Meet Ysadora Dias -
Ysadora Dias (she/her/hers) is a queer contemporary dance artist from Brazil trained at Escol de Dancas de Caraguá. A past member of BCMC Dance, the collective Pé Na Areia, and Coastal City Ballet, in early 2023 she joined the ensemble of MascallDance international co-production The Impossible Has Already Happened and has since worked with the company in various capacities.
Recently, AS WE were all gathering around a MascallDance meal.
Ysa told the story of hOW SHE CAME from Brazil to Canada.
it was such a great TALE that we asked her to share it again here FOR YOU TO ENJOY,
ACCOMPANIED BY THIS GORGEOUS PHOTO SERIES, BY YVONNE CHEW.
Photo: Yvonne Chew
Your journey here is quite a tale. Will you tell us?
In my hometown they offer dance and music classes, theatre, and a lot of different things in each neighbourhood – all for free. it’s great. I took my very first ballet class when I was 5. At 10 I entered the dance school of the theatre, beginning eight years of ballet training, with exams each year. In my 5th grade of ballet school, I was invited to apprentice with the dance company, which is the contemporary dance company of the city. So I started dancing with both the company and the school. For years, I went to high school (7AM to noon), then dance school classes, then company classes and rehearsals at night (1PM to 10:30PM). I lived far; the bus home took at least another 40 minutes. I’d wake up in the morning, go to school and do it all again.
I loved it. I was at the studios all the time. I did do my schoolwork in the green room and when I was really tired, I’d sleep on the green room couch. Everybody there knew me, all the other moms of the little girls. I started entering dance festivals with the dance school. Before the scholarship that brought me to Canada, I was awarded two other scholarships - one for the Ailey School in New York, another for a school in Barcelona - but I couldn’t go, I didn't have enough money. Each time it’d feel so good to be chosen, then really sad when I couldn't make it.
After high school I danced with the company and taught ballet in the community. At one festival, The Coastal Ballet’s Associate Artistic Director from Pacific Dance Arts School in Vancouver, who was Brazilian, attended one of the Festivals every year. We performed, and in July 2019 I was offered a scholarship to start in Vancouver in September.
It was impossible. I had to get enough money, and a visa. But they agreed that I could come in December. They were waiting for me!
I got the money I had from dancing and teaching, and applied immediately for the visa. This took all I had - and I still had to get to Vancouver. It costs a lot, around 10,000 real (Brazilian currency), about $5,000.00 Canadian. I kept working like crazy to get money, but it was just not going to be enough.
Ysadora Dias
Photo: Yvonne Chew
“Do whatever you want, just be good in whatever you want to do. Just do it well.”
I ‘d watched some of my dance friends have to stop dancing because their family wanted them to go to university and have a “real” career. Not my family. They were “okay, do whatever you want, just be good in whatever you want to do. Just do it well.” I am very privileged to have that. My whole family – mom, dad, brothers, aunties and grandparents always supported and encouraged me in what I was doing.
My grandmother was the person that put me in my first ballet class when I was five. She’s always really proud of me and always goes to all of my shows and performances. Since I came to Canada, she still goes to all the company and ballet school shows.Everybody loves her. She's amazing. She's the best. When I was in high school, I lived with my grandmother. After my grandfather died, it was the two of us. She’s very active, loves to go to the theater and like tell people about me and all my shows and everything I'm doing. In her living room, there's a bunch of photos of me around of everything I danced Last time I went to Brazil I brought to her a poster of The Impossible Has Already Happened. And she was like so happy. It's really nice.
People in my community know who I am, but they don't know my name. They know me as the granddaughter of Betinha. Everyone knows my grandmother. That's the main reason I had incredible support when I was trying to come to Canada.
The bingo they did in the community was full of people because everybody knew my grandmother. The whole community of my neighborhood did a lot of things to help me. They did a party with bingo - everybody went! They made the party on a big soccer pitch. Huge! They got things donated for bingo prizes – a bicycle, things like that. We got a little bit of money from that. I did a GoFundMe and everyone in the community helped. The moms of the ballet school did a raffle. And in my town there’s an arts organization called FUNDACC – they gave me the flight tickets, a huge help.
I said “ I need to have Christmas with my Grandmother!” so they bought my ticket for December 26th. I kissed my grandmother goodbye, and my family. And on December 27, 2019, just before the pandemic,
I arrived. It was winter. I was coming from hot summer. Here was snow. I spoke no English. I had no friends, no English, no money.
I got a scholarship to be here, but Impw tjhat I was here, I had to maintain myself. The money I had was going to run out . I needed to find a job fast. Two weeks later, I was living in New Westminster. My school was in Vancouver. My job was in Richmond. Daily life was wake-up early, travel to Vancouver, ballet training 9 to 3, travel straight to the Richmond restaurant, work til 11:30 or midnight, travel to New West, home super late - and start again tomorrow. It was a really hard beginning, trying to understand how this country works how the city works and trying to learn English at the same time.
