EDAM Dance intended to present new works by:

Order of Events

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carrier

By Benjamin Kamino with Alexa Mardon, Zahra Shahab, and Lee Su-Feh

This work is about effort, force, and hope. It is also about resistance, recognition, and obscurity. This work is a “first draft” staging the collision of two distinct studio practices Kamino has been busy with since 2016; the choreographic-sculpture, “chute”, will hold, listen-to, and carry the intimate and whispered dance between Mardon and Shahab (itself an extension of a site-responsive dance practice Kamino calls “carry”). This work connects deeply to Kamino’s research with artist and psychoanalyst Bracha L. Ettinger, most notably her concepts of the “matrixial borderspace”, “carriance”, and “self-fragilization”. This work is dedicated to the work that remains after you are gone.

This research is supported by the Festival Trans-Amerique and the Canada Council for the Arts. Thank you to Zoe Kreye and Brent Wadden for their hospitality.

plexi-Delerium

Direction & Score: Peter Bingham
Composer/Performer: Alex Mah
Dancers: Delia Brett, Anne Cooper, Arash Khakpour, Walter Kubanek, Diego Romero, and Olivia Schaffer

Program note: This group of dancers has been working under Peter’s direction for a number of years.

 
Lebenslangershicksalsschatz

Choreographer: Antonio Somera Jr
Collaborators and Performers: Hayley Gawthrop, Antonio Somera Jr & Sophia Wolfe
Music credits: lyrics by Bob Dylan

Program note: The title is a fictional word that loosely translates into "lifelong treasure of destiny". Beinaheleidenschaftsgegenstand is another fictional word that loosely translates into "the thing that is almost the thing you want, but it's not quite".

Acknowledgements: A huge thanks to Hayley and Sophia, for making the process enjoyable with your generous spirits and contagious laughs. Thank you to all my friends and loved ones who have been supportive of this piece with patience, honesty and critical feedback.

The Participants . . .

PETER BINGHAM, Artistic Director of EDAM Dance, has been exploring the boundaries of improvisation and choreography since 1975. His work has been performed across Canada, the United States, Europe and Asia.

DELIA BRETT has been a contributing dance and performing artist in the unceded Coast Salish territories since 1992. She’s had the privilege of evolving as an artist under the guidance of Peter Bingham for over two decades now and she is grateful for another opportunity to dance amongst such outrageously talented humans. Delia has co-directed MACHiNENOiSY Dance Society with her creative partner Daelik since 2005. Their most recent work includes: PROX:IMITY RE:MIX, Rotary Arts Centre ’19, We are by which we are moved in return, SFUW ’19 and Fragile Forms, Anvil Centre, PuSh’19. She is a contact teacher, yoga teacher, actor/devisor, mother and stepmother to two (nearly) adult boys.

ANNE COOPER is a dancer, choreographer, improviser and teacher. Hailing from Vancouver Island via South March, Ontario, she trained and performed for companies in Winnipeg and Quebec City prior to Vancouver. She has been a company member of EDAM since 1994. She has danced for Vancouver companies Mascall Dance, Chick Snipper, Karen Jamieson, Co.Erasga, Kinesis Dance and others. Improvisation projects have included 4 ‘Glimpse’ projects in the USA under the direction of Nancy Stark Smith. Anne has choreographed 24 pieces presented at Performance Works, The Firehall Arts Centre, EDAM, UBC Green College, The Dance Centre (Pulse) and others. She’s taught Contact Improvisation at EDAM and other locales since 2000.

Originally from White Rock, BC, HAYLEY GAWTHROP received their contemporary dance training through Modus Operandi in Vancouver BC. Since graduating in 2016, Hayley has had the pleasure of performing and interpreting works by Antonio Somera Jr, Fight With a Stick, Dumb Instrument Dance, Omer Keinan, Kelly Mc'Innes, The Response, MACHiNENOiSEY Dance Society and Justine A. Chambers, and has worked as a dramaturg/outside eye for Kelly Mc'innes and Marissa Wong. Their current interests in regards to making/doing are driven by their desire to disrupt gender binaries and are deeply rooted in radical tenderness and gender nihilism. Patience, rigour and generosity is essential to their practice

TAYLOR JANZEN graduated in 2016 from Simon Fraser University with a BFA in Theatre Production and Design, and recently started working at Tightrope Impro Theatre as their Technical Director (2020-present). Her recent lighting designs include Rapid Pitch Production’s “Big Sister” (2020), The Happening Dance’s “Accelerate 3.0” (2020), Zee Zee Theatre’s “ Holiday at the Elbow Room Cafe” (2019), and Eric Cheung’s “iye” (2019).

BENJAMIN KAMINO is a dancer whose work has been presented nationally and abroad. He often collaborates with other artists, most recently with Lars Jan, Sook-Yin Lee, and Virgil Baruchel. He has been fortunate to work under the direction of Michael Trent, Ame Henderson, Marie Chouinard, Sasha Kleinplatz, Aszure Barton, Jennifer Mascall, Peggy Baker, and Robin Poitras. Kamino was curator at Dancemakers Centre for Creation in Toronto alongside colleague Emi Forster. He is the recipient of the 2016 Toronto Arts Council Emerging Artist Award, the 2013 Audience Choice Award at the Dance:MIC festival, and the 2009 DanceWeb Scholarship. Kamino holds a BFA in Dance from the Tisch School of the Arts and an MA in Choreography from DAS Choreography.

Originally from Tehran and based in Vancouver, ARASH KHAKPOUR is privileged to be a dance artist who has immigrated to the ancestral and unceded Coast Salish territory including the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations. Arash is overjoyed to get to work with Peter Bingham and to perform with the exceptional EDAM ensemble.

