YLDE invites all movers and thinkers to learn new skills, experience alternative pathways, and engage in dialogue at our free Movement Practice sessions. At every session a different guest is invited to share whatever is currently inspiring them about their movement practice, bringing their own unique knowledge, experience, and inquiry to the floor.

Using imagery and precise directives, the class will attempt to find authenticity through movement with a focus on communication. In order to find and develop authentic movement, we will push past our movement comfort zones into new methods of moving. We need to learn to recognise and when needed, discard old movement behaviours and patterns to make room for new ones. It is possible to discuss and describe complex ideas through movement in a clear way. Come with ideas for current or future work, newer choreographies and movement explorations. Bring a notebook.

When: Tuesday, June 8, 2021

Time: 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm (CDT)

Where: Online over Zoom, click HERE to register!

This is a FREE event and all are welcome to attend.

About Jackie Latendresse:

Jackie is the founder and artistic director of Free Flow Dance Theatre. Her professional choreographic work with Free Flow has been publicly acclaimed; she has been nominated for various awards including the Saskatchewan YWCA women of distinction award (which she won), Saskatoon Champion for the arts, the SK lieutenant governor’s award and has received numerous government grants from federal, provincial and municipal sources in support of Free Flow Dance Theatre and its programming.  Jackie is a voice for the arts and an advocate for dance. She endeavours to create a strong and vibrant dance community by providing opportunities for the arts to flourish in her company’s annual season of events. She strives to create bonds and connections between artists that will continue to grow through the years and works to make dance an art form that is accessible to all. www.freeflowdance.com

YLDE’s programming is made possible with the generous support from Winnipeg Arts Council, Manitoba Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts.

Creative Accessibility is a series of online webinars and panel discussions that will explore disability art, the experiences of artists with disabilities and how to make art accessible. These workshops will be beneficial not only for emerging artists with disabilities, but artists at all levels of their career with and without disabilities.

What does access mean? What can access look like? Join Adriana Alarcón (curator and artist), Jordan Sangalang (Deaf Performer) and Cheryle Broszeit (Deaf photographer) as they discuss their experiences within the art world. Find out the types of accommodation that artists who are Deaf/disable need to participate in the arts and how their lived experiences reflect in their artwork.

When: Monday, May 31

Time: 6:00 – 8:00 pm CST

Register for this FREE event and a Zoom link will be sent to your inbox closer to the event date. All Creative Accessibility workshops will have ASL interpretation.

Presented in partnership with Arts Accessibility Network Manitoba

For more information, including details on classes and workshops in this series, please click HERE.

Movement Practice: Afro Moves with Zahra Badua

This International Dance Day, join us for an exciting movement practice with Zahra Badua as we learn some afro moves!

When: Thursday, April 29, 2020

Time: 4:00 – 6:00 pm CDT

Where: Online over Zoom

This is a FREE event, all are welcome. Click HERE to register.

About This Month’s Movement Practice:

YLDE invites all movers and thinkers to learn new skills, experience alternative pathways, and engage in dialogue at our free Movement Practice sessions. At every session a different guest is invited to share whatever is currently inspiring them about their movement practice, bringing their own unique knowledge, experience, and inquiry to the floor.

In this movement practice session, Zahra will lead attendees in African street dance styles. The session will be an introduction to Afro moves, vocabulary, and grooves. The attendees will learn core-based Afro movements including body isolations, hip movements, and footwork.

About Zahra Badua:

Zahra Badua is a Ghanaian dancer/teacher/choreographer originally from Montreal, Quebec. Her passion for dance started at a very young age as a means to learn and understand her African heritage. Through discovery and training, she is skilled in Traditional West African, Afro-Caribbean folklore, Afrobeats and soca. 

Now based in Toronto, Zahra teaches and performs all over the city with several dance companies such as Coco Collective, Alpha Rhythms and Roots, and BlackStars Collective. In addition, Zahra established an educational and performance based company called ZahraMoves. The goal for her classes/workshops is to educate her students, to promote and preserve the culture and dances from the African Diaspora. She also uses her company to spread joy, promote togetherness, self-expression, and confidence building. To learn more, please visit ZahraMoves Website.

YLDE’s programming is made possible with the generous support from Winnipeg Arts Council, Manitoba Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts.

Orange, a New Dance Duet by Less San Miguel and Deanna Peters

When: Friday, April 9, 2021 – 7:00 pm PDT (9 pm CDT)

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Saturday, April 10 – 5:00 pm PDT (7:00 pm CDT)

Cost: Tickets are FREE or by donation

Where: Online over Zoom

About the Show:

Combining experiences in street, club, and stage dance, experimental dance artist Deanna Peters + Winnipeg-based street dance Less San Miguel investigate what happens when they turn their gazes towards each other; to dance with and for each other. What arises from an intimate state of seeing and being seen? How does a focus on one another invite others to see us?

This show is presented as part of Plastic Orchid Factory’s adaptive series, with support from the Canada Council for the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council, Young Lung Dance Exchange and What Lab.

