DiV 2024

not so distant yet eons away
Sophia Mai Wolfe (Vancouver, BC)
Duration: 14:33

who are we
will we ever know or understand
perhaps not
yet we keep on searching

Co-Directors: Sophia Mai Wolfe and Chick Snipper
Choreographer / Researcher / Writer: Chick Snipper
Performer / Movement Collaborator / Producer: Sophia Mai Wolfe
Editor: Sophia Mai Wolfe
New Media Artist / Voice Over Actor / Collaborator: Nita Bowerman
Composer: Stefan Nazarevich
Videographer: Daniel Loan
Assistant to the Director / Production Assistant: Kayla De Vos
Lighting Designer: Chengyan Boon
Cloak Design + Construction: Nancy Bryant
Mesh Dress Design + Construction: Natalie Purschuwitz

With immense gratitude: Nita Bowerman, Kayla Devos, David Cooper, Cindy Mochizuki, Tamar Tabori, Antonio Somera, Daelik, Zahra Shahab

Studio & Venue Support: Tara Cheyenne Performance (Startle Reflex Residency), The Dance Centre, Company 605, Morrow Creative Space by Odd Meridian.

Funded by: Canada Council for the Arts, BC Arts Council

[  ]
Grace Richter (Vancouver, BC)
Duration: 4:44
Content warning: Strobe lighting

In this dance concept video, the choreography symbolizes the invisible box of self-imposed conformity and comfort zones. Dancers move within confined spaces, their movements repetitive and restrained, reflecting the tension between yearning for freedom and clinging to familiar, safe boundaries. As the performance progresses, voices recite affirmations that initially seem empowering, but as they're repeated, they gradually sink into the dancers' subconscious, subtly transforming their beliefs and reinforcing the limitations of the box. The dancers struggle to break free but are continually pulled back, illustrating how these affirmations can both uplift and imprison, shaping our reality and identity.

Director, Choreographer: Grace Richter
Cinematographer: Meaghan Gipps
Dancers: Anna Roberts, Zach Ralph, Dani Taon, Avery Mckibben, Jordan Sande, Olivia Boesch, Leyanne Marzan, Cadence McBride, Maya Halverson, Sierra Hateley, Sophie Clarke Heelan, Nicole Peca, Beth Nemish, Connor Ferguson, Christina Noon, Tamara Kiyama, Haylie Mandel, Julianna Grahn, Greg Kendall, Kaya Morris, Kendall Veer, Lily Bollegraf, Mia Kerr, Meigan Croteau, Keithen Zimmerman, Emersyn Degelmann, Owen Hogg, Emily Nguyen, Isabae Alston, Ruby Eger, Caitie Mah, Maya Da Costa
Music: Affirmation Practice by DJ Gigola

before transforming we exist
Shapeshifter Media Collective (Vancouver, BC)
Duration: 12:00
Content Warning: closeup of patterns/textures could trigger trypophobics

What is alive in spaces left to re-wild? “before transforming we exist” centers the cycles of ruderal species and microorganisms transmuting ruin to regeneration. This is embodied through subjects engaging in a guided plant meditation to attune with more than human kin. Dancers extend, gather and throw their grief under late stage capitalism to move towards feeling for what is growing through the cracks.

Directors: Chantal Dobles Gering & Rae Grant Duff
Soundscore: Chantal Dobles Gering
Editors: Chantal Dobles Gering & Rae Grant Duff
Cinematography: Chantal Dobles Gering, Rae Grant Duff & Reed Jackson
Dancers: Alyssa Amarshi, Roya Bahiyyih Abdi, Chantal Dobles Gering, Rae Grant Duff & Reed Jackson

Special thanks to Bijan Karim, Rafa Narciso, Nancy Lee, Joshua Lam, Sasha Langford, Sophia Mai Wolfe, Sarah Wong, Pia Massie, F-O-R-M team & Cineworks. Special thanks to Reed Jackson (Reaume Rodzinyak) for being a key collaborator during rehearsals, research calls and film production. We appreciate their attention to care and asking constructive questions that deepened the project. Special thanks to Daryl-Lee Schalm for sharing the plant meditation with Chantal. 

Further Reading: 
Saving Time by Jenny O'Dell
The Mushroom at the end of the world by Anna Tsing
Islands of Abandonment by Cal Flyn

Shapeshifter would like to dedicate this film to a commitment to witnessing the land rewild, the magic of the invisible and the medicine of community growing through the cracks.

We thank the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) people for protecting the sacred and their long journey co-creating with these lands, waters, the sky and spirits. We extend our hearts in a commitment to nurture, feed and be fed by deeper relations and softening towards each other.

Co-Commissioned by Mascall Dance

Taha, Ua (One, Two)
Ngaire Lyden-Elleray (Vancouver, BC)
Duration: 6:40

Combining poetry, dance, and film, “Taha, Ua (One, Two)” navigates the grief of displacement, the kinship of community and the resistance of reconnection. The film explores what it means to be 'home' when from an Indigenous diaspora perspective.

Director: Ngaire Lyden-Elleray
Director of Photography: Juliette Leach
Cast: Annelie Wells, Nenaa'ikiizhikok Kinew Erdrich
Editor: Nushi Sharma
Sound Designer: Juliette Leach
Colourist: Tristan Ramos

Mālo to everyone involved in the creation of this project and to F-O-R-M for supporting this film. Mālo 'aupito to my kāinga and community, to whom I owe all that I am.

