SummerSpace Project Details

Aditi Chaudhury 

This project explores the 19th-century saint-poet Tyagaraja’s compositions through the classical language of Bharatanatyam. It investigates karanas and charis – pure dance movements from the Natya Shastra – and reimagines them through the lens of the nine rasas (emotional states) of abhinaya. By bridging expressive and abstract movement, the research seeks to uncover how emotion can shape pure dance and how classical texts can inspire fresh choreographic expression. Through Tyagaraja’s devotional and lyrical depth, this inquiry offers a space for embodied research, artistic experimentation, and a deeper connection to Bharatanatyam’s traditional and creative potential.

Lyzah and Lamont

inter/change (working title) is rooted in presence – an invitation to arrive with accountability, curiosity and intention. We move through intimacy as both assertion and surrender; with strong offerings that lead with clarity and listen with depth. Our research explores the divine femininity and masculinity, not as rigid binaries, but as dynamic energies – divine femininity embodying listening, intuition, and flow, and divine masculinity embodying leadership and anticipation. Between us, a third, imagined dancer emerges: a shifting presence born from layers of our connection. We attend to this relational being with curiosity, tracking it through timing, physics, and felt sensation. This practice invites new movement pathways, shaped by mutual influence of Latin Hustle and Contact Improvisation. Together, we ask: what becomes possible when we lead and follow at once?

Previous support for inter/change includes: Funding from Canada Council for the Arts | Residencies at Left of Main presented by Plastic Orchid Factory and at Q7 presented by Out Innerspace & Modus Operandi | Collaboration with artists of Big Bang 14 / Espace Ouvert | Latin Hustle mentorship by Samuelle Auclair and Victor Vân Tran, Aaron Truong and Maddy de la Rama | Contact Improvisation mentorship by Arash Khakpour

Carla Alcántara

Carla is focusing on choreographic development in preparation for the upcoming season, designing new class structures and workshop ideas that reflect her evolving movement research, and shaping choreographic material for upcoming performances, using the time to explore and refine ideas in depth. During this creative process she will also document the work through video and photography.

Fiana Kawane/ Riyaaz Collective

Riyaaz co. is an invitation into thinking, moving, and listening more broadly about practice. In Hindi/Urdu, riyaaz refers to practice, or immersion in repetition, exploration, and experimentation. At times riyaaz is collective, shared, and cumulative, while at others, it is unglamorous, solitary, and meditative. With diverse conceptions of riyaaz at its core, we centre creative practices and cosmologies that bypass dominant performance vocabularies in the Pacific Northwest. riyaaz co. hones in on practice as a mode of inquiry to wonder: What does a riyaaz or ritual of practice look like? How does one’s riyaaz or practice connect with land and waterways? In what ways is one’s riyaaz contemporary?

Sarah Hin Ching U 余衍晴

Next Station is a dance-theatre performance that explores public transit as a shared social experience and asks what community means – especially in transient spaces.

In this residency, Sarah will focus on an outreach initiative called Stories on the Bus, commuting with people one on one, documenting their shared journeys, culminating in a reflection together at The Dance Centre. It’s a way to stay close to real, everyday experiences and voices, which will shape the work. The piece is currently performed by Sarah, Shazam, and Lamont, and they hope to grow the cast in the future.