught workshops in Japan, Canada, the USA, Greece, and Germany.
 

SHOW CREDITS

Choreography: Mari Osanai
Dancer: Mari Osanai
Mask Doll Creation: Shohel Yamashita
Sound Arrangement: Hisashi Sugiura
Special thanks go to Theater company Watanabe Genshiro Shoten.

Photo credit for original image: Jen Shaw Photography

Pour
Daina Ashbee (Montreal)

Oct 23 & 24, 8pm
DJD Dance Centre

60 MINUTES, NO INTERMISSION

THU OCT 24 - POST SHOW ARTIST TALK
REFRAMING THE BODY IN SPACE / REFRAMING THE SPACE IN THE BODY
with Daina Ashbee/Paige Culley, Jacques Poulin-Denis and Barbara England,
facilitated by Nicole Mion and Sasha Ivanochko

Daina Ashbee confronts her audiences with yet another dark and powerful piece about women. She explores the vulnerabilities and strengths of bodies layered with pain and littered with social oppression. Yet, layers of joy and celebration pierce through the tension providing for a liberating and transformative experience like no other.

ABOUT Daina Ashbee

Daina Ashbee is an artist, performer and choreographer based in Montreal, known for her radical works at the edge of dance and performance. At the young age of 26, she had already won two awards for her choreographies. She was a double prizewinner at the Prix de la danse de Montréal, winning both the Prix du CALQ for Best Choreography of 2015-2016 for her choreographic installation When the Ice Melts, Will We Drink the Water?, and the Prix Découverte de la danse, presented by Agora de la danse and Tangente, for Unrelated (her first choreography). Also Daina was named by the prestigious German TANZ magazine as one of 30 promising artists for the year 2017 and named one of 25 to watch by the American publication, DANCE in 2018. In 2019, she won a New York Dance and Performance Award, Bessie, for Outstanding Choreographer.

Recognized as one of the most promising young choreographers of the next generation, since 2015 her work has been presented 93 times in 13 countries and 30 cities. Her work being presented in some of the most prestigious festivals (The Venice Biennale, Oktoberdans, Les Rencontre Chorégraphiques de Seine Saint Denis, and the Munich Dance Biennale) and on the stages of the world (Canada, France, Spain, Belgium, Norway, Finland, Greenland, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and Mexico).

Daina is the artist-in-residence at Agora de la danse in Montreal until 2020 and the associate artist of Centre de Création O Vertigo - CCOV since 2017. In 2018 she returned to the Venice Biennale to teach at the Biennale College, whilst creating a group-piece for 15 students. She will continue to tour in Norway, Belgium, Italy, Czech Republic and Canada. In 2019 she will tour Europe, Canada and the United States, meanwhile creating a new group piece (J'ai pleuré avec les chiens) and a solo (Laborious Song) set to premiere both in 2020.
 

SHOW CREDITS

Artistic Direction, Concept, Choreography and Scenography: Daina Ashbee
​
Interpreted by: Paige Culley
Lighting Design: Hugo Dalphond
Original Sound Scape Design : Jean-Francois Blouin
Understudy: Émilie Morin
Outside Eyes: Andrew Tay et Angelique Wilkie

Supported by : Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec, La Chapelle : Scènes Contemporain

Photo credit for original image: Performer Paige Culley

TALKING TRUTHS: PERFORMANCES
JESSICA MCMANN (Calgary)
OLIVIA C. DAVIES (VANCOUVER)
Ayla Modeste (edmonton)

Oct 23 - 7:30pm
cSPACE King Edward

Three choreographies by up and coming female indigenous artists.

50 MINUTES

Whirling Worlds: Story Dances
Jessica mcmann (calgary)

hoop dance shares stories and the viewers enter into alternate worlds within their own imagination. This contemporary hoop dance was premiered at the Shadbolt for the Arts on National Indigenous Peoples Day. This is a celebration of the strength and persistence of Indigenous women.

ABOUT JESSICA MCMANN

Jessica McMann is from Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan. She was adopted in the 80’s and raised in Calgary. She recently graduated from Simon Fraser University with a Master of Fine Art. Her research was around methods of Indigenous creation in dance and music. She is a traditional powwow dancer, hoop dancer, and classical musician. She has had the opportunity to present work across Canada and northern Europe. She is currently working on her first classical music CD to be released in 2020.

www.jessicamcmann.com

Photo Credit: Yvonne Chew

Gidaaashi: THE Wind that takes us (Excerpt)
olivia c. davies (vancouver)

Creating new ceremonies based on the traces mother nature makes, a woman is carried by the wind and grounded by the earth beneath her feet. An excerpt from the full-length work, Gidaashi, by Olivia C. Davies and Melissa Frost.

