Cultivating a Daily Practice
Exploring your movement curiosities of the day

Four Monday Sessions – Sep. 18, 25, Oct. 16, 23, 2023

September 18 & 25 – 10am-1pm – At Drop-In Dance Winnipeg, 1381 Portage Ave.
October 16 & 23 – 10am-1pm – At The Output, 2nd Floor, Video Pool Media Arts Centre, 100 Arthur St.

This is a free and casual drop-in style work/play space.

Click here to Register

About the Sessions:

How wonderful it is to do what we do in community with others! These sessions are an opportunity to cultivate curiosity in our individual practices by exchanging with other movement based artists working in Winnipeg. These four sessions are designed as a flexible work/play room for you as a mover/dancer to explore your ideas, present scores or frameworks to play with as a group, share a movement technique you’ve learned, share a work-in-progress for feedback, engage in a dialogue and connect as a community in a casual and practical setting. Each session will be guided by the curiosities brought forth that day by participating artists.

These sessions will be facilitated by Zorya Arrow, who will shepard the sessions towards the following structure:

10:00am-10:15am Solo warm up and chat
10:15-10:30 Share what you are interested in and make a plan for the session
10:30-11:30 Experiment/share/do/teach/learn together
11:30-11:45 Break
11:45-12:45pm Experiment/share/do/teach/learn together
12:45-1:00 Wind down/cool down/chat

Cultivating the creative spark through togetherness, these sessions are meant to bolster an artist’s practice while building community through gathering in an exchange of ideas.

About Zorya:

Zorya Arrow is an artist of European ancestry, working and living as a dancer, choreographer, teacher, actor, director, filmmaker, advocate, social dancer, clown, and storyteller. She is passionate about working in experimental and trans-disciplinary contexts which include elements of collaboration and equitable access. An example of this is her choreographic work with a mixed ability cast in Antigone with Sick + Twisted Theatre, AA Battery, and The Mariachi Ghost. This summer, she received “Best Performance” at the Gimli International Film Festival for her acting role in the feature film, Arutinae, by local filmmaker Erin Buelow. Zorya is a movement instructor for the University of Winnipeg’s Department of Theatre and Film, and holds an honours degree in Dance from the University of Winnipeg, in affiliation with The School of Contemporary Dancers Senior Professional Program.

YLDE thanks Winnipeg Arts Council, Manitoba Arts Council, and Canada Council for the Arts for their continued funding support.

Cover Image – Participants in “Presence Action Support: Movement Workshop with Ali Robson”, photo credit: Zorya Arrow, 2022

HOME/BODY, HOME/LAND

A four-day, site specific performance workshop with Jaime Black-Morsette that will take us from wetland to cityscape. 

September 9, 10, 23, 24, 2023

with a Performance by Jaime Black-Morsette on September 30, National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

Click here to register! 

Free/Pay by Donation. All proceeds going to the Search the Landfill efforts.

About the Workshop:

Join artist Jaime Black-Morsette in this four-day workshop exploring the interconnections between our bodies and the land. Together we will learn to feel and draw on the histories held within ourselves and within the land, and the power of these histories to move us. This workshop will also reflect on/respond to current issues facing us locally, such as the call to action to search the Prairie Green landfill for the remains of Indigenous women Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran.

Geared for dancers, performance artists, activists and those interested in the connection between our bodies and the land as well as land-based art practices. We welcome youth, adults, and elders.

As lunch is provided, when registering for the workshop, please indicate any dietary restrictions. Please also include any access needs that you have as well as transportation resources and requirements, ie. access to a vehicle and how many seats, or if needing a ride.

For access information email [email protected]

Schedule:

NOTE: Participants do not have to be available for all four days to participate.

September 9 – 11am-3pm 

Meeting at Broken Head Wetland Interpretive Trail (1 hour North East of Winnipeg) at 11am and moving locations from there. Bring your swimwear! YLDE will have room to transport 7 participants, leaving the city from downtown at 10am-arriving back in the city at 4pm​.​ You are ​also ​welcome to attend using your own transportation.

September 10 – 11am-3pm

Meeting at Oodena Celebration Circle, The Forks, Winnipeg, and moving to Camp Mercedes and around The Forks area

September 23 & 24 – 11am-3pm

The Output, Video Pool Media Arts Centre, Artspace, 2nd floor, 100 Arthur Street

In addition, on September 30 – 2pm

National Day for Truth and Reconciliation – Winnipeg Location TBD 

Free Public Performance by Jaime Black-Morsette

About Jaime:

Jaime Black-Morsette is a multidisciplinary artist of Anishinaabe, Métis and European descent. Black’s art practice engages themes of memory, identity, place and resistance and is grounded in an understanding of the body and the land as sources of cultural and spiritual knowledge. Through her art she works to inspire dialogue around social and political events and issues, and to create space for reflection. She is particularly interested in feminism and Indigenous social justice, and the possibilities for articulating linkages between and around both. Her REDress Project, confronting the scourge of violence against Indigenous women and girls, has been featured in venues across Canada and the United States, including at the National Museum of the American Indian/Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C.