Three days after I arrived, a Brazilian dancer friend came to join Coastal City Ballet. We were living together, struggling to find jobs. And he's still in Canada - last year with Ballet Edmonton, this year with Ballet Kelowna. It is really happy to see that we made it through the tough times. He’s like my brother. I knew a few Brazilians from the ballet school here and the dance community, but in the beginning, we were not friends. We became friends.
Ysadora Dias
Photo: Yvonne Chew
What was it like to dance here in this unfamiliar world? When you went to a ballet class, for example, did Ballet make feel like you were in your dance home? Or was that different too?
Yeah, really different - but the reason was that I was exhausted. Every ballet class I was exhausted. I didn't really want to do anything. I was asking why am I here? I wasn’t enjoying anything because I was working so much, dancing full time, working and learning English and all that kind of thing. And the winter, it was making me really sad. It was exhausting, emotionally and physically. All I wanted was to go back home, I felt “ I don't want this anymore…but I can't, I can't go back home because there's a bunch of people there that believe in me, like helped me to get here. So I can't give up. . I must keep doing it, even if it's like I'm not enjoying it anymore.” It was really hard.
And then it came. The pandemic. Four months after it hit, I was really in a bad place with my mental health.
Ysadora Dias
Photo: Yvonne Chew
I finally called this amazing person, Christina - the director of the dance company in my hometown in Brazil, and the coordinator of dance in the arts foundation there. She's like a mom to me. And she said “come back home”. They bought me tickets. I flew back to Brazil during the pandemic. I stayed for two or three months, then decided to come back here. Everybody said “you don't need to go back, just don't go back!” But I felt I needed to come back because of all the people that helped me to get here and other people who believe in me. I felt that I needed to finish what I started - so I came back.
Honestly, I think it was mostly because it was summer when I came back, but everything started to change. My English was better. I found work in another restaurant (still pretty bad, but) close to where I lived. I was living with another friend, closer to work and the ballet school. Things started to get better. Still hard, but much better.
How many years did you dance with Coastal?
From December 2019 until June 2022 - three years. Classes and performances and each year, a full-length ballet. It was a lot of ballet. I love doing ballet class, but I don't super love being on stage dancing ballet, because it feels so limiting and pushing my body to do so many things that my body can't do the way people expect. I still enjoy a lot doing ballet class, but I just feel doing ballet, being on stage with ballet, I don't have space to be myself. It was when I started doing contemporary dance and Brazilian dances that I discovered “oh, I can be myself. I can enjoy being on stage.”
Ysadora Dias
Photo: Yvonne Chew
Back in Brazil, ballet school took eight grades to finish, with exams each year. The first three years were exclusively ballet, then we started doing different techniques of contemporary dance. By age 13, I studied some Graham technique, Laban, Forsythe, an introduction to Contact improv, and a little bit of maracatu, which is a Brazilian dance. As an apprentice and later as a member of the dance company we did theater classes, and the maracatu, makulele, capoeira, and so on.
Around age 14, I started doing a lot of improvisation. The dancers in the company were older and more experienced. I felt that I really needed to push myself to be able to actually be on stage with them. They were so inspiring. I started to love doing improv. We always did improv scores and a lot of improvisational studies.
I loved improvisation and in contemporary dance. I found who I am dancing. My thing - the way I move, the way I improvise and dance .
When I came here, I had no time to do anything but the classes and rehearsal at Coastal; I wasn't really involved in the dance community in here. And it took time. These photos from 2021 by Yvonne Chew are actually of the very first contemporary performance I did outside Coastal, with my friend Marco Esccer, a contemporary dance artist from Mexico. Coastal City Ballet gave him the opportunity for him to be outside Mexico. It was the first step for all of us.
Ysadora Dias, Marco Esccer
Photo: Yvonne Chew
Marco is a little older than me and more outgoing. I'm shy. He started like making connections and through him, I got introduced to the dance community here. He was always bringing me along, saying “ Let's go perform” - in New Works at Granville Island, in Alvin Tolentino’s 2022 Salon, in 12 Minutes Max”, with a duet we were working on.
I started going to different classes, classes that I really wanted to be doing, but at the same time I was not motivated to do anything. I was mostly working full time and not doing much dance in 2022. And then that fall, Isak Enquist who was teaching at Coastal, recommended me to Jennifer. I met her and she said, “I have this project, but you need to know is we will be in New Zealand for three months.” I was “like, okay, I don't know any of you” but I took the leap! Living with them in New Zealand- only speaking English! At that point, I could, have conversations, I already knew English. But those three months were intensive. It was great for me. We came back in April, with only a small amount of time before rehearsals for the Canadian tour.
Ysadora Dias
The Impossible Has Already Happened New Zealand Tour 2023
Photo: Jinki Cambronero