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January 2021: SatisFACTORY Dance
Instagram: Tamar Tabori: tamamamar
Scout Heckel: gurl__scout
Jo Anderson: jojiminoni
Kezia Rosen: kezpop
Tell us a bit about your work and practice.
We are a site for interdisciplinary dance projects with a focus on engaging the senses by blurring boundaries between dance, object, installation, theatre, comedy, and sound. Through playful exploration grounded in somatic principles, we are guided in our processes to choose what is satisfying: contextually, choreographically, physically, emotionally, viscerally, spiritually, imaginatively, and beyond. We value the humanity that emerges within our works, and how this may inform, teach, surprise, and inspire us. It is the interconnectedness of humans and the ability of dance to translate individual experience into shared understanding that inspires us to create.
How long has the group been dancing together?
Scout and Tamar have their Bachelors of Fine Arts from Concordia University in Montreal, QC, where they trained in contemporary technique, choreographed, and interpreted together for four years. Jo and Kezia both completed the Mirror Dance Program and have danced and created together for nine years. During the fall over the course of one month, we intensely worked together to create Hoover Dance: Nobody Does It Like You , which was the catalyst for us to create our dance collective. Beginning this January we are excited to have all four of us together in the studio, to expand on this research and begin creating new work.
How does dance fit into your lives currently?
Currently dance is a motivating factor for us to stay positive and hopeful about our futures. It is the driving force behind our ability to remain inspired and creative during a time when it’s all too easy to feel hopeless, worried, stressed, and bored.
How would you describe dance’s impact on your lives?
We have each had our own unique trajectories as dancers and humans that led us to be in a space where we are moved to form SatisFACTORY Dance together. We can all agree that dance is an important way in which we process our experiences, and it gives us a sense of identity as movers, creators and beings in this World. Dance provides us with the skills and opportunities to connect with ourselves and other like minded people in a meaningful way. This passion that we all share provides us with an avenue for expression, and we are constantly grateful for this outlet and how it shapes our development and growth.
Has the group been able to work together during the COVID pandemic?
While creating our short dance film last fall, the new COVID restrictions were put in place in BC. These challenged our ability to meet deadlines by affecting our rehearsal schedule. It was a great reminder to stay adaptive and an affirmation that creativity doesn’t stop- no matter what. To function as a collective and begin our new work, we have been meeting over Zoom to complete proposals and sharing our ideas and videos together digitally. We are committed to finding innovative ways to showcase our work as the landscape of the Arts, and the World, continuously evolves.
What three core values drive your engagement with dance?
Authenticity, Curiosity, Satisfaction.
Do you have a particular practice that you carry out each day or have you implemented new practices in adapting to the current climate?
While we all miss training in dance studios and the energy and support of class atmospheres, we are each finding our own ways to stay in our bodies and to stay in shape. This takes many forms such as: teaching and participating in Zoom classes, engaging in our chosen strengthening practices, walking and cycling with awareness, stretching for pleasure, reading about dance and things that make us feel inspired, listening to podcasts that give us new perspectives, recording our improvisations (for ourselves, for Instagram, and for each other), and feeling grateful overall for our health and the kinship that we’ve found with one another as friends and artists.
What would you say are the most significant benefits to being a Dance Centre member?
We are excited to be more involved and aware of the activities going on within the Dance Centre and in the Vancouver Arts community at large. We are also looking forward to utilizing the studio space to create and for the opportunity to apply for internal programs, residencies, projects and awards.
Excerpts from Hoover Dance: Nobody Does It Like You from SatisFACTORYDance on Vimeo.
Interested in becoming a Dance Centre Member? Learn more here
Photos: Alan McTavish and Scout Heckel