WALTER KUBANEK is a graduate of the Grant McEwan and Simon Fraser University dance programs. Originally from Red Deer, Alberta, he has worked as a dancer for two decades. He spent four years as a member of Le Group Dance Lab in Ottawa where he collaborated on 30 some dance performance projects. He spent 7 years based in Alberta where he worked with artists Tania Alvarado, Davida Monk, Robyn Poitras, Heidi Bunting and Brian Webb. Now based in Vancouver, Walter has worked with many creators on Canada's west coast, including EDAM, Company 605, Plastic Orchid Factory, Vancouver Opera, Jennifer Mascall Dance, Co.Erasga, Fight with a Stick performance society, Judith Marcuse and Dumb Instrument.

ALEX MAH is a composer and interdisciplinary artist whose scores use verbal notation to deal with ideas of indeterminacy, performer choices, and the sensing body. He has participated in festivals, workshops, and performed across Canada, Germany, Denmark, and the U.K.. He recently completed a Master of Research Composition under James Saunders at Bath Spa University (U.K.) www.cargocollective.com/alexmah

ALEXA MARDON is a settler of mixed Finnish and British Isles ancestry, a queer dancer, writer, choreographer, support worker and facilitator raised and living on stolen Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh land. Alexa’s practice includes making dances, writing fiction and nonfiction, dancing, teaching, and community actions, often overlapping and blurring together. Dance is the practice through which they sense and engage with the world around them, build nervous system resilience, and gather in creative resistance and joy with existing and emergent community. Alongside Erika Mitsuhashi, Alexa makes multidisciplinary performances as Mardon + Mitsuhashi.

DIEGO ROMERO is a Vancouver-based dance artist. Diego is also the co-producer of Boombox with Katie Lowen (who he admires on the daily) which is a performance space located inside of a semi-truck. Diego's most recent piece with Billy Marchenski and Daria Mikhaylyuk is called Satan Sketches--an attempt at a full-length work which turned out pretty good considering the budget. Diego enjoys boxing and long walks in the rain and sometimes thinks sharks are coming for him when swimming in shallow pools.

OLIVIA SHAFFER’s dancing began with years of ballet, a degree from SFU, some training in Europe, and then a deep dive into the world of somatics, improvisation, and Contact Improvisation. She has been performing with Edam since 2014 and still loves it. Olivia is also a choreographer and a dedicated scholar of dance and composition; she shares her knowledge through the classes she teaches to professional, pre-professional, and community dancers locally and abroad. / www.oliviashaffer.ca.

ZAHRA SHAHAB is an independent artist living on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish people. She is a graduate of the University of Calgary as well as Modus Operandi Training Program. She is compelled by the word fantasy and the prophetic power of coaxing our imaginations beyond the confines of white supremacy through a movement/performance practice. She has presented choreographic work and experimental films in Calgary, Toronto, Vancouver, and Mexico City and worked for many artists/ dance companies as an interpreter in Vancouver. You can see some of her work at shahabibi.com.

ANTONIO SOMERA JR Antonio Somera Jr. is a dance artist and quirky character based in Vancouver, the unceded territories of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam Nations. He achieved a BFA in contemporary dance from SFU School for the Contemporary Arts, and received a certificate from Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance (SEAD). Antonio has performed internationally in works of Sita Ostheimer, Igor Bacovich & Iratxe Ansa, Manuel Ronda, Mala Kline, KT Niehoff, Flamenco En Route company and OURO Collective. Locally, he interpreted works for Julianne Chapple/Future Leisure, Co.Erasga Company, and Dancers Dancing. As a choreographer, Antonio has created works in SFU repertory class, Shooting Gallery Performance, BLOOM, and 12 Minutes Max. Antonio is also passionate about street dance, participating in jams and battles and sharing his knowledge of waacking to the community. Integrating his passion for both street dance and contemporary dance techniques, Antonio devotes his creative practices to build meaningful experiences through playful investigation.

LEE SU-FEH (she/her/they/them) is an artist whose work encompasses choreography, performance, teaching, dramaturgy, writing and community-organizing. Find out more at leesufeh.com

SOPHIA WOLFE is a contemporary dance artist who also works in visual media including photography, film, and video art. She is currently based out of Vancouver, Canada on unceded Coast Salish territories. Sophia graduated from Modus Operandi in 2014, and has since been dancing and touring with companies and independent choreographers such as Company 605, Co-Erasga, Chick Snipper, Zahra Shahab, Cindy Mochizuki, Antonio Somera, Kelly McInnes, The Only Animal and New World Theatre. Outside of dance performance, Sophia has a regular practice in documentation of live performance through video, video editing and photography. She is the Artistic Director of F-O-R-M (Festival Of Recorded Movement) that includes international film screenings, community engagement, and commissioning youth artists to create new short movement films. (www.f-o-r-m.ca)

EDAM

Artistic Director        Peter Bingham

Assistant to the Artistic Director                  Olivia Shaffer

General Manager                                          Julia Carr

Lighting Designers        Taylor Janzen & James Proudfoot

Front of House             Julia Carr & Maggie McGhee

Sound Technician                                          Alex Mah

EDAM respectfully acknowledges that our activities and events take place on the ancestral and unceded indigenous territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. EDAM is grateful for financial from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Province of British Columbia, BC Arts Council and the City of Vancouver.

www.edamdance.org

Photograph of dancers: Anne Cooper, Olivia Shaffer, Walter Kubanek, Arash Khakpour, Diego Romero & Delia Brett by Chris Randle.