Vancouver Creative City Summit

After they cycle through two steps back and one step forward again, the dangers of complacency are revealed and the reward that is nestled in perseverance is imagined. Conceivably this is the taste of Bonum.

Director, Choreographer, Costume Designer, Co-Music Producer:Sabrina Naz-Comanescu
Cinematographer, Editor: Aran Wilkinson-Blanc
Music Producer, Dancer: Aristotle Nsungani
Dancers: Natasha Korney, Rodney Diverlus, Ajay Musodi
Narrator -English: Shabuungo Ouda Ouda AKA Micheal Hewitt
Narrator - Romanian: Sherban Comanescu
Writing Credits: Sabrina Naz-Comanescu, Sherban Comanescu and Shabuungo Ouda Ouda AKA Micheal Hewitt.
Set Decoration: Becky McMaster and Andrew Frosst from Salt Design Renovations and Workshop.
Filming Location: Calgary, Canada

I am immensely grateful to my mother for teaching me about the good wolf and the bad wolf. A huge thank you goes out Becky McMaster and Andrew Frosst for gifting us their wonderful space to indulge this abstract story in. Thank you to Aran Wilkinson-Blanc, Kimberly Cooper and Rheanna for expanding my mental and emotional parameters for this project and to the dancers for diving wholeheartedly into the rabbit hole with me.

Territory created by Cree/Métis dance artist, Jeanette Kotowich, is a short film that embodies territory and acknowledges land with the intention that those witnessing will be inspired to do the same.

Filmed on the unceded, ancestral territory of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Watuth) First Nations.

Created, filmed and edited by Jeanette Kotowich Tsilhqot’in Loon Song adapted by Cindy M Charleyboy

Taught by the late Madeline Myers

Part of F-O-R-M 2020

2 Asian-Canadians confront their internalized smallness, and finally learn to take up space through humour, dance, and wide stances. 

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

Thank you to Sarah Wong and Linda Sum.

Ho.Me is a short dance film that explores the themes of belonging, comfort, and discomfort in relation to the notion of inhabiting the body. The piece is comprised of three portraits of individuals who live in very different bodies linked together through a loose narrative. Shot in the intimate settings of each dancers’ home, the three performers move through solo material derived from the questions: Where do I come from? What stories do I carry? What is inside me? Through the movement of each character, we learn about their distinct qualities and quirks. The audience will be invited into the intimacy of the dancer’s homes: a kitchen, a living room, a couch, a clock... What stories do these places carry? How does the body relate to them?

Gradually, the dancers come together in a shared environment that is impersonal and removed from their private spaces. How do our own personal stories merge to become an ensemble? Ho.Me revels in the beauty of difference, and the universality of the body.

Choreographer: Carolina Bergonzoni in collaboration with dancers
Videographer/ Editor: Gemma Crowe
Dancers: Mathew Chyzyk, Harmanie Taylor, Peggy Leung
Music: Alex Mah

Special thank you to Polygon Art Gallery, Naomi Brand, The City of Vancouver

Spanochnonga is an analysis and approach to mental health diagnoses through an Indigenous lens. Specifically, with the artistic director's personal experience with schizophrenia and seeing and hearing supernatural beings (nochnonga), and understanding being accompanied by voices through the cultural relevancies of her Gitxsan roots. It is also a theoretical response to Alica Elliot's a Mind Spread Out On the Ground in the spoken words elements and soundscape. Through digital design, lighting and special effects, contemporary dance, and sound, experience one's physical body being taken over and transported to SPANOCHNONGA, a place where monsters used to go that were once nochnochs.

Artistic Director, Choreographer, Formline Design, Sound producer, Song, Spoken Word: Raven Grenier
Set designer, Creative producer, Digital design, Editor: Andrew Grenier
Videographer, Colour: Eric Sanderson
Film Director: Kira Doxtator
Sound Design: Ted Hamilton, SCOPE
Sound Mentorship: Edziu
Dramaturge: Charles Koroneho, Margaret Grenier
Collaborating Interpreters: Atamira dance company
Attire: Brandi Lancaster x Raven Grenier
Indigenous Nail Art: Waaynexwi7 day spa
Make-up: Sam Kronstal

Thank you to my friend and young Indigenous female director Kira Doxator for her talents and incredible passion, my parents for all of their support and my family for the encouragement!

Creation Sponsor: The Dance Centre

Sunglow Gecko is an exploration of introspection and an attempt to piece together fleeting moments of uncertainty. It is trying to understand what it feels like to learn something new for the first time. To make our own conclusions about objects that have already been claimed. As we search to find a shade of a colour that perfectly fits, what else will we discover? Does a conclusion reveal everything about yourself that you need to know? Maybe we already know what this is supposed to be like, but maybe we can decide for ourselves. Colour, shape, light, and texture tell a story that has been told many times, but it will be new. Nothing is certain, everything is certain. If we start again from the beginning, will everything pan out the same?

Direction, Production, Wardrobe, Choreography, Camera 1, Editor, Sound Editor: Kendra Epik
Composer, Camera 2: Daniel Katsoras

The creation of this film was supported by the 2020 F-O-R-M Commissioning Funds, in partnership with Cineworks Independent Filmmakers Society, and Charles st. Video (Toronto). We would like to thank the British Columbia Arts Council, the Province of British Columbia, and the City of Vancouver.

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.

Director: Sevrin Emnacen-Boyd
Choreographer: Sevrin Emnacen-Boyd
Music Score: Amine Bouzaher
Editor, Director of Photography: Alinar Diapolos
Production Assistant: Abby Skaug
Mentor: Mark Valino

Special Thanks to Immigrant Lessons, Now or Never Crew, and Scndrlz.

AION was co-commissioned by Co.ERASGA + Tara Cheyenne Performance