This new work in development from O.Dela Arts asks audiences to witness Indigenous women’s stories of displacement as an effect of colonization. Created by Olivia C. Davies (Anishinaabe) and Melissa Frost (Vuntut Gwichin), the interdisciplinary work combines spoken word, soundscape, and dance to speak about the reality of being stripped of cultural identity and the reassertion of language, protocol and ceremony.

ABOUT Olivia c. Davies

Olivia C. Davies is a Contemporary dance artist, choreographer, and community-arts facilitator of mixed Euro-Anishinaabe heritage based in Vancouver, BC. Her practice has intrinsic ties to politics and justice in the creation of works that explore the emotional and political relationships between people and places. Her first full-length work “Crow’s Nest and Other Places She’s Gone” (2017) blends Contemporary dance, theatre, and street culture through an Indigenous lens. She is the founding Artistic Director of O.Dela Arts, Crow’s Nest Collective, and the Matriarchs Uprising Festival.

www.oliviacdavies.ca
 

SHOW CREDITS

Choreographer: Olivia C. Davies
Performers: Olivia C. Davies
Music: Soundscape design by Olivia Davies with music samples from Brescia Reid, Derek Lyndon, and Michael Red, with audio clips of Melissa Frost and Olivia Davies.
Poet: Melissa Matheson-Frost
Artistic Mentor: Raina Von Waldenburg

Photo Credit: Chris Randle

no limits
AYLA MODESTE (EDMONTON)

No limits traces the path of a timeless womxn who is discovering a world beyond societal constructs. She learns that in order to find freedom, the truth must be reframed. She strips away foreign identities while painting over her scars until she creates a unique erotic language. 

ABOUT AYLA MODESTE

Ayla fuses the electricity of her mysterious body and her rebellious nature. She uses contemporary, burlesque and self taught expression to dive deep into her sensuality. Through her dancing, she journey's through rivers of molten lava and unforeseen dreams.

SHOW CREDITS 

Choreographer: Ayla Modeste ( Shir Modesty )
Performers: Ayla Modeste (shir modesty) and Katherine bessette (Kahtja) 
Sound Design: Nicky Dubz 
Acknowledgements: cover by  Sevdaliza - mad women cover 

Talking Truths:
Community connections through Indigenous CONTEMPORARY CREATION

Oct 23 - 8:30pm
cSPACE King Edward

A gathering centering the indigenous female creative voice. Everyone is invited to listen and participate.

An embodied conversation. An exchange between four Indigenous artists in conversation with community. The featured artists use traditional and contemporary dance to share meaningful stories and cultivate connection in and for their communities.

With open hearts, Talking Truths invites you to join the circle and extend new ways of viewing Indigenous art as an act of healing, political assertion, and cultural continuation.

WITH OLIVIA C. DAVIES, CHERITH MARK, JESSICA MCMANN, AYLA MODESTE.


Co-presented with Alberta Dance Alliance

PHYSICAL THERAPY CABARET
Calgary Artists & National Guests

Curated by Samantha Ketsa

Oct 24 & 26 - 9pm
DJD Community Living Room

90 MINUTES

Gloriously bound by a small space and unlimited imagination, the Physical Therapy Cabaret invites Calgary artists and national guests to share whimsical and irreverent performance. This is a not-to-be missed night of tiny stage spectacle and controlled chaos that you can’t prepare for, where audiences can expect the unexpected. Pull up a chair in our festival lounge for a cocktail of physical surprise.

Running Piece
Jacques Poulin-Denis/ Grand Poney (Montréal)

Oct 25 & 26 - 8pm
DJD Dance Centre

60 MINUTES, NO INTERMISSION

LE MONDE CRÉATIF DE JACQUES POULIN-DENIS | PRE-SHOW ARTIST TALK
OCT 26 - 7:00-7:30PM, DJD LIVING ROOM
Join us for a conversation with the creative mind behind Running Piece, hosted with Alliance Française Calgary.
Facilitated by Yoan Barrieult

Running Piece is a work for dancer and treadmill. On this confined yet infinite space, a man travels without leaving, constantly forced to go forward. He moves through the situations and moments that define us. On the path of humanity and civilization, or on the transit to work, we are the high hope joggers, the overly capable multi-taskers, the compulsive lateness sufferers. Running Piece substantiates our proneness to constantly chase our tails and our pursuit for the divine sublimity of busyness.

