Dance West Network supports dance artists and writers in conversation
Re-centering/Margins creative residency offers emerging dance artists of colour the chance to invite emerging writers of colour to accompany their in-studio processes
Dance artist Zahra Shahab. Photos by Natalie Tin Yin Gan
Produced by Dance West Network since 2019, Re-centering/Margins creative residency offers emerging dance artists of colour opportunities to invite emerging writers of colour to accompany their in-studio processes. Working with this form of active and creative documentation has opened new paths of exploration, reflection and introspection—for both dancers and writers - offering opportunities to connect and reflect on these spaces between and of creative exploration for future inspiration.
“Sharing my creative process with Natalie TY Gan and having it reflected through writing offered a fuller picture of the meaning of the work,” says Zahra Shahab, dance artist, Re-Centering/Margins creative residency 2019/20. “Through her reflections I was given access to alternate caves and tunnels into the understanding of its function, along with the sensation that we were both sitting side by side in a playground witnessing another ‘me’ play a strange new game.”
Says Natalie Tin Yin Gan, Re-Centering/Margins writer, who accompanied Shahab: “Accompanying Zahra as a writer bore such rich intimacy, both with Zahra from within her process, and with myself. I mused for months on the following questions: what does it mean to witness? And: how can writing about dance be a project of dancing with?”
Dance artists (clockwise from top left) Jessica McMAnn (photo by Chelsea Yang Smith), Haliehana Stepetin (photo by Jaiden Willeto), Elysse Cloma (photo by Tin Lorica), Simran Sachar (photo by Evan Morash), Christian Vistan (photo by Nadya Isabella).
Building on the previous two years of work, another group of dance artists and writers from Dance West Network's residency project will participate in conversation as part of the 2021 Dance in Vancouver in partnership with the Dance Centre.
You are invited to bring your coffee and join Dance West Network online on November 26 at 10 am when Re-Centering/ Margins 2020 residency dance artists Jessica McMann, Sarah Wong, and Sophie Mueller-Lange (who worked with selected artist Katie Cassady) as well as writers Elysse Cloma, Haliehana Stepetin, and Christian Vistan and editor Emily Dundas Oke will gather in conversation facilitated by Jane Gabriels, Ph.D., and Simran Sachar. Registration for this free event is here.
This 2020 creative residency collaboration, and other projects that reflect the collaborative work of dance artists and writers, have been published and are available as PDFs or can be ordered online.
To learn more and to order the booklets, please go here.
Post sponsored by Dance West Network.