Corinne Langmuir, Erin Lum
Duration: 11:50

SOMETHING TO FORGET ME BY is a love letter to friendship, childhood, and bittersweet goodbyes. When two ex-friends reunite after falling out, they dance through the memories of the summer before they decide to forget each other.

Credits:

Directors: Corinne Langmuir and Erin Lum
Choreographers, Performers: Erin Lum and Shona Kiyama
Editor: Corinne Langmuir
Director of Photography: Belen Garcia
Original Music: Fabio Henao Caviedes

Kaya Joy Tsurumi
Duration: 6:01

PEACE PIECE is a short film made by Kaya Tsurumi and Taitania Higuchi. This film is loosely based on Kaya’s experiences folding origami throughout the course of the pandemic, and a collection of her photographs featuring paper cranes in spaces that feel like home. Unravelling, settling, repeating, fitting in - all aspects of the comforting mechanism that Kaya finds in the Japanese craft of origami, specifically the symbolic and iconic “tsuru” (crane). PEACE PIECE hopes to inspire the viewer to consider the great joys of their everyday activities.

Credits:

Director, Performer, Editor: Kaya Tsurumi
Cinematographer, Editor: Taitania Higuchi

This film was made with the support of Dance West Network's 2021/2022 Ancillary Project, which involved a mentorship with Lisa Gelley, collaboration with Taitania Higuchi and writing by Sarah Wong.

Alexander Thornton
Duration: 10:11

SOFT PALATE is a warm switch, a precious shattering, a vivid feel. A dreamscape not far from here. Close your eyes. Submerge yourself. Under the surface, sensitive creatures thrive. Hidden, nestled, burrowing. SOFT PALATE is a choreographic exploration on perspective and texture as experienced through three characters' journey into a dream world of subconscious reflections.

Credits:

Creator, Performer: Emmalena Fredriksson, in collaboration with Hayley Gawthrop and Jessica Keeling
Video: Alex Thornton
Lighting Design: Taylor Janzen, Gabriel Raminhos
Music: Linda Fox
Photography: Luciana D'Anunciacao
Costumes: Alaia Hamer

Candace Kumar
Duration: 7:48

CROSSING WATERS is a cultural reimagination film showcasing first-generation Filipino-Canadian dancers performing contemporized Philippine dance on Scarborough Bluffs Beach. The film depicts Pangalay, the fingernail dance performed by communities in the Sulu Archipelago in the southern Philippines. The movements are slow and meditative, imitating the Sulu Sea combined with modern hip hop music and street dance styles. This film aims to connect Pangalay across the Canadian Filipino diaspora and shed light on Filipino culture in the Canadian dance space.

Credits:
Director, Choreographer: Candace Kumar
Cinematographer: Ian Simon
Assistant Choreographers: Diana Reyes, Faye Roncesvalles
Cast: Candace Kumar, Diana Reyes, Faye Roncesvalles
Music Composition: Lex Junior
Indigenous Culture Bearer: Sitti Obeso
Co-produced by: Guelph Dance

Jeanette Kotowich
Duration: 14:25

The creative process of this work took many iterations in the embodied journey to uncover and reveal NIMÎHTOWIN ASKÎHK. What has taken shape is our dynamic and complicated, yet beautiful relationship to DANCING THE LAND - NIMÎHTOWIN ASKÎHK. As we sensitised ourselves to each landscape, it became clear that even in our heartfelt attempts to inhabit our surroundings without imposition, the Land itself has been imposed upon in irreversible & unavoidable ways. And so… we followed our intuition, senses and Spirit in the extraction and shaping of this work. In collaboration with the Land we attuned our ideas to site, weather, sun, cloud, sky, tide and time of day. This process called for our whole selves to be in observation, integration, reflection, and creative activation. Kinanāskomitinān. 