YLDE thanks Winnipeg Arts Council, Manitoba Arts Council, and Canada Council for the Arts for their continued funding support

MOVE + SWEAT + PARTNER

A two-day workshop with Alex Elliott and Emma Dal Monte for dance artists of all levels and styles. 

August 29 + 30, 2023
11am-3pm
At Théâtre Cercle Molière, 340 Boulevard Provencher.
(For building accessability info click here https://www.cerclemoliere.com/en/plan-your-visit/accessibility)

Payment is sliding scale –  $5-$50 per day.
Click here to register!

About the Workshop:
Alex and Emma will lead a high-intensity physical partnering workshop. “Our time together will begin with a check-in, followed by a movement warm up led by Emma, including weight sharing, to prepare you to learn a duet by Alex. Alex’s choreography is exciting to learn. It involves two people physically affecting each other. It requires cooperation and essential resistance. The result is a series of movements all tied together through action-reaction. We will conclude by sitting in a circle and talking about Agreement Making: How do we work together in rehearsal? How do we work for choreographers? How do we work in a collaborative environment? How do we make sure we get paid? Our goal is for us all to feel energized as we move into our future projects.”

Workshop schedule:
Tuesday, Aug 29
11am-12pm – warm up with Emma
12pm-1pm – partnering choreography with Alex
1pm-1:40pm – lunch
1:40pm-2:40pm – partnering choreography with Alex
2:40pm-3pm – agreement making conversation with Alex

Wednesday, Aug 30
11am-12pm – warm up with Emma
12pm-1pm – partnering choreography with Alex
1pm-1:40pm – lunch
1:40pm-2:40pm – partnering choreography with Alex
2:40pm-3pm – agreement making conversation with Alex

About Alex Elliott
After performing her own work in New York, Alex Elliott and Hurricane Sandy came face to face. Physically demanding and emotionally charged, her work made it back to her hometown of Winnipeg and beyond. Her dances have been produced in New York, Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Halifax. Alex thanks Tedd Robinson for his ecstasy charged commission Logarian Rhapsody. She is the Director of Art Holm, a multidisciplinary performance series in Winnipeg that showcases talented performing artists.

Link to Ellipsis 2.0 teaser by Kayla Jeanson: https://vimeo.com/815535031/d9c36ed4fd

About Emma Dal Monte
Emma Dal Monte is a Montreal based professional dance artist and teacher originally from Nanaimo, BC.  Emma is a graduate of the School of Contemporary Dancers, her training also includes intensives at Arts Umbrella, Modus Operandi, Kaeja d’Dance. She co-produced Bloom during an internship with MascallDance and apprenticed with Sinha Danse in 2018. As a dancer, Emma has worked professionally with @tendance/C.Medina (Vienna), Alexandra Winters, Roberto Mosqueda (León), Le Fils d’Adrien Danse (Quebec City), Jasmine Ellis, Sinha Danse (Montreal), Stephanie Ballard, and MascallDance (Vancouver) Odette Heyn Projects, and was a cast member of WCD’s Verge for three years. Emma has the joy of teaching recreational and pre-professional students of all ages. She was previously on faculty at the School of Contemporary Dancers in their Junior Professional Program and General Program, and was an occasional rehearsal director for their Professional Program. She has recently relocated from Winnipeg to Montreal and is looking forward to furthering her experience as a teacher and interpreter in a new city. 

YLDE thanks Winnipeg Arts Council, Manitoba Arts Council, and Canada Council for the Arts for their continued funding support.

Cover Image – Neilla Hawley and Justine Erickson in Ellipsis 2.0 and Alex Elliot in CONDUCT. Photos by Leif Norman. Full credits below.

CONDUCT
Alex Elliott – Choreographer + Dancer, Dasha Plett – Composer + Co-Creator, Max Mummery – Lighting Designer, Jillian Groening – Artistic Advisor, Ali Robson – Movement Dramaturge, Brenda McLean – Costume + Set Designer, Claire Sparling – Cutter + Sewer, Leif Norman – Photographer

Ellipsis 2.0
Neilla Hawley – Dancer + Collaborator, Justine Erickson – Dancer + Collaborator, Alex Elliott – Choreographer, Dasha Plett – Composer + Sound Designer, Max Mummery – Lighting Designer, Jillian Groening – Artistic Advisor, Ali Robson – Movement Dramaturge, Brenda McLean – Costume + Set Designer, Claire Sparling – Cutter + Sewer, Leif Norman – Photographer

Dance Day Party

Celebrate International Dance Day by movin’ and groovin’ with all your friends. Enjoy DJs, dancing, and door prizes, all in one place with Young Lungs Dance Exchange.

