“Action at a Distance" photo by Ionut Rusu
Vancouver’s contemporary dance scene takes centre stage in Dance In Vancouver, November 24-28. Produced every two years by The Dance Centre, Dance In Vancouver showcases Vancouver’s diverse and creative dance ecology. It is unique for its concentrated focus on promoting the province’s contemporary dance talent, not only to local audiences, but also to dance promoters and curators from across Canada and around the world. Highlights include a world premiere from The Biting School; performances by Dumb Instrument Dance, Kelly McInnes and Mahaila Patterson-O’Brien; installations by Anouk Froidevaux and Action at a Distance; showings of works in process by Tasha Faye Evans, Zahra Shahab; free presentations in non-theatrical locations by MascallDance and Co.ERASGA; and a wide-ranging selection of ticketed and free events at locations around the city.
The 2021 edition has been co-devised by Melbourne, Australia-based guest curator Angela Conquet with Michelle Olson and Starr Muranko, Artistic Director and Artistic Associate respectively of Vancouver’s Raven Spirit Dance. The curators have imagined an unusual edition conceived as an invitation to experience dance as a ritual of being and sensing together. Indigenous worldviews anchor the vision for this edition which privileges intimate audiences, unusual locations and surprising formats, both live and digital.
The program includes IndigeDIV, co-produced with Raven Spirit Dance, which celebrates the unique worldview that Indigenous artists bring to the global conversation with inspirational keynotes centering Indigenous knowledge, alongside live performances, digital offerings, video installations, and a delegates’ program. Firmly grounded in, and bravely echoing, the times that we are in, Dance In Vancouver aims to connect, inspire and provoke.
Executive Director Mirna Zagar explains: “Dance In Vancouver works on many levels. It’s a great opportunity for audiences to experience work by local artists; our artists get to build their networks beyond the local context; and the presenters become more informed about our dance scene. While travel restrictions mean we won’t see our international visitors in person in the numbers we are used to, we look forward to using the digital space to connect with our colleagues around the world.”
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
TICKETED PERFORMANCES:
1) Dumb Instrument Dance
Made In Voyage
Wednesday-Saturday November 24-27 & December 1-4, 2021 | 5pm + 7pm nightly
Morrow, 336 West Pender St
Tickets $30/$25
A triad of solos that are odes to the performers’ grandmothers, featuring Ziyian Kwan, Shion Skye Carter, and Justin Calvadores. Each of these collaboratively created works counter historic erasure by highlighting the life stories of womxn of colour, portrayed through the memories of their grandchildren.
Very limited capacity: this show is designed for micro-audiences of up to 5 per performance.
Co-produced with Powell Street Festival.
2) The Biting School
Orangutang (premiere)
Wednesday-Saturday November 24-27 & December 1-4, 2021 | 7pm
Russian Hall, 600 Campbell Avenue
Ticket information coming soon
The Biting School draws on history, literature and philosophy to interrogate challenging social and political issues. The company’s work translates the anxiety, trauma and beauty of our time into the language of the body in theatrical works full of physicality, daring ideas and dark humour. Orangutang (Malay for ‘the man of the forest’) is a provocative new solo choreographed and performed by Arash Khakpour.
3) Double Bill:
Kelly McInnes: Blue Space
Mahaila Patterson-O’Brien: Mid-Light: A Translucent Memory
Friday November 26, 2021 | 8pm
Scotiabank Dance Centre, 677 Davie St
Tickets $30/$25
In Blue Space, Kelly McInnes explores our intrinsic connection to water – the water that makes up our bodies and the world we inhabit. Full of startling imagery, this deeply-felt solo explores tensions be-tween the healing and the exploitation involved in our relationship to earth.
Mahaila Patterson O-Brien’s choreography revolves around form and abstract gestures through the use of unison, repetition, and complex patterns. Danced by Eowynn Enquist and Isak Enquist, this work is a score-based re-imagining of a piece initially made for film and stage – an attempt to grasp an idea that is endlessly shifting into new forms.
4) Tasha Faye Evans
Cedar Woman (work in process)
Saturday November 27, 2021 | 8pm
The Annex, 823 Seymour Street
Tickets $20
Cedar Woman is a tribute to a legacy of strong and resilient Coast Salish women spanning all the way back to a tree. Created by Tasha Faye Evans in collaboration with artist Ocean Hyland, it is a solo about protecting what we know from the depth of our soul to be sacred. This profound and emotionally stirring work is based around a mask, held in a box carved from an ancient yellow cedar, as Evans prepares to dance Cedar Woman’s spirit.
FREE EVENTS
1) P. Megan Andrews
the disorientation project
Roundhouse Community Centre, 181 Roundhouse Mews
Wednesday-Sunday November 24-28 | 10am-4pm
Free
Artist and scholar P. Megan Andrews enters into practices of perceptual disorientation in movement, sound and spoken word, resisting the impulse to re-orient and re-stabilize. Visitors will receive instructions for how to engage, encounter various objects, chat with Andrews about the work, and share a response.
In partnership with the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre.
2) Action at a Distance + Tangja Collective
Installation: BLOT – Body Line of Thought
Wednesday-Sunday November 24-28 | 1-4pm
KW Studios, 10-111 West Hastings St
Free
Conceived by Vancouver’s Vanessa Goodman in collaboration with Romanian dance artist Simona Deaconescu, BLOT – Body Line of Thought is an interdisciplinary creation which explores movement in relation to the bacteria in our bodies. It aims to strip the body of social meanings and rethink it as an interconnected system. This special four-channel installation incorporates video, sound, text and movement, to create an immersive experience full of bold ideas and pristine beauty.