"We are born into a world that has both beauty and brokenness. How do we learn to dance with those contradictions and find healing for ourselves and the land?” - Chloe Ziner

Credits:

Concept, Direction, Design, Performance: Jeanette Kotowich
Collaborator, Cinematographer, Drone Operator, Editor: Chloe Ziner
Collaborator, Cinematographer, Projection Design: Jessica Gabriel
Original Sound Design: Roxanne Nesbitt (with Viola by John Kastelic)'Song for Today' Written and Sung by Jeanette Kotowich, Produced by Kathleen Nisbet

Ashley (Caiyi) Song
Duration: 3:35

"I'm never good enough..." OUT OF: BREATHE presents anxiety-related bodily movements through collage, animation, and experimental soundscape. This film documents and celebrates the recorded movement of the body as it goes through extreme breathing patterns and out-of-body experiences. Breathing, very much like our day-to-day emotions, is something often overlooked when everything is going fine. Until incidents such as anxiety attacks eliminate the normal breathing pattern, it then places a person in the most vulnerable position gasping for air. This film explores the idea of being "out of breath and unable to breathe" from both physically and emotionally challenged perspectives.

Credits: Director: Ashley Song
Cinematographer: Coco Zhou
Production Assistant: Alen Kim, Gabriella Hu
Editor: Ashley Song
Music: Kenyama

Alfonso Luis Sales
Duration: 3:57

During a hot summer day, a Taho vendor is surprised to see two other street vendors (Buko vendor and Balut Vendor) at his usual selling place in the park. Tensions rise when a potential customer arrives. The three vendors end up competing against each other showing their wits and skills with a mix of charm, showing why it’s always more fun in the Philippines.

Credits:

Director, Cinematographer, Editor: Alfonso Sales
Choreographers: Erik Cruz, Jigoro Gragasin, Elijah Mendoza
Producer: Sky Solitude Pictures
Production Manager, Colorist: Raine De los Reyes
Camera Operators: Shim Abrio, Kyle Chu, Raine De los Reyes
Production Assistants: Debie Rose Tiamson, Iñigo Abaya, Julia Rebollido, Karla Urquiaga, Marco Profeta

Annika Wong
Duration: 3:09

A young woman explores her personal understanding of the mood and feeling associated with nostalgia, the longing for something past, and the humble acceptance of a profound love that was always meant to end. Movement based visuals combine with spoken word narration through an intimate letter that discusses the melancholy and joy that embodies what it means to live in New York City.

Credits:

Director, Performer, Writer, Editor: Annika Wong
Cinematographer: Anneliese Wong
Music: Finesse by Django Reinhardt

Roberto Cherubini
Duration: 3:10

IN-CONTRO is a project that arises from the desire to investigate the relationships and correlations between the concept of space and time. The aim is to offer a vision of reality that assumes an illogical logic, for which two same bodies share the same space at the same time. The idea aims to provoke reflections upon the illusion of experiencing a shared and concrete reality online, where what we perceive as tangible is rather surreal, as it is subjected to personal interpretation and variations of space and time.

Credits:

Director: Roberto Cherubini
Choreographers: Ilaria Ignesti and Roberto Cherubini
Dancers: Ilaria Ignesti and Roberto Cherubini
Cinematographer: Roberto Cherubini
Editing: Roberto Cherubini
Music: Dark Anthem (live in Paris) by Apparat

Lisa Kusanagi
Duration: 8:34

Between past/water and future/desert, a woman warrior dances to bring the water back.

A wintry forest comes to life in this delightfully weird collaboration between Lisa and JuJu Kusanagi and Yvonne Meier. Their choreography of snow and ice, trees and sunlight, body parts and forest creatures evokes the playful illusionism.

Credits:

Director: Lisa Kusanagi
Choreographers & Cast: Lisa Kusanagi, JuJu Kusanagi, Yvonne Meier
Cinematographer: Koichi Makino
Producers: Yvonne Meier, Lisa Kusanagi
Editor: Lisa Kusanagi
Composer: Ran Bagno

Jarren Lau Zong Xian
Duration: 6:26

Against the backdrop of William Blakes's "The Echoing Green", PASSING PHASES is a dance narrative film that celebrates the moment of now, the act of living.

Each dancer portrays the different phases in life; Birth, Growth and Death. Each with their own unique style and place, they exist together as a whole, much like the poem itself; the 3 stanzas that describe the act of living and it still seen as a whole.

