OPEN STAGE EDITION #5
Kara Wiebe (La Picante)
Krystal Tsai
Punit
Amok Project
May 12, 2025
Scotiabank Dance Centre
We are located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. It is an honour and a privilege for us to be guests in their lands. We are grateful.
KARA WIEBE (LA PICANTE)
Luchadora del Espiritu (Spirit Wrestler)
Dancer/Bailaora: Kara Wiebe | Guitarrista: Gerardo Alcala | Singer/Cantaora: Justine Reinhart | Electric Guitar: Brent Dyck | Palmera: Amber Rowell
An homage to Kara’s ancestors, The Doukhobors, which translates to Spirit Wrestlers in Russian. It is a Flamenco Puro style performance with a contemporary interpretation and iteration of the Doukhobor’s history and their migration to Canada, their experience in the Homestead Program and the ensuing tumultuous relationship that developed between them and the Canadian Government.
Kara Wiebe is a local BC-born Canadian with Russian Doukhobor ancestry. Since the age of 8, she has been involved in some form of artistic gymnastics, modern dance, and more recently, Flamenco. At the age of 22, Kara moved to Spain for a 2 year work/study holiday. While she was there, she choreographed her own modern dance piece and was the only foreigner invited to perform for the International Day of Dance Celebration. However, she did not discover her love for Flamenco until later in life, after returning to Canada.
In 2014, she took her first Flamenco class and it ignited something within her immediately. The ability to express herself, through the passionate and physical movement that is the art of Flamenco is a cathartic release for her on a level she had not expected. After researching her ancestral heritage it made so much more sense. She can feel the similarities of the Doukhobors with the Romani Gitanos that brought Flamenco to Southern Spain.
While the Doukhobors were banished by the Russian Empire for their beliefs and way of life, the Romani left India escaping their own oppressive societies. Each of these groups both have deep roots expressing their stories through song and dance. Both their migrational journeys have resulted in a resilient, tenacious people with a great fighting spirit and sense of community, and…this is exactly what comes through in Kara’s performance.
Although she has been performing since the age of 8, Kara has been presenting as a soloist in local Cuadro, Theatre and Tablao settings since 2018. She has had solo performance works in the Vancouver Int’l Flamenco Festival (2022 & 2023) and The Victoria Flamenco Festival (2023 and first ever virtual show in 2020). She has presented locally at Burnaby Art Gallery’s Live @the Gallery Series in Deer Lake Park, as well as the Burnaby Summer Stages Series. In 2023, she co-curated her own show for Mozaico Flamenco’s Sunday Salon Series, funded by BC Arts Council’s Impact Grant, and showed creative innovation by changing the performance format into a Spanish “Cueva” style as done in Las Cuevas (Caves) of Granada, Spain. Kara has also performed at many pop up shows and Festivals throughout greater Vancouver with Mozaico Flamenco Performance Group such as the PNE, Lumiere Festival, Asian Heritage Month, NAAD Spring Festival, Love Bubble Series, Latincouver, and Nowruz Festival just to name a few. Kara was the honored recipient of a scholarship from Flamenco Miraflores (Madrid, Spain) in 2019 and Reboot Grants from The Dance Centre in 2022 & 2023. Instagram
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KRYSTAL TSAI
Another glass of wine, there
Choreographer and performer: Krystal Tsai | Collaborator and Performer: Max Hanic | Lighting and Production Designer: Czarina Agustines
Where is home? What is home? What makes it home? The dissonant experience we share with those living here and there; disorientating words with unsettled bodies; the place of our origin – a distorted place in space and in hearts.
Krystal Tsai is an emerging dance artist born and raised in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and is now based in Vancouver. She is engaged in world-building artwork and site-specific movement work and explores interactive relations within her performance. She explores different ways to convey her stories and bodily sensations through movement. While building her creative practice, Krystal also has experience in figure modelling, stage production management, and art administration. Website
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PUNIT
SubHuman
Dancer, Actor, Performer: Punit
SubHuman is a solo dance-theatre piece that delves into the experience of feeling less than, trapped in an invisible social hierarchy that dictates one’s worth. Through a series of vignettes, our character navigates different scenarios where they unconsciously rank themselves against others—constructing mental hierarchies shaped by societal expectations, personal insecurities, and cultural conditioning. The piece explores modern attempts at “fixing” this feeling, all the while questioning the origins of these hierarchies.
Blending contemporary and street dance vocabulary and acting, SubHuman unpacks this heavy subject matter with a mix of darkness and humor, exposing the absurdity of self-perceived inferiority while questioning how we break free from it.
Punit is an Indo-Canadian dance and theatre artist based in Vancouver, BC, with a background in contemporary and street dance, as well as acting. Over the past three years, he has been performing professionally, presenting original work with organizations such as Chalk Collective, NewWorks Dance, the Dance Centre, Dance West Network, and Up In The Air Theatre.