ABOUT Jacques poulin-denis

Jacques Poulin-Denis is a composer, choreographer, director and performer. Undertaking projects that blur the boundaries between dance, music and theater, he creates humanistic and uncanny works that are both sensorial and thought provoking. To gently knock the spectator off center, he puts forth the strength within the vulnerability of the characters he brings to life. Counting over twelve different productions, Jacques Poulin-Denis’ work has been seen in over twenty cities across Canada, as well as in the United States, Europe and Asia. He is an artist in residence of l’Agora de la danse in Montreal, and was awarded a two month residency in Berlin during the Tanz Im August Festival, as well as several choreographic research periods in Montreal, Victoria, Vancouver, Bassano and Seoul. He develops an interdisciplinary approach to creation, which he regularly teaches through workshops and master classes. He is a close collaborator of choreographer Mélanie Demers and has been active with her company, Mayday, as a composer and performer since 2006. Jacques Poulin-Denis is the winner of an Isadora Duncan Dance Awards, San Francisco in 2004 and a Saskatoon Area Theater Award in 2009.
 

SHOW CREDITS

Created by Jacques Poulin-Denis
Dancer: James Gnam
Choreography: Jacques Poulin-Denis with Manuel Roque
Original music: Jacques Poulin-Denis
Dramaturgy: Gabriel Charlebois Plante
Costumes: Marilène Bastien
Electronics: Samuel Saint Aubin
Video: Joel Morin Ben Abdallah
Outside Eye: Sophie Corriveau
Lights: Erwann Bernard
Technical Direction: Émile Lafortune

Running Piece was co-produced by the Agora de la danse and made possible thanks to the financial support of the Canada Arts Council, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Montreal Arts Council and Circuit-Est centre chorégraphique. Creative residences: Centre de Création O Vertigo, Circuit-Est centre chorégraphique, Recto Verso, Danse Danse, Arsenal art contemporain Montréal, Musée d’art de Joliette, Théâtre Hector-Charland, Agora de la danse.

Photo credit for original image: Dominique Skoltz

Thaw
Zahra shahab (Vancouver)

Extended Body
Erin Ball (Kingston)

NO MORE FANTASIES
Future Leisure (Vancouver)

OCT 25 & 26, 7:30PM
CSPACE KING EDWARD

70 MINUTES, NO INTERMISSION

Fluid Fest partners with Inside Out Theatre Good Host Program to present a Relaxed Environment Performance on Saturday, October 26.

The edges of identity and body mobility are explored and unraveled in this triple bill of embodied narratives.

FRI OCT 25 | POST SHOW ARTIST TALK
Facilitated by Col Cseke and Nicole Mion

Co-presented with Inside Out Theatre

thaw
Zahra Shahab (Vancouver)

thaw is a solo about the liminal spaces between identities. It is a search for morphological transformation of the characters that surface in the body. Allowing the fantastical to create room for unstable narratives, thaw is about suspending oneself in a state of flux and finding the jagged alchemy that occurs there.

ABOUT Zahra Shahab

Entering from a visual arts background, Zahra Shahab began her practice in dance at the University of Calgary, receiving a Bachelor of Arts with distinction in 2014 along with a minor in Visual Studies. She relocated to Vancouver in 2015 to study with Modus Operandi Contemporary Dance Training Program and at Emily Carr University. She has presented choreography and experimental films in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto, often working with costume design and installation. With a childhood in Islam, a youth in Christianity, an early adulthood cracked open by feminism/queer theories and cradled by Sufi curiosity, Zahra investigates spirituality, identity, and death through her practice. She is interested in the continual fluid process of generating identity alongside the freedom to dismantle it the moment it begins to crystalize.
 

SHOW CREDITS

Choreographer: Zahra Shahab
Performers: Zahra Shahab
Lighting designer: TBD
Music by: Alain Goraguer, Laurel Halo, HOMESHAKE, Oneothrix Point Never
Mentorship/Outside Eyes: Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg and Elizabeth Milton

Thank you to Made in BC Dance on Tour and Jane Gabriels, The Dance Centre, What Lab.