Credits:

Director: Jarren Lau
Choreographers & Dancers: Chan Chao Peng, Cheryl Grace Wee, Pang Xue Jing
Cinematographer: Lee Jing Wei
Editor: Jarren Lau
Gaffer: Kester Kiew
Production Design: Sandra Sek

Hayden Rivas
Duration: 4:21

Rivas writes: “This film was made with the intention of trying to showcase my own feelings of feeling isolated but consistently trying to brush it off. I'm surrounded by so many wonderful people that it feels as though I should have no complaints; however, at times I feel lost. I wanted to use movement to showcase the feelings that I wish I could express with words.”

Credits:

Director, Choreographer, Cinematographer, Editor: Hayden Rivas
Choreographer, Performer: William Okajima
Music: Gabriel Jon Griswold
Additional Music Editing: Michael Naffier

Roberto Cherubini
Duration: 3:10

IN-CONTRO is a project that arises from the desire to investigate the relationships and correlations between the concept of space and time. The aim is to offer a vision of reality that assumes an illogical logic, for which two same bodies share the same space at the same time. The idea aims to provoke reflections upon the illusion of experiencing a shared and concrete reality online, where what we perceive as tangible is rather surreal, as it is subjected to personal interpretation and variations of space and time.

Credits:
Director: Roberto Cherubini
Cinematographer: Roberto Cherubini
Choreographers: Ilaria Ignesti and Roberto Cherubini
Dancers: Ilaria Ignesti and Roberto Cherubini
Editor: Roberto Cherubini
Music: Dark Anthem (live in Paris) by Apparat

Amanda Sum, Justin Calvadores
Duration: 4:32

Wide Stance Dance addresses Asian Canadian identity with the objective to confront stereotypes, internalized belittlement and the sense of estrangement within the framework of whiteness. Two humorous clowns overcome the challenges felt within their identities of race, queerness and general awkwardness. Directed, choreographed and performed by Amanda Sum and Justin Calvadores, Wide Stance Dance aims to overcome distorted ideas of self and traits in character that are conceived through the experience of being defined as other.

Credits:
Directors, Choreographers, Dancers: Amanda Sum and Justin Calvadores
Cinematographer, Editor: Jo Hirabayashi
Music: Kimia Koochakzadeh-Yazdi
Colourist: So Young Park
Crew: Dan Loan

Special Thanks
Sarah Wong and Linda Sum

Shannon Cuykendall
Duration: 8:54

FLOATING DEPARTURES, an independent dance film and meditation, is a response to life during the pandemic. It was created remotely during lockdown, January-May 2021, and recorded with smartphones. Through dance movement, poetry, painterly styles, and sound, we seek to find meaning in an ever-emerging illogical world and take the audience on a journey through multiple layers and abstractions of reality. Using everyday objects (e.g., balloons and bubble wrap) and AI art systems, we transform our everyday spaces and demonstrate how technologically-mediated dance collaboration can provide a new lens for understanding our body and movement beyond physical barriers.

Credits:
Video/Movement Director, Editor, Sound Designer: Shannon Cuykendall
Performers, Movement/Text Creators, Recorders: Shannon Cuykendall, Alexandra Pickrell, and Roya Pishvaei, AI Painterly Styles
Poetry Director: Steve DiPaola

Cheline Lacroix
Duration: 7:55

Judith Halberstam proposes in his book The Queer Art of Failure, that “[failure] could be the source of misery and humiliation…it also leads to a kind of ecstatic exposure of the contradictions of a society obsessed with meaningless competition”. MAY THE BEST LOSER WIN subverts our conventional definitions of success and failure, characterising uncontrollable events as absurd, unseen opponents that play both with and against us in the game of life. Throughout the film, tribulations are met with curiosity and intrigue, losing is celebrated, and the preconceived rules of winning are twisted to become a rapturous, inspired failure.

