Co-produced by DanceHouse and 149 Arts Society, with support from the National Arts Centre
December 15, 2021, 4pm PT
Live Stream Performance
FREE
NEXT: New Dance in Development
December 15, 2021, 4pm PT
DanceHouse, 149 Arts Society, and the National Arts Centre (NAC) have come together to envision a project in direct support of the dance community. On December 15, 2021 that vision will be presented virtually as NEXT: New Dance in Development – a residency and live stream sharing of works in progress from four emerging Canadian choreographers.
Through NEXT: New Dance in Development, these emerging creatives – All Bodies Dance Project artists romham pàdraig gallacher and Lance Lim, Shion Skye Carter, Ralph Escamillan, and Zahra Shahab – have been offered two weeks (November 29-December 14) of shared development time in the Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre at SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, a state-of-the-art theatre. Residency time includes access to technicians and all technical gear on site, allowing artists to begin playing with theatre resources they would not easily have access to in the studio. Following the development period, artists will gather on Wednesday, December 15 at 4:00pm PT for a 75-minute live stream of their works in progress. Everyone is invited to join the live stream as we witness new works beginning to unfold.
NEXT has been made possible with support from Canadian Heritage through their COVID-19 support measure, Canada Arts Presentation Fund Program, Support for Workers in Live Arts and Music Sector Fund. Through this unique funding stream, the three partnering organizations have generated contracts with over 30 arts workers, including choreographers and collaborators from across Canada, dancers, designers, composers, technicians, and production and administrative personnel. And for many of these creatives, NEXT will be one of the first times they are back in the studio and back in the theatre developing new work since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Additional support provided by the British Columbia Arts Council through Stronger BC: BC’s Economic Recovery Plan.
Read the full press release here.
All Bodies Dance Project
Residency Exploration
As a company we aim to create opportunities for diverse artists to practice, research and create innovative, inclusive dance. As part of NEXT, All Bodies Dance Project has selected two emergent choreographers to explore and develop ideas in the making of duets. These creative processes question what it means to translate ideas from one body to another. How can dancers, ‘mentors’, outside eyes, and choreographers keep in mind the specific physicality of their bodies when giving and receiving feedback?
Creative Team
romham pàdraig gallacher (Choreographer)
Lance Lim (Choreographer)
Carolina Bergonzoni (Dancer)
Naomi Brand (Dancer + Mentor)
Rianne Svelnis (Dancer)
Jess Wilkie (Illustrator)
All Bodies Dance Project (ABDP) is an inclusive dance company located on the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. In our work, differences are regarded as creative strengths as we explore the choreographic possibilities of diverse ways of moving and perceiving. Our work straddles between labels of community-engaged and professional practice. We aim to dismantle assumptions, biases and default notions around contemporary dance, the theatre and the dancing body. We offer accessible and inclusive dance classes for people of all abilities, genders and backgrounds.
romham pàdraig gallacher is an interdisciplinary artist who’s been dancing/performing/scheming/creating with the ABDP since 2014. For romham, ABDP is an ongoing process of exploring the peripheries of their ever-changing body; learning what new/ awkward/beautiful creations and connections we can make with our tangled/disagreeable/inconvenient dancing bodies.
Lance Lim is a disabled interdisciplinary artist, who grew up in Strathcona district and his original movement background came from studying martial arts and Wu Shu. Lance joined All Bodies Dance in 2016 and performed in TRACE. He continues to be an active member of his local community and is passionate about dance, movement for everyone and creating community dance.
Shion Skye Carter
Residency Exploration
I’m grateful to be one of the selected choreographers in NEXT Residency, where I will continue to explore ways to honour my heritage through embodied performance. I will dive into the first phase of research for a new collaborative performance, co-directed with two Ontario-based artists: dance artist Mayumi Lashbrook and fibre artist Hitoko Okada. I’ll work with my collaborators to share the history of washi paper and shifu, thread made from washi paper that can be woven into garments, expressing how we each connect to this age-old, hands-on and slow practice as Japanese-Canadians living in the present day. Hitoko feels a deep calling to carry on the legacy of this old weaving technique; the remaining generation of artisans in Japan who produce washi paper and shifu thread fabric in these traditional methods are very elderly, and this knowledge will disappear with them when they pass on. Sharing Hitoko’s personal storytelling of washi and shifu, woven together with dancers exploring connection as they interact with one another, with objects, and with shadow, we strive to create an intimate performance that honours our Japanese ancestry, which can be presented in a variety of arts spaces.
