Location: SFU Woodwards - Djavad Mowafaghian Theatre, 3rd floor 149 West Hastings Street
This event is FREE to attend. RSVP is required.
Scroll to the end of the Zeffy page to select FUTUREFUTURES RSVP at checkout
How do we bring our physical bodies with us into our inevitably digitally-bound futures?
Collaboratively conceived by Director Brian J. Johnson and Vancouver’s acclaimed Company 605, FUTUREFUTURES is a collection of 5 short dance films that explore the digital destiny of humankind through a unique merging of camera and visual effects with an intensely specific choreographic vision. Embracing the absurdity of centering dance inside a sci-fi narrative, the experimental series collapses time to portray human culture at an unprecedented moment: an emergence of a new, autonomous and intelligent being – the digital reflection and culmination of ourselves. In a state of mass transition, and forced into a bizarre coexistence alongside this growing presence, the remaining population of embodied “real” humans confront their own fears and curiosity of this new dawn while grieving what might be left behind in their looming obsolescence. Through its otherworldly imagery, choreography and driving electronic sound score, Future Futures evolves as a strange, highly visual and compellingly watchable exploration into what we are if no longer tied to our physical bodies, and how we will define humanity when being faced with a fading IRL existence.
Executive Producer: Trish Dolman / Screen Siren Pictures
Producer: Kate Kroll
Producers: Lisa Mariko Gelley & Josh Martin
Written by: Brian J Johnson & Company 605
Director / DOP: Brian J Johnson
Movement Direction and Choreography: Company 605 in collaboration with the Performers
Composer: Matthew Tomkinson
Editor: Aram Coen / Karen Porter
Production Design: Kalyn Miles
Featured Performers: Jasmine Chen, Justine A. Chambers, Josh Martin, Bynh Ho, Zahra Shahab, Avery Smith, Jessica Wilkie, Lisa Mariko Gelley, Antonio Somera, Billy Marchenski, Kate Franklin, Arash Khakpour, Kylie Miller, Brandon Alley
Company 605 – Profile:
Led by artistic co-directors Lisa Mariko Gelley and Josh Martin, Company 605 is an arts organization based in Vancouver, Canada on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded Indigenous territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. Producing various dance projects and performances through shared creative process, the artists place emphasis on rigorous choreographic propositions and movement invention to build physically demanding work — juxtaposing raw with precision, and highlighting effort, risk and interconnection. 605 is an ongoing exchange between separate people, bodies and ideas, with each project recognizing and celebrating its own unique forms of togetherness. Valuing collaboration as an essential tool for new directions in dance, Company 605 continues to transform and build on an ever-evolving aesthetic, with multiple choreographic voices all in pursuit of a highly athletic art form derived from the human experience.
Company 605 first emerged as a collective in 2006, working out of a small live/work studio (apartment #605) in East Vancouver. Now structured as a growing company, the artists continue to carry these values, and collective mentality, into all artistic activity. With an expanding repertoire of diverse works, The company has performed from coast to coast in over 35 cities across Canada, as well as in the US, Central America, Europe, Asia and Australia, presented at many notable festivals and venues such as: American Dance Festival (Durham, NC), New York City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival, PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, The Cultch, Usine-C and L'Agora de la Danse (Montréal), La Rotonde (Québec City), DanceWorks (Toronto), Live Art Dance (Halifax), The Banff Centre, On The Boards and Bumbershoot Festival (Seattle), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), Festival PRISMA (Panama), Festival Paréntesis (Costa Rica), Tempel Kulturzentrum and Regensburger TanzTage (Germany), BODY.RADICAL Biennale (Budapest), Odoru Akita and Fukuoka Dance Fringe Festival (Japan), M1 Contact Festival (Singapore), Kuandu International Arts Festival (Taipei, Taiwan), Hong Kong Dance Exchange (Hong Kong) and the Sydney Festival (Australia).
605's co-directors have also created commissioned works for several dance companies, including Vancouver’s acclaimed Ballet BC (Anthem, 2017 and After We Glow, 2021), and the artists regularly create and teach within post-secondary dance education programs across Canada. Company 605’s was the founding producer of the Festival of Recorded Movement (F-O-R-M.ca), and its ongoing collaborations with filmmakers have allowed 605's work to be shared globally, with award-winning short dance films shown at over 50 dance-on-screen festivals around the world.
Director’s Short Biography – Brian J. Johnson:
Brian Johnson is a cinematographer, filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist whose work ranges from traditional filmmaking for broadcast, to visual art, theatre and performance. He is an avid and enthusiastic collaborator as well as an independent artist creating works that tend to operate within the continuum of cinema.
Brian has been winning awards for his cinematography for over 15 years with credits including Sweet Magnolias and The Killing for Netflix/AMC and You Me Her for Direct TV and E-one. His own films and broadcast-based work have been equally fêted with awards and inclusion in festivals such as the Toronto International Film Festival, Clermont-Ferrand’s ISFF and more recently the San Francisco Dance Film Festival where Inheritor Recordings was awarded best cinematography and runner-up for best short. He is currently developing a feature film project with Toronto based novelist David Eddie. Most recently he directed a series of short films titled Future Futures that will launch on the CBC’s streaming platform GEM in the summer of 2022. These films were produced in collaboration with Screen Siren Pictures and Company 605 – one of Canada’s leading dance companies.
www.company605.ca
www.screensiren.ca
www.facebook.com/company605
IG/Twitter: @company605