Photo credit for original image: Sophia Wolfe

Extended Body
Erin Ball (Kingston)

Co-presented with Inside Out Theatre

What Is A Body explores movement and sound with various mobility devices and extensions or lack thereof, of Erin Ball’s physical body. Each change brings a different quality, style and aesthetic to the movement. This performance is a result of collaborations with several choreographers and artists, including Holly Treddenick (Femmes du Feu), Keren Zaiontz (Queens University), Michele Frances (SkyCandy) and Jane Kirby (Low Lit Aerial Arts). Erin has also worked on enhancing the piece for blind audiences, under the guidance of Alex Bulmer.

ABOUT Erin Ball

Erin Ball is a circus artist, coach, owner of Kingston Circus Arts and co-owner of LEGacy Circus. After events resulting in the loss of her lower legs, Erin works to create new, creative and different ways of executing her skills as a circus performer.

Jane Kirby is an aerialist, acrobat and choreographer who strives to create engaging performances with a contemporary aesthetic. She can most often be found performing on the aerial silks, but also frequently performs acro-dance and on rope.

SHOW CREDITS

Choreographer: Jane Kirby and Erin Ball with special mention to Holly, Michele Frances and Karen Zaointz for various roles
Performer: Erin Ball
Sound design: Alex Bulmer, Erin Ball and live audio description narrated by Austin Sparks

Photo credit for original image: Michelle Peek Photography

No More Fantasies
Future Leisure (Vancouver)

Corrupting the form of 'pas de deux' by employing a utilitarian approach to physical interaction, the limits of two female bodies is displayed unadorned; the shake of muscles in contraction, the watery movement of released limbs. There is a detached sense of give and take where consent is pre-established and the co-operative nature of the performers relationship renders weight exchange matter of fact. Limbs are stepped on, handled, lifted, or moved with delicate care, as the two women utilize each other's bodies for motion, propelled through space by surrendering agency to the other.

ABOUT Julianne chapple

Julianne Chapple's choreography has been presented extensively in Canada, as well as Italy, Ireland, Germany and the UK. Most recently, she was awarded the 2017 Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award and was artist in residence at Echo Echo Studios in Northern Ireland. Julie is a member of media art collective the Work Group, is artistic director of newly formed dance company Future Leisure, and sits on the board of directors for CADA-West.
 

SHOW CREDITS
Choreographer: Julianne Chapple
Performers: Maxine Chadburn and Julianne Chapple
Lighting Designer: Julianne Chapple
Sound Design: Julianne Chapple
Mentor: Chick Snipper
Rehearsal Director/ Safety Captain: Jen Yan

Special thanks to Steve Batts, Jamee Valin, Jan Chadburn, Canada Council for the Arts, Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, MartaMarta Productions, plastic orchid factory, Echo Echo Dance Theatre Company, and the Shooting Gallery Performance Series

Photo credit for original image: Ed Spence

FLUID FEST at the LIbrary
Barbara England (Calgary)
Julie Funk (Calgary)
Anastassiia La musa (Calgary)
Eric & mia (Calgary) with Action HEro (UK)

Oct 26 & 27, 12-4pm
Central library

A series of pop-up physical performances. Are you dance curious?
Fluid Fest invites local artists to animate the Central Libary with intriguing and surprising site-specific performances.

Fluid Fest at the Library is produced with the partnership of Calgary Public Library.

Featuring:

L.O.V.E.deconstructed
Barbara England (Calgary)

BARBARA ENGLAND is a Calgary based dance and performance artist. After completing a classical ballet education, she expanded her training to include contemporary dance, performance, and live art practices. She worked as a dance artist for six years before pursuing a postgraduate choreographic residency in Kassel, Germany. She has recently had the opportunity to work, study, and perform in Kassel, Berlin, Hamburg, Lisbon, and Amsterdam. As a performance maker, she uses practice-based research as the groundwork for delving into experimental, multi-disciplinary, and collaborative processes.

Barbara is particularly interested in the embodiment of intimacy in relation to space and memory. Her work aims to challenge notions of authorship while using the body as the site for public-private discourse. She refers to the ‘private body’ as a vessel that bridges the gap between ‘self/other’ or ‘performer/spectator.’ Her artistic practice is experimental by nature and involves community participation in all phases of the creative process.

Photo credit for original image: Barbara England

Moving Meditation
Julie Funk (Calgary)

This walking pattern of moving meditation must be done - it formed itself and has in it a story to tell - it rides the waves of the songs in the air that long for volume and seeks to temper the world around it.

