Studio Salon Series: Fall 2023
Studio Salon Series: Fall 2023
December 1 - 2, 2023
What Lab
1814 Pandora St.
Vancouver BC, V5L 1M5
Our Studio Salon Series returns, featuring works in progress by four local artists. This event will be live at What Lab (#202-1814 Pandora St, Vancouver) on December 1 & 2, 2023 @ 5 PM, both evenings. In-person audience capacity is limited to 30 people.
TICKETS BY DONATION ON EVENTBRITE
All donated funds support our artists
Friday, December 1, 2023 @ 5 PM
Anusha Fernando and the Sky Dancers Project
Marisa Gold
Saturday, December 2, 2023 @ 5 PM
Oksana Augustine
Juan Imperial
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
ANUSHA FERNANDO is a performer and teacher of the Indian Classical dance form Bharata Natyam and the Artistic Director of Vancouver's Shakti Dance Society. She began her study of Bharata Natyam in 1990 under renowned teachers, Jai Govinda and Jayalakshmi Eshwar.
Her work highlights the depth of Bharata Natyam's traditional repertoire as well as its interdisciplinary potential. By exploring the mythology, story, songs, and mind-body practice technologies of the Indian tradition, she illuminates BN as an expressive tool with universal application. Her work is founded in her academic research in Religious Studies (BA, McGill University) and Sanskrit (MA, UBC), and her training in the Buddhist tradition. Anusha's work explores the edge between revealing yourself and losing yourself and shows a curiosity about the value of dance beyond performance and identity.
Photo credit: Talia Holy
www.shaktidancesociety.com / Anusha Fernando on FB
We will be presenting two short excerpts from a new work called Sky Dancers. My main inspiration for this piece is the exploration of the relationship between BN and Buddhist meditative practice. I have trained for years in both the movement of BN and the stillness of Buddhist meditation and consider them to be mutually supportive and intersecting traditions. In order to explore this intersection I have selected the mythology of The Dakini, a feminine symbol of wisdom in the Indian tradition that holds both stillness and movement as her liberating activities. She is said to release spiritual practitioners from the obstacles of mind/body that get in the way of their freedom. To do so, she assumes many forms and engages in the full palette of human experience. Despite being fully immersed in life, her mind remains still and unperturbed, like the sky unaffected by weather patterns. For the salon sharing we will present the energy of two Dakinis, Lion Faced Dakini and Tree Leaf Dakini. The dancers in this piece are: Arno Kamolika, Kiruthika Rathanaswami, Malavika Santhosh, Ashvini Sundaram, and Sujit Vaidya.
MARISA GOLD is an intuitive multidisciplinary dance artist with a passion for all things soulful. She has trained in a variety of Modern/Contemporary styles, with a BFA in dance (SFU), certificate of completion from The Ailey school Independent Study program (NYC), and The Graham school (NYC). She is an expressive dancer, poet, vocalist, choreographer, stylist, and actor whose work is embedded in self reflection, a deep love for humanity and reverence for our planet earth.
Photo credit: Kristine Cofsky
All The While is a multidisciplinary work exploring the bittersweet/surreal nature of time as a container for our existence. The movement asks us to grow; to simultaneously hold on to what we must let go in a rhythm continuous.
OKSANA AUGUSTINE is a queer emerging contemporary dance artist/teacher/choreographer, based on the lands of the unceded and occupied territories of the Sḵwxw ̱ ú7mesh,xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm, and səl̓ ílwətaʔ Nations. They completed four years of training with Modus Operandi, and have had the opportunity to be in rehearsal process with OIS, RSA, Khoudia Toure, Chimerik 似不像 Collective, Okam's Racer, Co.ERASGA, and Zahra Shahab among others. Oksana's work as a choreographer focuses on neurodivergence, gender exploration, pleasure, spirituality, and sensation, and has showcased their work in 12MM, Boombox, The Happening Accelerate 4.0 alongside Kate Franklin, and Chalk It Up!
Photo credit: Jon Dana
@oksanaaugustine
Existing within layers upon layers, unfolding and exposing. Slipping into and out of phases. Shedding, embracing, repeating.
JUAN IMPERIAL Juan Alcuitas-Imperial is an emerging Filipino queer artist with roots in vogue and waacking. Since the age of 15, Juan has been dedicated to uplifting, teaching, and supporting the queer street dance scene and local queer/trans youth. Juan has taught for VancityWaack, VanVogueJam, FORM film festival, and Libby Leshgold gallery among other spaces across the lower mainland. Since 2020, Juan has been studying the intersection of street dance and contemporary in programs such as barangay project, lunacy phase and Modus Operandi's link program - leading them to making their debut film "the meeting place" with FORM's commissioned artist program. Currently, Juan continues to explore his interest in the ecological and elemental origins of living beings and how this expressed itself through street dance - using frameworks of spirituality, ancestry, queerness, community building and anti-colonial values to ground his artistic explorations.
Photo credit: @ssodaphoto
@juan.imperial_
“The way we remember” is a work in progress piece exploring the process of remembering through dance. Juan pulls upon his experiences in early adolescence of searching for artistic, ancestral and personal identity through the practice of remembering - hoping to expand upon identity to become more deeply rooted in lineage, family, stories and ancestral ways. The way we remember integrates Juan’s his early childhood memories in Filipino activist communities with street dance, contemporary, storytelling, and community building as central practices to all his work.
ACCESSIBILITY
What Lab is wheelchair accessible by a set of doors leading from the alley between Pandora St. And Franklin Ave. The front entrance has a flight of stairs.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you for your continued donation and support that helps Co.ERASGA’s annual arts programming and provides economic support to all participating artists.
We humbly acknowledge that most of Co. ERASGA's work, including the Studio Salon Series, takes place on the traditional and unceded lands of the Coast Salish people including the Squamish (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw), Tsleil-Waututh (səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ) and Musqueam (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm) Nations, the original stewards and caretakers of these lands.
Our Studio Salon Series is a recurring series featuring local artists sharing works-in-progress with the community in an informal setting.
These events are free to the public in an effort to create more communication between artists and the community while their works are still in development. After short excerpts are shown, the featured artists engage in conversation with the audience around the topics presented in the work, creation, and development.
