WELCOME TO DANCE IN VANCOUVER + OPENING KEYNOTE DIALOGUE
Wednesday November 24 | 3-4.30pm
WATCH ONLINE
with Co-Curators Angela Conquet, Starr Muranko and Michelle Olson; Mirna Zagar, Executive Director, The Dance Centre
Welcome to Territory by Senaqwila Wyss
A sharing of two short films by Sierra Tasi Baker: K’ayáchten – A Poem on Belonging and X̱wex̱wiy̓úsem – to tell a story; tell a legend.
A short film by Tasha Faye Evans: Cedar Woman: The Prayer.

WHERE WE STAND with Dalisa Pigram (Australia) and Yvette Nolan (Canada)

This opening keynote dialogue brings in conversation two leading Indigenous thinkers: Broome-based choreographer Dalisa Pigram (Yawuru/Bardi) and  playwright, director, and dramaturg Yvette Nolan (Algonquin). Dalisa and Yvette will be discussing the Indigenous dramaturgies guiding them in their work and life and will be inviting DIV audiences to consider what it might mean to (really)  listen, to (truly) belong and to connect to the lands that hold our (dancing) feet.
This keynote is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and is proudly supported by the Consulate General of Canada Sydney.

CLOSING KEYNOTE DIALOGUE
WHAT WE CARRY with Margaret Grenier (Canada) and Charles Koroneho (New Zealand)
Sunday November 28 | 7.30-8.30pm
WATCH ONLINE

This closing keynote dialogue brings together Margaret Grenier (Gitxsan/Cree) of Dancers of Damelahamid and Charles Koreneho (Māori) to discuss how dance is an act of living in legacy.  In the ‘unraveling’ of our understanding of who and what we are as a sector,  this conversation lands in a place of Indigenous process and perception, offering us to drop deeper into the meaning of why we dance, how we carry it and how it carries us.
Followed by a closing statement from the DIV curators.

DIGITAL DIV PACKAGE
Streaming on demand
November 24-December 4, 2021
$15: BUY TICKETS

A selection of Dance In Vancouver performances and associated films and events will also be available online. The films will become available on November 24 at 10am PST, and will be up for viewing on demand until December 4 at 5pm PST. Some will be available immediately, and others will be added during DIV, so check back to make sure you see everything!

The program includes:
Co.ERASGA | Dance West Network studio showing | Future Leisure | Jeanette Kotowich | MascallDance | Sierra Tasi Baker | Tasha Faye Evans | Opening + Closing Keynotes
Film credits

PRESENTING DANCE REGIONALLY
Wednesday November 24 | 5-6.30PM
Free: online via Zoom. REGISTER 

Australian and Canadian dance presenters seem to share many realities and challenges related to touring contemporary dance in regional or remote areas in both Canada and Australia. This dialogue will be an opportunity to discuss success stories, struggles and ambitions, and compare artists’ and audiences’ experiences.  How do we cultivate interest and increase greater literacy for contemporary dance? What kind of pre- or post-show audience engagement could be imagined? How to cultivate a longer term relationship to an artist often in passing? These are some of the directions that will be shared this panel bringing in dialogue presenters and artist-presenters.

With Holly Bright, Miriam Colvin, Karma Lacoff (CAN) and Annette Carmichael, Louisa Norman and Simon Hinton (AUS), facilitated by Jane Gabriels.

In partnership with Dance West Network and with support from Australia Council for the Arts and Consulate General of Canada in Sydney.

RE-DEFINING LOCALNESS
Thursday November 25 | 1-2.30PM
Free: online via Zoom. REGISTER 

What does it mean for dance artists to be IN a place when they are not OF that place, and when the dancing body is never of only one place? What does it mean to work in-situ, site-responsively and contextually? What does it mean, for a place, to welcome, to host, to make present (without necessarily presenting) artists and their bodies of thought?

With Masako Masashita (IT) and Roberto Cassarotto (IT), Amaara Raheem (AUS), Gareth Hart (AUS), Dayna Szyndrowski (VAN), Lindsay Delaronde (VAN), facilitated by Norman Armour.

ASIAN ARTISTS’ ECOLOGIES – SHARED STORIES/TOKENIZING CONTEXTS
Thursday November 25 | 4-5.30PM
Free: online via Zoom. REGISTER 

Artists from Asian diasporas are not always seen on main stages, their art is considered ‘traditional’ and their voices rarely included in local dance ecologies. With this artist-centric panel, we take a look at the realities Asian artists are faced with in Vancouver, Melbourne and Singapore.

With Nirmala Seshandri (SN), Priya Srinivasan (AUS) and Bageshree Vaze (CAN).

DANCE AND WRITING AS REFLECTIVE SPACES FOR EMERGING ARTISTS
Friday November 26 | 10-11AM
Free: online via zoom. REGISTER

As part of Re-centering/Margins residencies produced by Dance West Network , emerging dance artists of colour were offered the opportunity to invite emerging writers of colour to accompany their in-studio processes. Working with this form of active and creative documentation has opened new paths of exploration, reflection and introspection, for both dancers and writers. Please join this conversation as they reflect on these spaces between and of creative exploration which may prove useful tools for future inspirations.
With Katie Cassady, Elysse Cloma, Jessica McMann, Haliehana Stepetin, Christian Vistan. Facilitated by Jane Gabriels and Simran Sachar.
In partnership with Dance West Network

JEANETTE KOTOWICH
KWE – DIGITAL OFFERING
Livestream: Thursday November 25 | 7pm PST
Free: REGISTER
+On demand: as part of the Digital DIV package (see above)

Jeanette Kotowich’s work reflects Nêhiyaw/Métis cosmology within the context of contemporary dance, performance, and Indigenous futurism. KWE is the current research project being held by Jeanette in collaboration with Stephanie Cyr, Olivia Shaffer, Tamar Tabori and contributing artistic designers. KWE derived from iskwêw (femme Spirit) and iskotêw (fire) – it provides a fluid container to intentionally define and amplify iskwêwak sovereignty and dismantle dominant colonial and patriarchal narratives with vulnerability, courage and heart.

