The Dance Centre and the Dancing on the Edge Festival present
Erika Mitsuhashi, Francesca Frewer, and Alexa Mardon
glint
July 14-16, 2022
Scotiabank Dance Centre
The Dance Centre acknowledges that it is located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy’əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl’ílwəta?/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. It is an honour and a privilege for us to be guests in their lands. We are grateful.
glint
Welcome to glint! We are excited to share this triple bill, which invites you to experience three works in three locations around the building.
on the cosmic shore | installation by Erika Mitsuhashi
Performers: Allie Shiff, Mia Pelayo, Lexi Vajda, Bynh Ho
Projection Design: Daniel O’Shea
Sound: Adam Asnan
Textiles: Organza Sculpture by Nellie Gossen
Scenography: Erika Mitsuhashi
Outside eye: Francesca Frewer
5-7pm and 8-10pm, Birmingham Studio (3rd Floor).
You are welcome to come and go throughout these installation times, with a suggested viewing of 30-40 minutes.
on the cosmic shore, is a work in progress performance and installation that explores relational practices of drifting movement and attention between human and non-human performers. For this iteration, I invite you to hold with me a horizontal approach to who or what can be a performer, allowing us to see movement to surface in unexpected places – in the light refracted off reflective materials, in the bodies of the performers and in the attention/spatial discoveries of the audience.
When I Think It Has Yet To Begin | solo by Francesca Frewer
Concept and performance: Francesca Frewer
Choreography: Justine A. Chambers, Antonio Somera Jr., Jenna Berlyn, Juolin Lee, Diego Romero, Michele Ferrer, Josh Martin, Lisa Gelley Martin, Erika Mitsuhashi, Alexa Mardon
Sound: Adam Asnan
Costume: Nellie Gossen
Lighting design: Daniel O’Shea
Dramaturgy/mentorship: Raïna von Waldenburg
7pm, Faris Family Studio
Duration approx. 50 minutes
This solo is a practice that I have been working over the past few years, and it is an effort in engaging with performance as a process. Recognizing processes as actions by which all entities involved are changed, with this work I seek a dynamic interrelationship through which myself, audiences, and the piece, can change and be changed together. Thank you for joining me.
Alexa Solveig Mardon: a crisis/a party (cancelled)
Performers: Aisha Sasha John, Erika Mitsuhashi, Alexa Mardon, Francesca Frewer, Andrea Cownden, Justine A. Chambers, Rianne Švelnis, with previous contributions from SuSeçkin Cinar, Forough Fami and Zahra Shahab
Textiles dyeing + costumes: Nellie Gossen
Scenography: Alexa Mardon
Booklets layout: Brynn Catherine McNab
Additional Support: Rhyan McCorkindale, Sierra Megas, Juolin Lee
a crisis/a party is a sharing of practices that we, the Dream Reading Group, have been developing online since September 2020. We invite you to the patio for a reading: a practice of studying a question and having a conversation together. The materials for study are a candle, a bowl of water, the dream archive ‘rolodex’, and our voices and bodies.
BIOGRAPHIES
Erika Mitsuhashi, Francesca Frewer and Alexa Mardon are a group of peer artists whose work centres around choreography but explores numerous disciplines (writing, projection design, scenography). In their individual and collaborative projects, Erika, Francesca and Alexa investigate ways to use the materials of movement and live performance to set up unique, engaging encounters between audience and performance.
Erika Mitsuhashi
Erika Mitsuhashi is an artist whose practice spans disciplines and has recently been exploring video/projection design in earnest. Using the body as a site for conceptual thematics including in-betweenness and intimacy, she often uses DIY performance tactics to observe what the materiality of bodies/spaces can reveal and brings her lived experience as a mixed-race settler on the stolen, ancestral lands of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, and Squamish Nations of the Coast Salish peoples, to all of her works. Her projects have been presented by PAUL Studios Berlin, Toronto Love-In, the Surrey Art Gallery, VIVO Media Arts, PushOFF and La Serre’s OFFTA. She has ongoing collaborations with Alexa Mardon (Mardon + Mitsuhashi) and Francesca Frewer, and is co-producer of the local cross-disciplinary performance series, Here For Now.
Francesca Frewer
Francesca Frewer is a contemporary dance artist living as a grateful guest on the unceded, ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh first nations. Her artistic interests currently centre around seeking ways for dance practice and performance to be gateways to a deeper present. This informs the work she creates as well as her performance and teaching practices. Francesca has performed at home and internationally in works by artists such as Company 605, Emmalena Fredriksson, Company Saint Genet, Future Leisure, and Evann Siebens, among others. She regularly creates work with Erika Mitsuhashi, and is a co-producer of the local cross-disciplinary performance series, Here For Now.
Alexa Solveig Mardon
Alexa Solveig Mardon is devoted to practices of gathering, collaborations with the dream realm, and collective sensing. Alexa studies movement through dancing, bodywork, political actions, and poetry. Alexa is a queer, nonbinary second generation settler of Finnish/Karelian/British Isles descent living as an uninvited guest on the illegally occupied, unceded Coast Salish territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ peoples. Alexa recently completed their masters at DAS Choreography, University of the Arts, Amsterdam, where their research focusesd on dreaming, writing + movement practices that seek anti-colonial mythical, queer + speculative relations with ancestors of all species.