For more information and to register, please click HERE.

Photo credit: Reza Rezai

Workshop Submissions: Disability Informed Creation in Dance with Debbie Patterson and Christopher House

We are now accepting submissions for the Disability Informed Creation in Dance Workshop with Debbie Patterson (WPG) and Christopher House (TO). Submissions are due Monday, March 15, 2021.

This workshop will be hosted by Young Lungs Dance Exchange and Sick + Twisted Theatre from April 12 – 16, 2021 @ 1:00 – 4:00 pm (CST), Online over Zoom.

Overview of Workshop:

This five-day online workshop brings together disabled (Deaf, Crip, mad, sick) and nondisabled dancers, choreographers, movers and makers.

Engaging with the disruptions created by disability, we will use this time to develop connections and remove barriers to collaboration across abilities. Engaging with the disruptions created by Covid, we’ll take advantage of the limitations and opportunities of online meeting. 

The workshop will explore choreographic practice as a way of questioning, examining and expressing the body’s truth and its capacity for radical specificity in relation to time and space. How does the disabled body inform choreographic practice? How does choreographic thinking inform the disabled performer’s practice?

Participants will choreograph and perform each day, working quickly and intuitively on short projects; sharing their work with the group; participating in discussions, and joining in giving and receiving supportive feedback. 

The goal of the workshop is to bring each participant’s intuitive knowledge and curiosity into a productive dialogue with their critical mind. We will approach this in a spirit of rigour that includes lightness and play. Ideally, this workshop will act as a springboard to launch new collaborative relationships among integrated groups of performers.

The workshop is hosted by Debbie Patterson, Artistic Director of Sick + Twisted Theatre, and veteran choreographer and mentor Christopher House, former Artistic Director of Toronto Dance Theatre. 

Participants must be available for a short conversation with the facilitators during the week before for the workshop; have access to the internet and a device, preferably a  laptop, for running Zoom; and be able to commit to the full duration of the workshop. 

Who Should Apply:

This program is open to all Manitoban artists and will be conducted in English with ASL interpretation. Non-disabled dancers, choreographers and movers interested in exploring disability-informed movement and Disabled performers interested in expanding their approach to movement in performance creation are encouraged to apply.

How to Apply:

Write to us at sickandtwisted@outlook.com with:

• Your resume or CV
• An artist statement that includes:
• A description of your artistic practice
• What you hope to get out of this program (or what excites you about this program)
• Some things you’re artistically curious about right now.

Research Series Endnote Roundtable Discussion With Written and Visual Essay Presentations by Toby Gillies, katnancy and Kate Sjoberg

When: Sunday, March 28th, 2021

Time: 2:00 – 4:00 pm (CST), Online over Zoom

This is a FREE event

Please visit younglungs.ca or click HERE to sign up.

Written and Visual Essay Presentations by Toby Gillies, katnancy and Kate Sjoberg creative response to the work of the in-residence artists.

About the Event:

Join the Research Series Essayists and participating Artists-In-Residence in this celebratory Endnote event. Each of the three essayists will offer a creative response to the work of the in-residence artists. This exchange across disciplines aims to broaden the discussion and inquiry around dance by offering multiple in-depth perspectives. Discussion and celebration to follow as the YLDE 2021 Research Series comes to a close.

About the Essayists:

katnancy makes ‘art’, facilitates and writes out of Treaty 1/Winnipeg. Born and raised in Gimuy(Cairns, Australia), they studied Photographic, Video and Expanded Art Practice and Art History at the Queensland College of Art in Meanjin(Brisbane, Australia) and at the School of Art University of Manitoba. They have initiated and facilitated various local and transnational discussion groups, and participated in intergenerationally collaborative projects here and abroad. Including founding and co-facilitating The Sunroom Artspace, an all female, artist-run project space in the Exchange and working with the Nepal Picture Library in Kathmandu, Nepal as part of the Doing Visual Politics Symposium. Practices of play, rest and dreaming, are cultivated, shared and lead every stage of the process, in all aspects of their work. Honouring nuance, fluidity and intuition, the dance continues, and is fed by an ongoing commitment to curiosity and collaboration. They are currently the Manager of Creative Programming at Video Pool Media Arts Centre and serve on the Board of Directors for WNDX Festival of Moving Image.

Toby Gillies is a multidisciplinary artist, the third generation in his family of art-thing makers, enjoyers, and educators living in Winnipeg.  Toby’s practice is rooted in a playful exploration of materials, and experiments in collaboration. Projects have taken the form of drawing, installation, filmmaking and animation, ceramic, sculpture, cardboard, parties, social practice.

For a decade, he has been facilitating art experiences in the West Broadway community, where he serves as Studio Programs Manager at Art City and is an Artist in Residence at Misericordia Health Centre. His favourite days are spent making art with older people in the morning, making art with younger people in the afternoon, and then working on creative projects of his own in the evening.