Includes nudity
3) Anouk Froidevaux
Installation: Lament for a Dying World
Wednesday-Sunday November 24-28 | 1-4pm
Lobe Studio, 713 East Hastings St
Free
Anouk Froidevaux’s experimental dance film weaves together a poetic narrative, incorporating movement, voice, sound and imagery to perform a contemporary lament. The film touches on themes related to mental health and its intergenerational impact, while looking at the climate crisis.
4) Zahra Shahab
Al-Fattah: when I bow, I see the opening
Thursday November 25, 5pm + Friday November 26, 6pm
Scotiabank Dance Centre, 677 Davie St
Free: advance registration required
A new choreographic work in process. It is a journey into the interior space of body memory and emergence as Shahab listens to the remnants of Islamic prayer rituals in her bones and tethers them to compassionate intimacy with her flesh. It is a work about sitting back-to-back with the bound knot of her sensuality, tied up through patriarchal culture and religion, and gently rocking until an opening appears. It is a queering of the ablutions she enacted in the mosque – entering through the gate of the body, with all its desires, grief, bacteria, and secretions, into a place of worship. Al-Fattah is one of the 99 names of Allah in Islam which means “The Opener.”
5) Jeanette Kotowich
KWE - digital offering
Thursday November 25 | 7pm
Livestream
Free: register online
Jeanette Kotowich’s work reflects Nêhiyaw/Métis cosmology within the context of contemporary dance, performance, and Indigenous futurism. KWE is the current research project being held by Jeanette in collaboration with an ensemble of dance artists and artistic designers. KWE derived from iskwêw (femme Spirit) and iskotêw (fire) - it provides a fluid container to intentionally define and amplify iskwêwak sovereignty and dismantle dominant colonial and patriarchal narratives with vulnerability, courage, and heart.
6) Justine A Chambers
Steady
Friday-Sunday November 26-28 3:45-4:45pm
Progress Lab 1422, 1422 William St
Free: register online
Steady considers the act of rocking as a dance that can be performed by everybody. Regardless of size, scale, spatial orientation or energy exerted, the rock is a whole and joyous dance that can tap into the parasympathetic nervous system, encouraging the alleviation of pain and depression by triggering the brain to release endorphins. Steady houses an archive of scores, videos and instructions for rocking both submitted by the public and sourced privately. Visitors are invited to drop in and observe the creation process, and to submit their own ‘rocks’ to the archive.
7) Lee Su-Feh (battery opera)
Touch Me Hold Me Let Me Go
In person: Saturday November 27, 10-11.30am
Scotiabank Dance Centre, 677 Davie St
Online: Sunday November 28, 1-2.30pm
Free: advance registration required
In this part lecture, part workshop, Lee Su-Feh will talk about the algorithm they have been developing for the past several years and give instructions on how to use it. The lecture/workshop will be given through two different channels: digitally on Zoom, and in-studio in-person. One algorithm, two distinct experiences.
8) MascallDance
Lurch
Saturday-Sunday November 27-28 | 11am
Location TBA
Free
Lurch (working title) explores a body and an inanimate object. The inanimate object: a large sculpture by BC artist Alan Storey, originally commissioned by MascallDance in 2010. The bodies: five dancers, who bring diverse dance roots to the project, from ballet and contact improvisation to drag, street, contemporary dance, and vogue. And four commissioned choreographers: Sarah Chase, Justine A Chambers, Ame Henderson, and Jennifer Mascall.
9) Co.ERASGA
Offering
Saturday November 27 | 12 noon + 3pm
Scotiabank Dance Centre, 677 Davie St
Free
Offering is a collection of solo works created by Alvin Erasga Tolentino for seven dancers, which explores movement as a form of devotion and prayer – allowing the dance to transcend with luminous energy. In this specially-devised site-specific event, Offering becomes a performance ritual, evoking a spiritual reach for universal interconnection, awareness, and healing.
10) DanceWest Network Studio Showing: works in progress
Saturday November 27 | 4pm
Scotiabank Dance Centre, 677 Davie St
Free: advance registration required
Studio showing of works in progress followed by a moderated Q&A.
Artists include Jennifer Aoki, Nick Miami Benz, Sophie Dow.
11) Lee Maracle with Tasha Faye Evans
Artist Talk: Cedar Woman’s Storytelling
Sunday November 28, 2021 | 2pm
The Annex, 823 Seymour Street
Free: advance registration required
Sto:lo Elder and award-winning author Lee Maracle tells Cedar Woman's story and shares the history of the Great Flood in these Coast Salish Lands and Waters. This story is at the heart of Tasha Faye Evans' dance work, Cedar Woman (November 27, 8pm).
ONLINE
1) Digital DIV
Wednesday November 24-Saturday December 4
Streaming on demand
Tickets $15
A selection of Dance In Vancouver performances and associated films and events will also be available online. The films will become available on November 24 at 10am and will be up for viewing on demand until December 4 at 5pm. Some will be available immediately, and others will be added during DIV. The program includes: Co.ERASGA | Dance West Network studio showing | Future Leisure | Kelly McInnes | Mahaila Patterson-O’Brien | MascallDance | Sierra Tasi Baker | Tasha Faye Evans | The Biting School | Opening + Closing Keynotes.