Dance artist Kaili Che wins Louise Bentall Biennial Award for Emerging British Columbia Choreographers
Ashvini Sundaram takes second place in prize presented by The Hawthorne Foundation and DanceHouse
Kaili Che’s batch.
Kaili Che. Photo by Albert Normandin
KAILI CHE IS THIS year’s winner of the Louise Bentall Biennial Award for Emerging British Columbia Choreographers, presented and awarded by The Hawthorne Foundation and DanceHouse.
The Louise Bentall Biennial Award, announced last night at DanceHouse’s presentation of Peeping Tom’s Diptych at the Vancouver Playhouse, commemorates the late, longtime board member of DanceHouse, social justice advocate, and supporter of the performing arts in the Lower Mainland. It supports the winning artist with $10,000 to research, develop, or produce new work. This year, the jury also awarded a second-place winner, Ashvini Sundaram, who received a cash prize of $5,000.
Kaili Che is a Vancouver-born, Calgary-raised Chinese-Canadian dance artist and pedagogue. Che’s serious dance training began at age 16, followed by travelling around Canada and the U.S. to gain more dance experience. Che completed a bachelor of fine arts degree in dance and an added concentration in dance pedagogy from the University of Calgary. As a dance artist, she has performed and worked with Project InTandem, kloetzel&co., Jason Owin F. Galeos, W&M Physical Theatre, Su-Lin Tseng, and Heather Ware.
Alongside her dance training, Che has also completed the Healthy Dancer Certification with Safe in Dance International and is a certified educator through Associated Dance Arts for Professional Teachers.
Within her own practice, Che has directed and produced dance short films, such as “Stitching Change”, and performed and created dance works and multimedia projects including “Marooned”, “INTERWEAVE”, “Did you eat yet?”, “An Anecdotal Fable”, “[Norm]All Fun”, “Watching Inevitability”, and “Eliminate Fast Fashion”. Che’s work has been shown at the Surrey Art Gallery, New Works, and Expanse Festival.
Right now, Che is working on a piece called “Molds’ Lab-yrinth” which is an interdisciplinary research project that tackles themes of grief, food, and family pedigree. With help from The Dance Centre, the piece brings together dancers, designers, and consultants. Che’s inspiration behind the work stems from her experience at a family dinner, held in honour of her guong guong (her grandfather on her mother’s side), who has passed away. In an artist statement, Che has said she’s exploring “impermanence, inevitability, tenderness, intersection of grief and connection, navigation of life and death, rituals, and how food often stood at the centre of all of it” in the work.
Ashvini Sundaram. Photo by John Martinez
Second-place winner Ashvini Sundaram received honours for her developing solo titled CROSSING DEEP WATERS. The solo grapples with the concepts of identity resulting from the ever-changing transformation of things passed along through generations and geographies.
Sundaram is a fourth-generation Indian-Singaporean and first/second-generation Canadian, which has shaped her interest in researching migration and its effects. As a contemporary dance artist based in Vancouver, Sundaram’s focus in dance is Bharatanatyam. Her work has been showcased by Tangente, the Dancing on the Edge Festival, CanAsian Dance, and The Dance Centre. Sundaram’s spirituality shapes her dance practice as she is a disciple of the Bharatanatyam danseuse Rama Vaidyanathan.
To decide the winners, a panel of artists, including multidisciplinary Indigenous artist Quelemia Sparrow, dance artist Lee Su-Feh, and Livona Ellis (winner of the inaugural 2023 Louise Bentall Biennial Award), reviewed all award applications. 
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