Presented in partnership with the Dancing on the Edge Festival
DANCING ON THE EDGE FESTIVAL
Dancing on the Edge Festival is proud to be the oldest and longest running professional contemporary dance festival in Canada – and we did it here in British Columbia! Each year, DOTE is an eagerly anticipated highlight of the Lower Mainland’s Dance Season.
Festival Producer Donna Spencer; Associate Producer Ildiko Susany; Lighting and Technical Director James Proudfoot; Technical Director Alistair Wallace; Assistant Lighting Director Jonathan Kim; Video/Streaming Consultant Jordan Watkins/Cinematic Creation Company; Lighting Operator Taylor Janzen; Assistant Lighting Director Jonathan Kim; Production Health and Safety Coordinator Linzi Voth; Publicity/Marketing Coordinator Jodi Smith/JLS Entertainment; Graphic Design James Glen
Board of Directors Reshaad Ali, Jack Vickery, Anna Dueck, Faiza Hakim, Curtis Ellis, Dave Jackson, Ilona Guenther and Donna Spencer (ex-officio)
THE DANCE CENTRE
The Dance Centre was established in 1986 as a resource centre for dance professionals and the public in British Columbia, and offers a range of activities unparalleled in Canadian dance. The Dance Centre offers programs and resources supporting the professional development of artists, presents public performances and events, manages Scotiabank Dance Centre, one of Canada’s leading dance facilities, and works to promote BC dance.
Executive Director Mirna Zagar; Programming Coordinator Raquel Alvaro; Associate Producer Linda Blankstein; Member Services/Outreach Coordinator Nazanin Oghanian; Director of Marketing Heather Bray; Digital Marketing Coordinator Lindsay Curtis; Venue and Operations Manager Simran Ghesani; Lead Technician Chengyan Boon; Comptroller Elyn Dobbs; Dance Central Editor Shanny Rann
Board of Directors Jason Wrobleski (Chair); Andrea Reid (Vice-Chair); Annelie Vistica (Treasurer); Tin Gamboa (Secretary); Judith Garay; Linda Gordon; Arash Khakpour; Rosario Kolstee; Anndraya Luui, Rachel Maddock; Katia Oteman
The Dance Centre is grateful for the generous support of The Choreographer’s Circle, Anndraya Luui and the BC Arts Renaissance Fund.
THE CORPORATE LEADER’S CIRCLE
Alexander Holburn Beaudin + Lang LLP – Ingrid M. Tsui, Partner;
The Holiday Inn and Suites Vancouver Downtown – Angela van den Byllaard, Sales Manager;
Jarislowsky, Fraser Limited – Beau Howes
THE CHOREOGRAPHER’S CIRCLE
Impresario: Charles and Eve Chang Foundation; Anndraya Luui
Choreographer Anonymous; Anonymous; Beau Howes and Genieve Burley; Tony Giacinti (in memory of Lola MacLaughlin); Stephen Jarislowsky; Anne Hildebrandt
Artistic Director Linda Blankstein; Marnie Carter; Joyce Ozier; Yosef Wosk, OBC; Moh Faris; Pamela Goossen; David Matte
Principal Dancer David Cousins; James Felter; Mike and Kathy Gallagher; Ken Gracie and Philip Waddell; McGrane – Pearson Endowment Fund; Jean Orr; Don and Jane Shumka; Janet and Ron Stern;
Dance Artist: Anonymous; Anonymous; Ken Alexander; Santa Aloi; Rosario Ancer; Mary and Herb Auerbach; Gary R. Bell; Andrew and Andrea Benzel; Trent Berry; Noel Best and Barbara Shuman; Matthew Breech and Shino Watanabe; Richard Cavell and Peter Dickinson; Amanda Collinge; Norm and Dorothy Cross; Count and Countess Enrico and Aline Dobrzensky; Jason Dubois and Clayton Baraniuk; Nicola Follows; Judith Garay; Peter Harmon; Karim and Christina Jandali; Linda Johnston; Emily Klukas; Amy Millar; Kathy Scalzo; Kemo Schedlosky and Mark Gatha; Betty Scheltgen; Ingrid Tsui and Matthew Heemskerk; Annelie and Dan Vistica; Denis Walz; Michael Welters; Mirna Zagar; May Wyman and Susan Mertens; Jason Wrobleski
THE ARTIST’S CIRCLE
Linda Aristizabal; Brent Belsher; Denis Blais and Paras Terezakis; Val Brandt; Deborah Dragon; Sheila Evani and Jeffery Ramkellawan; Lorna Froidevaux; Megan Halkett; Lynn B. Johnston; Lorita Leung – The Lorita Leung Dance Association; Barry McKinnon; Dubravko Pajalic; Dr. Mary Robertson; Frank Salisbury; Selma Savage
The operations of The Dance Centre are supported by the Government of Canada, Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of British Columbia, the BC Arts Council, and the City of Vancouver.
The VDC Dance Centre Society is a registered charity no. BN 11925 8754 RR0001