REcent commissions
Curated Platforms
How to Start a Butcher Shop
A provocative imagery-based spin on the Three Little Pigs
I routinely work with emerging dancers in pedagogical settings, and trauma survivors in academic research ones. Having to foster fertile conditions in both has led me to appreciate over time how just how effectively somatic sourcing acts a great equalizer in the creative process by removing the unsafe hierarchies established by form-dictated ideals.
Not only does deeply sensing a textural image as it travels through the body promote grounding, processing, and flow, but it also removes pressure on the dancer to “do it right”. I’ve found that the subconscious only really comes out to play under such conditions.
So much of what has stuck in the making of this piece emerged from the dancers’ and my free-associating while casually conversing about what their bodies naturally produced from the sensory scores I had offered.
Dancers: Élodie Kyra Tan, Emmett Bradshaw, Kai Fitzpatrick, Micaela Janse van Rensburg (missing: Camille Scully)/ Lighting Design: Gabriel Cropley/ Costume Design: Valerie Calam
April 2023–Toronto, Canada. Winchester Street Theatre/School of Toronto Dance Theatre: April Dances.
Rite
A pandemic creative process-issued version of The Rite of Spring
In 1913 Paris, going against the aesthetic norms of the time, Vaslav Nijinsky’s ballet Le Sacre du Printemps caused a riot among its audience on opening night, making history. Since then, many western choreographers have developed their own versions of the original Sacre’s ritualistic movement to Igor Stavinsky’s now-iconic score. For years, I knew that if and when I tackled Sacre, the pre-established sound’s complexity would act as a limitation; as a movement-maker, I am under most circumstances not one to tie material to music very closely. It is during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic that I chose to do Sacre. 2021 brought limitation after limitation on individual and societal scales globally, and, to me, a mirroring sense of restriction within the scope of a creative process seemed fitting.
The work was performed in full theatrical dressing for pedagogical purposes in March 2021 revisited and further developed in the spring of 2022 for live presentation at the University of Calgary.
Rite was commissioned for re-staging by Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, and performed by the company along recent grads from UCalgary in January 2023.
Dancers: Cindy Ansah, Thys Armstrong, Scott Augustine, Kadin Aumentado, Maryn Bjorndahl, Cassandra Bowerman, Sabrina Comanescu, Emilie Field, Shemar Herbert, Kaja Irwin, Mara Liao Esnard/ Lighting Designer: Steve Isom
January 2023–Calgary, Canada. DJD Dance Centre/ Decidedly Jazz: New, Old, Borrowed, Blue. March 2022–Calgary, Canada. University Theatre/ University of Calgary Mainstage Dance. March 2021–Calgary, Canada. University Theatre/ University of Calgary Mainstage Dance.
unheeded
A short film on objectification theory.
Originally, this work wasn’t intended to take form as a dance film. Rather, I imagined it a series of moving images to be taken in live in an intimate space. This in-person version was never actually finalized, as the pre-Covid plan was to present it for the first time at Calgary’s stop of ReLoCate’s The Experiment #4 series, in April 2020. Earlier that year, for the Mile Zero (Edmonton) and Left of Main (Vancouver) legs of a tri-city exchange, I presented evolving work-in-progress material, predominantly using the platforms to gain insight on viewers’ and my own attitude vis-à-vis the female voice and close-up nudity when juxtaposed.
My interest in the matter emerged from encounters with Objectification Theory’s position that girls and women are typically acculturated to internalize an observer's perspective as a primary view of their physical selves.
Now, with film comes depersonalization and an extra degree of removal, and I realize that none of this here operates the same way on the viewer. Yet, ultimately, I am grateful for this shift, mostly because I got to work with Linnea Swan (videography) and James Bunton (sound), whose respective artistry I adore.
September 2021– Calgary, Canada. WildDogs International Screendance Festival. Official Selection Program A.
A-side/ B-side
A contemplation on first impressions.
The process for this work started without particular intellectual pursuit: I forgot my laptop at home on the first day, and without music to work from, I decided to send the dancers to our costume room with the directive to “pair up and dress one-another”. What choreographically emerged from the pieces they collectively pulled out is a play on audience perception, presenting two version of the same material performed consecutively, one with plain monochrome skin-tight clothing overlaid with ambient sound, the other with colourful extravagant pieces on a series of popular fashion-related songs by male signers.
"Not everything is as it seems, and not everything that seems is."
~ José Saramago
March 2020– Calgary, Canada. University Theatre/ University of Calgary Mainstage Dance.
Invisible Injury
A contemporary musical on childhood trauma
Criticizing rape culture through distortion and re-imagining of popular childhood rhymes, the work, presented prior to the #metoo movement, was received with unease by some.
A sequel, consistent in genre, to those tales of sexual victimization, violence and vilification that persistently remain at the forefront of our mainstream entertainment.
March 2017– Calgary, Canada. University Theatre/ University of Calgary Mainstage Dance.
Lab Rats
A site-created work adapted for the theatre
Lab Rats was created in function of the very specific indoor space where it was initially produced in 2013. A red iron cast radiator, two emergency exit doors on one single wall, a patchy wooden floor and large windowsills were few of the many elements of Hub 14 (Toronto) integral to the original full-length piece.
Dancer Molly Johnson received a Dora award that year for her exceptional performance in the work.
For Fluid Fest 2016, Lab Rats was performed in a different city as a short adaptation for the theatrical space.
October 2016– Calgary, Canada. DJD Dance Centre, Fluid Fest 2016.