Credits:
Choreographer: Chéline Lacroix
Artistic Direction: Chéline Lacroix
Dancers: Mathieu Herard, Madelleine Bellefeuille, Solene Bernier
Cinematographer: Louis-Philippe Michaud
Montage: Louis-Philippe Michaud, Anny Gauthier
Composer: Al Haytame Farsane - Monsieur Madame
Assistant Production: Noam Auger
Mentor: Alexandre Morin

Sevrin Emancen-Boyd
Duration: 6:27

AION refers to a concept developed by the philosopher Gilles Deleuze which denotes "the indefinite time of the event, the floating line that knows only speeds and continually divides that which transpires into an already-there that is at the same time not-yet-here, a simultaneous too-late and too-early". It refers to a time-sense that is outside of Chronos or the chronological, linear, everyday measure of time which both organizes and is organized by "normality". These twin concepts demonstrate that time is anything but neutral, and that it organizes our perception of reality and our visions of the future.

The film AION plays with the conceptual disruption of Chronos by molding together both forward and reversed movement while creating an ulterior continuity between night and day. It is a dance that refuses the constructed time-sense of the everyday, one that is instilled in us by capital and has remained mostly imperceptible for many until COVID-19. As we edge closer to normality, AION serves to remind the viewer of the possibility of constructing time and ultimately our lives outside of "the normal" that drove us here in the first place.

Credits:
Director, Performer: Sevrin Emnacen-Boyd
Cinematographer: Alinar Dapilos
Sound Design: Amine Bouzaher

Clarence Tang
Duration: 1:43

Conceptualized while practicing vogueing* at Robson Square behind a bush, The Bushwaackers and Paddy Show features Banana and Strawberry as they try their hand at gardening. Armed with an unwavering enthusiasm, and a good tune to dance to, they show us that there is always a good time to be had with the right friends by your side!

*Please note that although we were practicing voguing when we had this idea, this video features waacking, not vogueing. If you want to understand the difference, we encourage you to take your local waacking or vogueing class! Knowledge is power!

Credits:
Choreography/Concept: Clarence Tang
Strawberry Dancer: Rina Pellerin
Banana Dancer: Antonio Somera
Paddy Operator: Kaylea Mercer
Editing & Graphic Design: Rina Pellerin

Sarah Hin Ching U 余衍晴
Duration: 5:11

FORTHCOMING explores how the glorification of overstimulation and overconsumption will shape and transform our bodies in 300 years from now. This work is a collaboration between Sarah and the machine learning process (VOS system). This film centers on speed, dynamism and restlessness of the modern body. Sarah is grateful for the support of ArtStarts Ignite and The Dance Centre in the early stages of this work.

Credits:
Choreographer, Performer, Editor: Sarah Hin Ching U 余衍晴
Music: "Among Us pt 4,9", remixed by Sarah Hin Ching U 余衍晴

Roya Pishvaei
Duration: 7:45

Authentic self-reflection takes vulnerability, but it is necessary. SHARDS OF SELF explores the bitter-sweet nature of examining one’s self-image; where do our value and worth come from? There is both pain and beauty that comes with answering this question, and it is so vital to have others who will walk alongside you in the most challenging moments.

This film is an interdisciplinary collaboration by dance, film, and music students at Simon Fraser University. Featuring a 90% POC cast and crew, "shards of self" was conceptualized and choreographed by Roya Pishvaei, with artistic contributions from Mikela Vuorensivu and Andrea Isea Galindo.

Credits:
Choreographer, Dancer: Roya Pishvaei
Dancer, Collaborator: Mikela Vuorensivu, Andrea Isea Galindo
Director: Kevin Jin Kwan Kim, Ren Yue
Producer: Cathy Huynh
Cinematographer, Editor: Peter Lee
Cinematographer: Lauren Yim
Editor: Niall Creegan

Julia Ozdych
Duration: 2:56

CEREBRAL SILENCE is a film about overstimulation, overthinking, and the challenge of finding stillness in our realities. It is difficult to stay in touch with ourselves when we are surrounded by chaos and swimming in a multitude of thoughts everyday. How can we resist this cognitive brain and find a state of silence? Our daily routines and predictable experiences can be useful in moderation, but if we can limit thoughts and float into a space of allowing, then maybe new and exciting occurrences can take place. We will drive ourselves crazy if we do not feed our bodies with silence.

Credits:
Director, Dancer, Editor: Julia Ozdych
Videographer: Cari Ann Shim Sham

Lauren Brady, Thomas Kassian

What will Sue do when she is overcome with anxiety as she meets the ultimate dilemma at the office birthday party? Will she just cut the cake? Or take the cut cake and RUN.