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AMOK PROJECT
AGAIN (excerpt)
Choreography: Carol Mendes | Dancers: Jaqueline Ritter, Eirini Smith, Emily Waller
AGAIN is a collaboratively built dance that dives into the frustrations, rejections, and absurd moments of the artist’s journey. How do setbacks shape our work? Is resilience our only narrative? This raw and honest exploration makes space for both anger and humor, delving into the chaos, pain, and unexpected laughter that come with creative struggle. Because sometimes, the hardest moments spark the biggest breakthroughs.
Shortly after relocating to Vancouver from NYC, dance artist and teacher Carol Mendes identified a significant gap between secondary and post-secondary dance training programs and the demands of professional dance careers. Observing many emerging dancers grappling with uncertainties about their paths, she founded AMOK Project with the aim of bridging this divide. Her vision encompassed creating a supportive environment for these “displaced” dancers, offering both personalized professional development and opportunities for inclusive artistic expression within the company. Carol’s approach aims to demystify certain aspects of the professional dance world that can be overlooked by institutionalized training programs, and prioritizes embracing each dancer’s unique artistic voice to foster confidence in their individuality.
AMOK’s inception in 2020 was modest, initially comprising only two dancers amidst the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the challenges posed by its formation during this tumultuous period, AMOK adeptly navigated its operations within health and safety regulations, demonstrating resilience and a determination to persevere. Following their inaugural year, Carol expanded the project into a larger-scale program with a deliberate emphasis on professional development. This new initiative was akin to post-secondary training but with a more personalized approach, tailored to the dancers’ individual needs. After a year of operating within this model, Carol observed significant growth and professionalism among the AMOK dancers, prompting a pivot towards transforming AMOK into a fully-fledged professional dance company. Under Carol’s leadership as artistic director, AMOK has evolved into a thriving collective of artists, collaboratively producing work that pushes the boundaries of creativity while honestly and vulnerably reflecting the artists’ experiences of the world. Website
THE DANCE CENTRE
Staff
Executive Director Mirna Zagar; Associate Programming Director Raquel Alvaro; Associate Producer Linda Blankstein; Membership Coordinator Kaia Shukin; Director of Marketing Heather Bray; Outreach Coordinator Yurie Kaneko; Digital Marketing Coordinator Lindsay Curtis; Development Manager Catherine Butler; Venue and Services Manager Christopher David Gauthier; Technical Director (Interim) Jeremiah Hughes; Comptroller Elyn Dobbs; Dance Central Editor Shanny Rann
Board of Directors
Yvonne Chartrand, Mique’l Dangeli, Mirjana Galovich, Linda Gordon (Chair), Selim Hasan (Vice-Chair), Anndraya Luui, Sujit Vaidya, Wen Wei Wang, Mark Weston (Treasurer)
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
The Holiday Inn and Suites Vancouver Downtown – Angela van den Byllaardt, Sales Manager, Jarislowsky, Fraser Limited – Beau Howes
THE CHOREOGRAPHER’S CIRCLE
Impresario: Charles and Eve Chang Foundation, Anndraya Luui
Choreographer: Anonymous x2, Marnie Carter, Moh Faris, Tony Giacinti (in memory of Lola MacLaughlin), Stephen Jarislowsky, Yosef Wosk OBC
Artistic Director: Linda Blankstein, Beau Howes and Genieve Burley, David Matte, Jackson McKiee
Principal Dancer: Anonymous, Ken Alexander, David Cousins, James Felter, Mike and Kathy Gallagher, Judith Garay, Ken Gracie and Philip Waddell, McGrane – Pearson Endowment Fund, Jean Orr, Patrick Shea, Don and Jane Shumka, Janet and Ron Stern
Dance Artist: Anonymous, Santa Aloi, Rosario Ancer, Noel Best and Barbara Shuman, Matthew Breech and Shino Watanabe, Richard Cavell and Peter Dickinson, Amanda Collinge, Jason Dubois and Clayton Baraniuk, Linda Johnston, Kemo Schedlosky and Mark Gatha, Annelie and Dan Vistica, Wen Wei Wang, Jason Wrobleski, Max Wyman and Susan Mertens, Mirna Zagar
THE ARTIST’S CIRCLE
Sylvia Anderson, Carol Carr, Beth Carter, Kirk Chantraine, Yvonne Chartrand, Nicola Follows, Lorna Froidevaux, Linda Gordon, Dubravko Pajalic, Dr. Mary Robertson, Anthony Roper
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.
Media sponsors:
Stir | The Georgia Straight
The Dance Centre | Scotiabank Dance Centre, Level 6, 677 Davie Street, Vancouver BC V6B 2G6
T 604 606 6400 info[at]thedancecentre[dot]ca thedancecentre.ca
The VDC Dance Centre Society is a registered charity no. BN 11925 8754 RR0001