We are a group of dancers, movement practitioners and educators who gathered to be with each other - to shift our weight together and play in the world the pattern reveals - the choreography is a practice - a device that changes the internal alchemy of the mover and enrich the spaces around it.

JULIE FUNK is an independent Alberta based movement practitioner, educator and sometimes performer who uses dance as way of making sense of this world - currently residing in Calgary she teaches for the CBE, Arts Commons, DJD, Rosebud School of the Arts and HULL services - her work the past 7 years since moving to Calgary has been in chronic pain recovery and transformative spiritual practices.

Favourite roles: Isobel from Lion in the Streets (EST,NYC) IO from Prometheus Bound (East Village Theatre Co. NYC) Titania from A Midsummer Nights Dream (Theatre Prospero, Edmonton AB) Ethel Rosenberg from Angels in America (Keyano Theatre, FortMcMurray) Spear Holder in Titus Andronicus ( Ludlow Arts, NYC) Choreography credits: Annie, Seussical, Oliver, Cats, High School Musical, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Threepenny Opera Directing credits: Company, A Midsummer Nights Dream, The Tempest, Thirteen Hands

Photo credit for original image: Ken Myhre

De(Re)-Construct: Dance (Re)-Born
Anastassiia LA MUSA (Calgary)

CYCLING WITH ANIMALS:
NEW BYLAWS FOR CITY SPACES
ERIC & MIA (CALGARY) WITH ACTION HERO (UK)

Fluid Fest at the Libary Banner - Photo credit for original image: Barbara England

Cycling with Animals:
New Bylaws for City Spaces
Eric & Mia (Calgary) with Action Hero (UK)

Oct 16 - Nov 3, 2019
contemporary Calgary

Cycling with Animals is a durational project for public space. Created by Action Hero (UK) and Mia & Eric (CA), Cycling With Animals brings together elements of game play, intervention, and poetics to interrogate municipal bylaws that govern public spaces. Over a period of two weeks, the team laboriously cuts up different sections of a city’s bylaws into individual words and then painstakingly re-assemble them into strange accidental poetry that act as scripts for future public actions. These new poetic bylaws are entirely spontaneous, unpredictable and unique to the city they’re working in.


This residency is made possible with the partnership of Contemporary Calgary Collider Residency

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Mia Rushton and Eric Moschopedis are an artist team from Calgary, Alberta. We bring together elements of craft, performance, and cultural geography to create site-specific and socially-engaged works. Thematically our practice deals with urban and rural ecologies, social relationships, and place-based knowledge production. Throughout the last nine years we have developed a practice that operates in both a gallery and public context. Our projects, workshops, artist talks, and lectures have been presented in formal and DIY festivals, galleries, and postsecondary institutions throughout North America and in Europe.

ericandmia.ca

Gemma Paintin and James Stenhouse share an interdisciplinary performance practice together under the name Action Hero. Since 2005, they have created performances spanning theatre, live art, installation, multi media and site-specific practice, which have toured to nearly 30 countries across 5 continents. Action Hero’s work is always experimenting with form, and as a result their work expands across multiple creative practices. Although they work primarily with live performance, we regularly work with processes and mediums with which we are unfamiliar, adopting a radical DIY approach which often sees them navigating through new technical and creative territories.

actionhero.org.uk/


CREDITS & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Performers: (Co-creators) Gemma Paintin, James Stenhouse, Mia Rushton, Eric Moschopedis

Photo credit for original image: The Artists

THIS IS ACTIVELY BUILT
CanDance Creative Exchange
/ CanDanse Échange en Création

Oct 15-20
Theatre Encounter Abattoir, cSPACE KinG Edward

A 6-day research residency that carves out a space for queer dance artists from Calgary and Montreal to dialogue, collaborate and create, with a focus on queering collaborative creation structures through cross-pollination.

Initiated and curated by Nate Yaffe.

CanDance Creative Exchange / CanDanse Échange en Création is a co-presentation of the CanDance Network, Fluid Festival, Studio 303 and is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and Canadian Heritage and Je Suis Julio.

OPEN STUDIO SHARING
OCT 20, 7:30PM | FREE
This is Actively Built Artists invite the public for a sharing of what has transpired during their 6-day research residency.