Shadowplay
Andy Liu, Iris Gao, Edro Gonzales (Vancouver, BC)
Duration: 5:30

An office worker in white just clocked in, waiting for the next phone call, inputting data for new models, and going about her day, until she notices the shadow she casts isn't in sync with her movements. As she realizes the shadow isn't a part of her anymore, a game between the two begins to unfold. The worker shifts her focus from the mind-numbing daily routine to the consciousness of her surroundings, before she realizes that there's another part of her in red that goes against the rules set by the shadow, which she tries to awaken.

As the worker brings out her shape in red, the shadow also constructs a shape of its own with its shadow cast as light. When the red shape is finally realized, a clash between the worker and her shadow ensues, as there's only one goal in the worker's mind: To break out of this paradoxical loop of control once and for all.

Mixing visual, sound, and storytelling elements from different eras and regions, "Shadowplay" depicts a world filled with dysfunctional work culture through an unorthodox conflict, and seeks a hidden connection between the dominance of corporatism and the illusion of self-importance.

Director, Writer, Editor, Cinematographer, Sound Mixer & VFX Artist: Andy Liu
Performers & Choreographers: Iris Gao, Edro Gonzales
Music Composer: Chris Jassmann
Sound Operator: Ayesha Cheung
Assistant Director & BTS Photographer: Normey Liu
Poster Designer: Justine Dimou

We'd like to specially thank Cineworks Vancouver and VIVO Media Arts Centre for production and workshop support, Justin Yunhan Zhao for production support, Spectra Film and Video for film stock development, Nicki Doyle from Negative Space for film stock scan, Sophia Mai Wolfe and Nancy Lee 李南屏 for artistic consultation, Joshua Lam, Sarah Wong and Sasha Langford for workshop support and F-O-R-M family for bringing this project to life.

Co-commissioned by BC Movement Arts

a drift in space
Kaya Tsurumi (Vancouver, BC)
Duration: 15:44

a drift in space is a dance film about three cosmic beings and a meandering astronaut who move through inner, outer and imaginary spaces. 

Director: Kaya Tsurumi
Director of Photography: Ethan Volberg
Performers: Ry Jackson, Nyah Xiyan Wong Penner, Yuha Tomita and Kaya Tsurumi
Costume: Allie Shiff 
Outside Eye & Costume Assistant: Emily Clarke
Editors: Kaya Tsurumi and Ethan Volberg
Sound: Ethan Volberg
Colourist: Jamie Mitri
Music Composition: Ryan Jackson, Isaac Story, Ethan Volberg
Make-Up: Audrey Sides
Production Assistant: Isabella Jaramillo
Crafty: John Alviz
Artistic Consultants: Sophia Wolfe and Nancy Lee

Thank you to Out Innerspace, Odd Meridian Arts, Juice Truck, and The Federal Store for your support and contributions to this project. 

Co-Commissioned by plastic orchid factory and Company 605

For on the Floor (An Ode to the Cyclical)
Joshua Cameron (Vancouver, BC)
Duration: 4:56

This film follows one subject shedding, molting and transforming their layers to comedically perform the dance before the dance, getting ready over and over again.

All the while the dancer remains blissfully unaware of their surroundings being consumed by the perpetually compiling aftermath of trying to look AND smell fresh. 

Directed/Performed by Jammin' Cameron
Videographer: Alinar Dapilos
Production Coordinator: Rhythm 
Set provided by Plastic Orchid Factory at Left of Main
Song: Showbiz & A.G. - Party Groove (Instrumental)

For on the Floor TOO
Joshua Cameron (Vancouver, BC)
Duration: 4:22

Unexpected Company unfolds on a sudden trip through a messy room. 

For on the Floor TOO depicts a cartoonish display of second hand clothes sharing their outlandish story and unique outlooks firsthand to a new wearer. 

Directed/Performed by Jammin' Cameron & Grace Richter
Videographer: Alinar Dapilos
Sound Design: Rayce Vaughan
Featuring: Nic Latulippe, Alyssa Favero, Tyler Layton-Olson, Sevrin Emnacen-Boyd

Music: 
Mayor Hawthorne - Just Aint Gonna Workout (Instrumental)
Linekraft - No Loss in Weeding Out
James Tillman, Musella Creative - DRIVES
Black Milk - 10 Luv

Nothing Can Stay
Marisa Gold and Darryl Ahye (Vancouver, BC)
Duration: 7:00

All things exist in a continuous cycle. Each end leading to a new beginning. Inhale leads to exhale, growth to disintegration, and death to life. We can slow things down, but Nothing Can Stay. Nature teaches that we must surrender everything in time to be alive once more. The rhythm is relentless, gentle and unstoppable. 

Producers: Marisa Gold, Darryl Ahye
Director: Darryl Ahye
Performer: Marisa Gold
Writer: Marisa Gold
Cinematographer: Darryl Ahye
Editors: Darryl Ahye, Marisa Gold
Voice-over/Vocals: Marisa Gold, Darryl Ahye
Music: Pixabay
Audio mixing: Marisa Gold, Darryl Ahye

A big thank you to the whole F-O-R-M team, to Colin and Dan of Cineworks, and GearBASE!