Creative Team
Shion Skye Carter (Choreographer)
Katie Cassady (Dancer)
Mayumi Lashbrook (Core Collaborator)
Cindy Mochizuki (Outside Eye)
Hina Nishioka (Lighting Design)
Hitoko Okada (Core Collaborator)
Prince Shima (Composer)
Wakana Shimamura (Production Design)
Shion Skye Carter is a dance artist originally from Tajimi, Japan, and based in Vancouver, Canada on the unceded, traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.
Through choreography hybridized with calligraphy, video, and sculptural objects, her work celebrates the intersection of her ethnographic and queer identities, in connection with her heritage. As co-founder of olive theory, an interdisciplinary duo with musician Stefan Nazarevich, she collaborates to experiment at the intersection between embodied performance, installation art, and live sound.
In both her independent work and as olive theory, Shion has performed across Canada, and worked as artist-in-residence at What Lab and Left of Main in Vancouver, as well as LEÑA Artist Residency on Galiano Island, BC. Her recently produced short films have been screened at festivals globally, including Dancing on the Edge Festival (Canada), Festival of Recorded Movement (Canada), Dance Days Chania (Greece), and Moving Images Dance Festival (Cyprus).
As a performer, she has interpreted the works of artists such as Anya Saugstad, Vanessa Goodman (Action at a Distance), Ziyian Kwan (Dumb Instrument Dance), and Wen Wei Dance. She holds a BFA in Dance and Kinesiology from Simon Fraser University, and is the 2021 recipient of the Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award.
Ralph Escamillan
Residency Exploration
I’m interested in the examination of unison, its necessity within the context of bodies and light, and the synchronicity between the two. A face covering that withstands an intense light bombarding the performers will be designed by myself in collaboration with costumer Robyn Jill Laxamana, with lighting design by Jonathan Kim. The dancers in the piece will be Daria Mikhaylyuk, Simran Sachar, Rina Pellerin and Marisa Christogeorge.
Creative Team
Ralph Escamillan (Choreographer + Costume Designer)
Marisa Christo-Kondola (Dancer)
Jonathan Kim (Lighting Design)
Robyn Jill Laxamana (Costumer)
Daria Mikhaylyuk (Dancer)
Rina Pellerin (Dancer)
Simran Sachar (Dancer)
Ralph Escamillan is a queer, Canadian-Filipinx performance artist, choreographer and teacher based on the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh Nations.
He has trained in a breadth of dance styles such as Street, Commercial, and Contemporary – and has worked and toured with Company 605, Co. Erasga Dance, Kinesis Dance Somatheatro and Out Innerspace Theatre, apprenticed with Kidd Pivot (2014) and been a guest dancer for Ballet BC (2020). He currently works with Wen Wei Dance, Mascall Dance.
His second full length work, ‘whip’ premiered at MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels) in early November 2021, and is in the process of developing a new work ‘Piña’ that draws inspiration from the traditional Philippine textile it is named after and the cultural significance surrounding it.
Zahra Shahab
Residency Exploration
Through the generous support of NEXT, I am excited to explore the multiplicity of characters that we use to adapt to the world both as a tool for survival as well as portals of expansion into ways of being that are beyond our cultures normative script. I am interested in the idea of composting ourselves/our identities as a way to welcome the Anthropocene/Chthulucene. What does it mean to dance in partnership with the end of the world? What rhythms must we attune ourselves to, to be able to listen to the digestive processes of the earth beneath us?
Creative Team
Zahra Shahab (Choreographer)
Chimerik 似不像 (New Media/Projection Design Team)
Sammy Chien (New Media/Projection Design Mentor + Facilitator)
Caroline MacCaull (New Media/Projection Design Collaborator)
Hannah Eriksson (Costume Design)
Oksana Hayduk (Dancer)
Alder Sherwood (Dancer)
Zahra Shahab is an independent dance artist living on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish people. She is a graduate of the University of Calgary School of Creative and Performing Arts as well as Modus Operandi Contemporary Dance Training Program (Vancouver). Her choreographic practice takes root in the fantastical and the prophetic power of coaxing our imaginations beyond the confines of white supremacy. She has presented choreographic work and experimental films in Calgary at the Fluid Festival, Calgary Underground Film Festival, University of Calgary and Alberta Dance Festival, in Vancouver at Dance in Vancouver, Shooting Gallery Performance, Festival of Recorded Movement, PushOFF, and New Works Performance, in Toronto at the Toronto Dance Theatre’s Emerging Voices Program, and Mexico City’s Movimiento en Movimiento.
Top photo: Oksana Hayduk and Alder Sherwood by Zahra Shahab.
