LURCH

a durational collaboration examining a body and an inanimate object.

The artists: Justine Chambers, Sarah Chase, Ame Henderson, Jennifer Mascall, Nick Miami Benz, Dario Dinuzzi, Ralph Escamillan, Bynh Ho, Benjamin Kamino, Alexa Mardon, Alan Storey, Bennett Tracz, Chris Wright. The inanimate object: a sculpture by Alan Storey.

The full-length work will be produced for both live and on-line presentation with the potential to tour in galleries, large exhibition spaces, outdoor public spaces and prosceniums.

LURCH TASTER VIDEO CREDITS

LEFT VIDEO 2022 with AME HENDERSON - BENJAMIN KAMINO, ALEXA MARDON, CHRIS WRIGHT, BENNETT TRACZ, RALPH ESCAMILLAN,

CENTRE VIDEO 2021 WITH JUSTINE CHAMBERS - CHRIS WRIGHT, NICK MIAMI BENZ, BENJAMINO KAMINO, CHRIS WRIGHT, RALPH ESCAMILLAN, BENNETT TRACZ.

RIGHT VIDEO 2020 WITH JUSTINE CHAMBERS - CHRIS WRIGHT, NICK MIAMI BENZ, BENJAMIN KAMINO, RALPH ESCAMILLAN,

ABOUT THE CHOREOGRAPHERS:

(she/her/hers)

Justine A. Chambers is a dance artist and educator living and working on the unceded Coast Salish territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Nations in Vancouver, Canada. Her practice is a collaboration with her Black matrilineal heritage, and extends from this continuum and its entanglements with Western contemporary dance and visual arts practices. At the centre of her practice is a question often posed by her grandmother: “You feel me?” This question is both a declaration of one’s personal orientation, and an invitation to reorient and include what is held in our flesh. Chambers meets this question in her work by attending to individual and collective embodied archives, social choreographies of the everyday, and choreography/dance as otherwise ways of being in relation. Chambers’ work has been hosted at galleries, festivals and theatres nationally and internationally including EMPAC, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Toronto Biennial of Art, Libby Leshgold Gallery, Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery at Concordia University, Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver), Sophiensaele (Berlin), National Arts Centre of Canada, Agora de la Danse, Art Museum at University of Toronto, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, Artspeak, Vancouver Art Gallery, The Western Front, The Dance Centre (Vancouver), Burrard Arts Foundation and the Hong Kong Performing Arts Festival. Chambers holds a MFA in Interdisciplinary Art and is currently Assistant Professor in Dance at the School for Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University and Associate Artist to The Dance Centre. Chambers is Max Tyler-Hite’s mother. 

(she/her/hers)

A performer and choreographer whose distinctive signature has garnered her an international reputation. Chase’s work has been presented across Canada and Europe for over twenty-five years, at such venues as the National Arts Centre (Ottawa), Festival TransAmerique (Montreal), DanceHouse (Vancouver), the Holland Dance Festival, Klapstuk Festival (Belgium), Salzburg Szene Festival (Austria), Kaaitheater (Belgium), Tanz Quartier (Vienna), Fondation Cartier (Paris), Theater der Welt (Germany), and Kaaitheater (Brussels).

She has performed and toured with Benôit Lachambre’s Dance par B. Lieux, and German choreographer Raimund Hoghe, and has created work for Toronto Dance Theatre, Peggy Baker Dance Projects, Andrea Nann and Dreamwalker Dance, Robin Poitras and Ron Stewart, Heidi Strauss and Darryl Tracy, Theatre Replacement, Jacinte Armstrong, Body Narratives Collective and Montreal Danse. Sarah is the recipient of the 2004 Jacqueline Lemieux Award for Excellence from the Canada Council for the Arts, and the 2006 Prize of the Festival at the Munich Dance Biennale for her piece The Passenger.

Sarah is an associate dance artist of the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. Her recent designs can be browsed here.

(they/them/she/her/hers)

An artist of settler ancestry raised on Nuu-chah-nulth territory on the west coast of Vancouver Island and now living and working in so-called Toronto which stands upon territory of the Dish With One Spoon Covenant, an agreement made amongst Indigenous nations to share and protect the land and waterways around the great lakes. With a practice that spans publication, performance and exhibition, her work activates dance and choreography to propose experiential modes of being together. Henderson’s collaborations enfold a diverse assembly of people and organizations and have been created and shared across Canada and abroad.

With the Toronto collective Public Recordings she created over a dozen ensemble works including /Dance/Songs/ (2006), relay (2010) and what we are saying (2013). performance encyclopaedia (2013), a performance in the shape of a book, was created with Evan Webber; The Most Together We’ve Ever Been (2009) and Out of Season (2015) were co-created with the Croatian choreographer and performer Matija Ferlin; and, Room with Sticks (2013) with the choreographer Tedd Robinson and musician Charles Quevillon. As artist in residence at The Art Gallery of Ontario, Henderson staged rehearsal/performance (2014), a series of public performances that investigated that institution’s forgotten history of live work. She created three full length ensemble works for Toronto Dance Theatre exploring the relationship between movement and sounding: voyager (2014) in collaboration with the songwriter Jennifer Castle, Noisy (2017) with musicians Robin Dann and Matt Smith and RING (2019) with composer Sarah Davachi. Henderson has contributed variously as a guest choreographer, dramaturge and outside eye to the choreographic processes of artist peers including Joshua Beamish, Aleesa Cohene, Katie Ewald, Christopher House, Marie Lambin Gagnon, Emily Law, Katie Ward and Evan Webber. She has taught and facilitated in a variety of contexts including University of British Columbia Okanagan, University of Calgary, Toronto Dance Theatre, Toronto Community Love-in and Banff Centre.

(any)

A first-generation settler of Norman/Celt descent, MascallDance Founder and Artistic Director Jennifer Mascall is a Canadian choreographer, teacher, mentor, and advocate for the art form. Born in Winnipeg, Mascall studied dance in Toronto and New York with Merce Cunningham and Douglas Dunn. In her early twenties, she established an international solo dance career, wrote and published “Footnotes” a volume of collected choreographic notations, and co-founded GRID, a site-specific performance collective. In the 80’s she joined forces with like-minded post-modernist choreographers to co-found the Experimental Dance and Music (EDAM) Collective in Vancouver. Her unique choreographic style developed and in 1989 she launched MascallDance. As its’ Artistic Director she has created over 200 works, collaborating, researching, and providing somatic movement education.

Somatic movement inquiry is central to her practice, informed by studies with master teachers Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen and Linda Putnam. A committed dance innovator and thinker, she encourages new generations of artists through BLOOM and other MascallDance programs. Her work has received numerous awards and has been presented across Canada and internationally.  Three new productions by Mascall are underway,  in collaboration with over forty artists.  (Image by Sarah Chase