Saturday April 29, 2023
8:00 PM until late
The Good Will Social Club – 625 Portage Avenue (accessibility info here)
$20

Please click here for tickets. Come dance the night way!

Your support helps us continue to assist movement artists through providing research creation opportunities, workshops, and training opportunities throughout the year. Thank you for helping make dance collaboration and creation possible.

Screen Dance Public Event #6 – Screen Dance Distribution

How do you share your video works with the world? Artists Jennifer Smith, Sophia Wolfe and Colleen Snell will share their work, experiences and how they distribute their creations! This will be follwed by a short Q&A.

December 11, 2022
2:30 – 4:30 PM
Online through Zoom
FREE

Please click HERE for tickets.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Jennifer Smith, is a Métis curator, writer and arts administrator from Treaty 1 Territory/Winnipeg. She works as the Executive Director for National Indigenous Media Arts Coalition (NIMAC), alongside her practice as an independent curator and arts writer. Jennifer’s research focuses on exploring the ways we make things that range from traditional methods of making to exploring new digital technologies that tell our stories. In 2018 she was the Indigenous Curator in Residence at aceartinc. in Winnipeg, and most recently co-curated the exhibition Sovereign Intimacies with Nasrin Himada for Plug In ICA and Gallery 1C03. 

Jennifer worked in independent short film and video distribution for eleven years at Video Pool Media Arts Centre, and prior to that at the Winnipeg Film Group. She was one of the founding members of VUCAVU.com, a platform offering access to the distribution catalogues of seven independent film and video distributors.

My name is Sophia Mai Wolfe (she/her/hers), I am a queer, Japanese-Canadian independent artist whose practice is ever-changing. My practice moves and connects me to live performance, video documentation, curation, festival programming, editing, filmmaking, directing and choreographing. I am a grateful guest of what is colonially know as Vancouver on the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish),and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. My dance practice has led me to performing and touring internationally with companies and independent choreographers such as Company 605, Co-Erasga, Chick Snipper, Cindy Mochizuki, Lisa Mariko Gelley, Kelly McInnes, Antonio Somera, Zahra Shahab, The Only Animal and New World Theatre.

I hold an MA in Screendance with Distinction (2022) from the London Contemporary Dance School, and is the founder and Artistic Director of F-O-R-M (Festival Of Recorded Movement). Through completing my MA, I became interested in making work that challenges and slows our attention. I use film and dance to invite connection and empathy towards the bodies we witness on screen, as well as invite sensation within the bodies of those witnessing.

The Artistic Director of Frog in Hand, Colleen works with a broad range of dance and movement organizations in a variety of roles. She devises and performs with multidisciplinary artists and holds an MA from LCDS (England). Her collaborative process is highly regarded, as is her site-specific choreography. Colleen’s creative work for screens has included dance films (Lifers, cave forest river field), audio productions (War of the Worlds Reimagined, a narrative website (the Lost Museum), and currently, an immersive audio-based app (“Anomaly,” in development).

Cinematic Somatics Workshop with Melanie Jame Wolf

YLDE has partnered with Blinkers to present a workshop with Berlin-based choreographer and visual artist, Melanie Jame Wolf!

This workshop explores performance, embodiment and the choreographic potential of materials and the moving image. No formal performance or dance training is required. Wolf will introduce her current research into ‘cinematic somatics’; analysing how time and space behave differently between the two distinct formal systems of the stage and the screen; exploring feeling into the screen and choreographing the lens. The workshop will then use these experimental strategies to play with and practice possibilities for staging fantastic embodiments and rehearsing fluid subjectivities and persona as critical artistic materials.

Saturday, November 26
11 AM – 4:30 PM
Synonym Art Consultation – 211 Pacific Avenue
Pay What You Can

Please click HERE for tickets.

ABOUT MELANIE JAME WOLF

Coming from a background in contemporary performance, Melanie Jame works with text, sound, moving image, choreography, & textiles. Her work is concerned with the poetics and problematics of ghosts, class, pop, sensuality, gender, narratology, and the body as a political riddle. Wolf pursues an ongoing interest in analysing the idea of performance-as-labour in artistic, popular entertainment, and everyday contexts. Her work often focusses on specific performance techniques, for example: impersonation, rehearsal, or stand up – using this strategy as a lens to analyse broader political currents wherein performance is understood as a means of survival and an engine for fluidity of subjectivity.