We are bodies seeking sovereignty, imperfectly tethered to homelands near and far… Containers of complex histories, tears, and joy… We journey through liminal territories of vulnerability and strength. We embrace multiplicity and settle into the untamed knowing of our courageous hearts. Harnessing bravery, we weave our presence into vast futures.

CURATING & PRESENTING DANCE DIGITALLY – PROBLEMS, TROUBLES AND POTENTIALS
Friday November 26 | 11am-12.30pm
Free, via Zoom REGISTER

The pandemic has affected dance in its very DNA – not much dance can happen without the touch and the breath of the other (be it that of a dancing partner or that of the audience). But is zoom-ified dance all that dance can do to project itself in a future world where digitality will continue to occupy increasingly and insidiously bodies, embodiment and audience expectations? Failure of imagination or potentialities yet to discover?
With Mette Edvardsten (NO), Josh Martin (VAN) and Cathy Levy (VAN), facilitated by Laurie Uprichard (USA/IRL).

AND+ NETWORK FOCUS- UNTANGLING ASIA
Friday November 26 | 5-6pm
Free, via Zoom REGISTER 

What would a Vancouver-based artist need to know if they wanted to access and connect to the Asian independent dance context? In this knowledge sharing session, members of the Asia Network for Dance AND+ will answer artists’ practical questions and share expert and situated knowledge about the many layers and realities of the Asian independent dance ecologies.
With Anna Chan (HK), Karen Cheung (HK), Bilqis Hijjas (MY), Faith Tan (SN), facilitated by Alvin Tolentino.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE – COMMUNITIES OF/IN ABSENCE
A suite of Vancouver artist-led conversations on what makes community and communitas in pandemic times.
Free: Online via Zoom: REGISTER

Friday November 26 | 1-2.30pm Making Ceremony led by Michelle Olson, Raven Spirit Dance
Saturday November 27 | 1-2.30pm Starting Off – Emerging through an Emergency moderated by Josh Martin & Lisa Gelley, Company 605
Thursday December 2 | 1-2.30pm Generosity and sensitivity in times of pressure and policing facilitated by Arash Khakpour, The Biting School

FUTURE LEISURE
ESCAPE
Friday-Sunday November 26-28, 2021 | 12 midnight, 12.45AM, 1.30AM, 2.15AM
Free: VERY limited capacity. REGISTER

Escape is a one-on-one interactive performance delivered by phone. Exploring themes of escapism, psychogeography, corporeality and the dissociation from the body that comes with an increase of online interaction, this work is an individualized experience which acts as a choreographic score that can be physicalized by the audience member. Beginning with a series of text messages, the work ends with a final monologue and video delivered by phone and online.

Duration: 30 minutes | Text/video: Julianne Chapple | Performance: Maxine Chadburn, Ed Spence, Jen Yan

LEE SU-FEH (BATTERY OPERA) 
TOUCH ME HOLD ME LET ME GO
Live via Zoom: Sunday November 28, 1-3pm PST
Free: REGISTER
Part of Dances for Unusual Times

Touch Me Hold Me Let Me Go
An algorithm for dancing with the planet.
An algorithm for dancing with your beloved.
An algorithm for dancing from enough-ness.
To practice love in the midst of distress,
To practice care in the midst of distress

In this part lecture, part listening-gathering, Lee Su-Feh will talk about the algorithm they have been developing for the past several years and offer instructions on how to use it – in dance or in life. This algorithm is Lee’s counterpoint to the opaque digital algorithms that increasingly mediate human-to-human interactions. The algorithm is open to everyone who is curious about the human body and how it moves in the world: no dance (or IT) experience required.

SYMMETRY, NEGATIVE SPACE, CONTINUITY
Sunday November 28 | 3pm
Online via Zoom
Free: REGISTER
Margaret and Andrew Grenier of the Dancers of Damelahamid will present a workshop on Northwest Coast Formline design and its connection to movement. Through visual art, Northwest Coast dance will be framed within the design concepts and conventions of this artform. How the knowledge is embodied and placed in relation to this framework will reveal how we hold space for one another.

FIELD | PRACTICE | CONTEXT
Friday December 3 | 2-4pm
Free via Zoom: REGISTER

An experimental conversation series facilitated by P. Megan Andrews:
#4: practicing performing / performing practice

A special Dance In Vancouver edition reflecting on practice and relationality through the disorientation project. With guest conversationalists Angela Joosse, Natalia Esling and other project companions, and inviting participant contributions to the conversation.

How are you practicing? What are the forces and relations that activate your practice? What frames reveal or conceal your work? How are you engaging your ethics of practice with respect to current contexts? How do these shifting contexts both collapse and expand possibility for your work?

As part of her disorientation project, Dance Centre Associate Artist and scholar P. Megan Andrews has been convening this series of experimental conversations to explore these questions in relation to various themes, together with invited guests. Listen and/or contribute as you choose.