QUEER TEA TIME
OCT 16-19, 5-7PM | FREE
Visiting hours with resident artists. Open for queer artists and thinkers that want to share the questions, challenges, and dreams they have in relation to their work and queerness. Spread the word and RSVP.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

WINNIE HO (Superhova) is a dance performance artist who currently resides in Montreal.  She grew up in Calgary after immigrating to Canada from Hong Kong at the age of eight and received a Bachelors of Kinesiology at the University of Calgary. She was recently the recipient of the 2017 DanceWeb Scholarship Program at Impulstanz Festival in Vienna. She has worked with Shake It Collaborations in Sweden, professor Chih-Chien Wang of Concordia University and for choreographer Clary Furey in Cosmic Love in Montreal.   For the past five years, she has continued to expand and develop her research in the embodiment with organic/inorganic materials and of active spectatorship in collective sensing, listening, moving and co-creating together.  Her recent work Seeds cast afar from our roots was a collaboration with Angie Cheng and Chi Long which premiered at the MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels) in May, 2019. Furthermore, her works have been presented in Ponderosa Festival in Berlin, Spring Board Summer Series in Calgary, MIX Festival in New York City, Le Petite Festival in Paris and Out There Festival in Porto, Portugal.  

winniesuperhova.wordpress.com/

KEVIN JESUINO a performer, community organizer and activist. Performance creation credits include: Finding Pessoa (Swallow-a-Bicycle Theatre, Innerfish Theatre Co.), Party Tricks (to the Awe #1), Being Together (Mile Zero Dance), Mating Calls (Alternator Art Gallery). Other collaborative performance credits include: Cows (The Grand Theatre); What I Just Said Is True, Because I Said So (Swallow-a-Bicycle Theatre); Atlas (Casa Branca). Kevin also works in the realm of socially engaged art practices, collaborating with marginalized communities in developing sculptural, video and live performances that explore socio/political/environmental issues with a hopes of using arts as a vehicle for meaningful change.

Kevin is a queer Portuguese-Canadian. He is a graduate of Grant MacEwan’s Theatre Arts program and the University of British Columbia’s BFA Interdisciplinary Performance Creation Program. He is the former Artistic Director of New City Collective, former Artistic Associate of Swallow-a-Bicycle Theatre and former Community Arts Facilitator with Antyx Community Arts.

NIUBOI came from space to save the world from a life of blasé mundanity. They live and work in Amiskwaciy (Edmonton) on Treaty 6 territory. They are a trans non-binary alien and use they/them pronouns. Their work combines visual art, movement, and theatrical practice to create live performance, video, installation, and cabaret works that explore queerness, futurism, and joy. Their self-created works Glass Washrooms (theatre), The Milk Bar (film), Antiquation (installation), and NIUBOI x Earth (politi-pop) have been presented by Fluid Fest, Found Festival, The Chinook Series, Mile Zero Dance, Odd Wednesday, and Nextfest.

niuboi.com

MELINA STINSON is a dance artist originally from Calgary, based in Montreal since 2006. After graduating from the École de Danse Contemporaine de Montréal in 2009, she has worked with various companies and choreographers in Montreal and Calgary and has performed across Canada, Europe, The Middle East and Mexico.

In search of autonomy, in 2011 Melina began what continues to be her personal dance practice. This practice includes everything from a “365 dance a day” project completed in 2013 to a creative healing practice developed around an injury in 2017. She also created several short solo and group works between 2010 and 2015, performed in Montreal, Calgary and Winnipeg. Between 2012 and 2019 she worked as a multidisciplinary artist for Theatre Junction where she created movement and choreography she performed in Calgary, Montreal and France.

Melina is currently interested in paying attention to movements that create other movements.

NATE YAFFE is an American experimental dance, theatre and video artist,  based in Montreal who researches queer strategies to create relational choreographic structures, placing performance as fundamentally a social exchange. His tactile dances dismantle movement shame through un-correcting the self-censored body. 

Nate initiated and curates the residency series, This is actively built, which brings together queer artists to attack the question ‘what is queer dance?’ challenging the classic residency structure by restituting the artists’ autonomy to allow a cross-pollination of  knowledge and practices. 

He is a member of the cooperative dance company Je suis Julio, which develops community- centred alternatives for being a dance artist in face of the uncertain future of global capitalism and ecological collapse. 

Photo credits for original images (Left to right):
Artist Winnie Ho - Photographer João Batista Delafavela
Artist niuboi - Photographer Liam MacKenzie
Artist Melina Stinson - Photographer Stephane Desmeules
Artist Kevin Jesuino - Photographer Jessica DeWitt
Artist Nate Yaffe - Photographer Emily Gan