Kate Sjoberg is a settler living and working on Treaty 1. Her writing work includes academic research, journalistic work, opinion pieces, prose and poetry.

Young Lungs Dance Exchange’s Research Series is generously supported by Winnipeg Arts Council, Manitoba Arts Council, and Canada Council for the Arts.

Research Series Presentation: Karen Asher

When: Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Time: 7:00 – 8:00 pm (CST), Online over Zoom

Cost: This is a Pay-What-You-Can event

Please visit younglungs.ca or click HERE to sign up.

Karen Asher will present her creative research from her time in residence with Young Lungs Dance Exchange

About the Research:

A Sad Slow Dance is a party for one. By experimenting with dance, movement and performance, I want to research and create work that engages the viewer past the limits of my camera, and translate my vision into a bewildering experience that defies genre. Multi-layered pieces like these contribute to my continued focus on strength, struggle and frustration, using humour to evoke the frailty and absurdity of the human condition.

About Karen Asher: 

Karen Asher is an artist living on Treaty 1 Territory in Winnipeg  whose work explores her obsession with stress, absurdity, and  the catastrophe of everyday life. She received her BFA Honours in  photography from the University of Manitoba in 2009. Her solo  show, “Class,” was exhibited at Plug In ICA in 2019. The  installation featured photography, live performance, a 90 minute  video, flashing neon and a peep show. Asher is currently working  on “Preaching to the Perverted,” which will premiere at the Gimli  Film Festival next summer. Though she barely gets off the couch now, as a kid Asher was a real good dancer and has the medals to prove it.

Young Lungs Dance Exchange’s Research Series is generously supported by Winnipeg Arts Council, Manitoba Arts Council, and Canada Council for the Arts.

Bahay Perlas Live: YLDE Recap

When: Saturday, March 27, 2021

Time: 6:00 – 8:00pm (CST), Online on Youtube, Twitch and Facebook Live (all through Bahay Perlas’ channels)

This is a FREE event!

About the Live:

The Bahay Perlas team will discuss their creative research from their time in residence with Young Lungs Dance Exchange through a group chat featuring Magdaragat directors Goldie Garcia and Nikki Tamayo, and In-House choreographer Joseph Sevillo.

About the Research:

Local drag queens Lady Fortuna and Special K of Bahay Perlas (House of Pearls) will use this dance residency to work with their in-house choreographer Joseph Sevillo and dedicate time to researching Filpino indigenous dances (Singkil, etc) in collaboration with the dance instructor and Production Chair of Magdaragat and local dance instructor Nerissa Mabel “Goldie” Garcia and Nicole Tamayo. The overarching concept is to embed traditional movements found in Filipino Folk Dancing into contemporary drag performance (traditional meets drag).

About Bahay Perlas:

(House of Pearls) features two Filipinx queens: Lady Fortuna (Christian Alcera) and Special K (Kiel Galera). They were birthed through the PTE Drag Performance Class of 2018 and 2019. Since then, they have been featured in drag cabarets, parades and films, breaking through the drag community with lightning speed due to their incredible story-telling skills, musicality and dance talent. Bahay Perlas is the first of its kind in Winnipeg, a collective that welcomes drag and non drag artists who are dedicated to breaking stigmas against drag culture. Joining Lady Fortuna and Special K, are choreographer Joseph Sevillo (dance teacher and choreographer for Shelley Shearer School of Dance) and director Hazel Venzon (artistic director and producer for U ‘N I Together Productions) who are passionate about drag performance, and supporters of BP’s artistic growth and innovative expression. 

Bahay Perlas was created to cultivate and build skills for Filipinx drag queens, creating welcomed spaces and possible futures for younger generations.

Young Lungs Dance Exchange’s Research Series is generously supported by Winnipeg Arts Council, Manitoba Arts Council, and Canada Council for the Arts.

Research Series Presentation: Krystina Dejean

When: Wednesday, March 17, 2021

Time: 5:00 – 6:00pm (CST), Online over Zoom

Cost: This is a Pay-What-You-Can event

Please visit younglungs.ca or click HERE to sign up.

Krystina Dejean will present her creative research from her time in residence with Young Lungs Dance Exchange

About the Research:

With the help of her collaborators, Krystina will show the results of her research and lead a discussion surrounding the expression of empathy through technology and screen and different ways that we can have genuine connections despite the current isolations we’re having.

About Krystina Dejean:

Krystina Dejean is a Montreal based dancer specialized in street dance styles, particularly waacking. She considers herself a storyteller, as she loves to escape and bring her audience with her in another world when she dances. It’s usually through freestyle that she best expresses herself, highlighting her vulnerability and spontaneity. She is currently active in the dance scene as a performer, as an up-and-coming choreographer and by curating events that are socially engaged and bring people together in the street dance community of Montreal.

Young Lungs Dance Exchange’s Research Series is generously supported by Winnipeg Arts Council, Manitoba Arts Council, and Canada Council for the Arts.