about
Co.ERASGA
The Company
Founded by choreographer and dancer Alvin Erasga Tolentino in 2000, Co.ERASGA has a distinguished international reputation with its vision of hybrid dance, diversity and collaborations with other artistic practices and multimedia.
At the heart of Co.ERASGA is artistic director Alvin Erasga Tolentino, a Filipino-Canadian artist of remarkable commitment, talent and energy, whose diverse cultural background and heritage has been a driving force for much of the company’s work. In addressing themes that reflect Tolentino’s individuality, global awareness and ethnicity, Co.ERASGA exposes and explores issues of cultural identity, gender, redress, ancestry, hybridity, and promotes intersectionality and cross-cultural dialogue.
Celebrating its 23rd season, Co.ERASGA has created critically acclaimed contemporary dance productions that have toured to Asia, Europe, South America and Canada to over 60 different cities in the last decade. Full length works that have included: SOLA, BATO/Stone, MINORI, Volt, She Said, Field, OrienTik/Portrait, BODYGlass, PARADISE/Paradis, ADAMEVE/ Man-Woman, Shadow Machine, EXpose, Unwrapping Culture, Collected Traces and Still Here, Passages of Rhythms and Offering.
Our Mandate
Co.ERASGA's mandate is to produce and promote original contemporary dance to a broad audience in the unceded ancestral, traditional territories of the Coast Salish people of Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations also known as Vancouver, across BC, Canada and internationally; to recognize and celebrate Asian heritage and diversity within Canadian multiculturalism; to foster the creation of inter-disciplinary performance works; and to partner with emerging and professional dance artists through involvement in the company’s artistic endeavours. Co.ERASGA is founded on the principles of innovation, artistic integrity and social reflection let by founder and artistic director Filipino-Canadian, Alvin Erasga Tolentino.
Our Mission
Co.ERASGA believes that dance serves as a vital form of physical communication and medium for catalyzing social reflection and awareness propelling the company’s relation and work to the community-at-large. Our works have a local, national and global perspective exploring issues such as the nature of gender, identity, ethnicity, equality, decolonize, the spiritual realm and freedom as integral parts of the human experience, and the nature of self in relation to the creation of art. Co.ERASGA aims to reach a wide demographic through our dance creations and outreach activities; to challenge the art of dance through inter-disciplinary collaborations; to be an artistic expressive catalyst, a strengthening link, and an expansive cultural force, extending from the West Coast across the nation and abroad; and to be faithful to the kinetic power of dance as a source and tool for dynamic communication.