Director & Editor - Thomas Kassian
Choreographer & Writer - Lauren Brady
Sue: Lauren Brady
Office Workers: Candice Holloway, Hamna Tahir, Roxie Malone, Brynn Kassian, Douglas Macdonald, Gavin Wilkes
Production Assistant: Zachary Strom
Colourist: Cameron McCutcheon

Special thanks to: Vertical City and Creative Cottage.

Solara Thanh-Binh Dang
Strobe Warning

At the border of land and water, the ghost of a young Vietnamese woman moves through the echoes of her country’s trauma, seeking solace in the ocean's caress.

Sóng Xô is a collaboration between mother and daughter, a healing dialogue between generations.

Writer, Director, Performer: Solara Thanh-Binh Dang
Co-Director: Ella Nguyen
Choreographer: Solara Thanh-Binh Dang and Kim-Nhung Harris
Producer: Nic Altobelli
Director of Photography: Belen Garcia
Vocalist: Tanya Thanh Dang
Composer: Jay Shun
Editor: Lawrence Le Lam & Solara Thanh-Binh Dang
Gaffer: Austin Kwok
Grip: Dylan Prendergast
1st AD: Lesha Vescio
1st AC: Kelly Chow
2nd AC/Swing: Siska
Production Sound Mixer: Alex Shamku
Key Hair & Makeup: Julia Ho
Stills Photography: Chris Carvajal
Colourist: Cameron McCutcheon

Thank you to my mother for collaborating on this project with me with an open mind and heart. Thank you to all my collaborators, friends, family, and the local businesses who helped make this project happen!

Ankita Alemona, Raam Kumar

PROWL delves into the journey of two huntresses' determination, fragility and willingness to fight. With slow agile crawls and fast decisive attacks, they weave intricate webs to enchant their prey, revealing the immense power, readiness and emotional preparation needed to pursue the hunt. The immense uncertainty as to whether they themselves will become prey pushes them, again and again, to prove their ability to survive in a brutal world. This piece thus visually and somatically depicts the various realities of the burden of becoming and staying ‘The Huntress.’

Director & Choreographer: Raam Kumar
Concept by: Ankita Alemona
Dancers & Collaborators: Ankita Alemona, Johanna A. Rodrigues
Executive Producer: Nautanki Creations
Creative Producers: Kalaathmika Productions in collaboration with: The New Normal
Director of Photography and Editor: Priyanshi Vasani
Composer & Sound Designer: Padmanabhan J
Grips & Lights: D&A Productions (Goa)
Lightmen: Masoom Shaklen, Sandeep Kumar
Driver: Sunil Yadav
Filmed in: Goa, India

Special thank you to: CVN Kalari, Trivandrum, KalariGram Temple of Kalaripayattu & Ayurveda, Hindustan, Kalari Sangam, Adishakti Laboratory for Theatre Art Research, Aaloka Mehndiratta, Nimmy Raphael, K Sarveshan, Anasuya Sengupta

Juan Imperial | CANADA | YOUTH | WORLD PREMIERE

The meeting place is a spiritual celebration, gathering and ceremony honouring the QTBIPOC dance cultures of vogue and whacking. The meeting place offers the protest and medicine of these sacred dances to all audiences, and hopes to reflect the beauty of queerness to all queer and trans youth.

The Meeting Place is an archival recording of three work-in-progress solos reflecting Juan Imperial's awakening into their queer, femme identity. They weave connections between land, spirituality, and ancestry with queer identity and share their ideas through writing, dance, and ritual that has brought them home to the knowledge that queerness is divine.

Director & Performer: Juan Imperial
Dancer: Joanne Park
Director(s) of Photography: Jun PoChun Chen & Kenny Welsh, Luis Villarreal
Music: “Chrysalis Wrath” by X/O
Editor: Kaya Tsurumi
Makeup Artist: Xander Terrin Chen
Mentors: Nancy Lee, Simran Sachar, Sophia Gamboa

Special Thanks: Erin Lum, Keiichiro Hara, Joanne Park, Mariel Olaguer, White Lotus, Ralph Escamillan, Sophia Wolfe, & Vancouver’s Vogue and Waacking Scene