Studio Salon Spring Series
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 April 29 & 30, 2022 at 5 PM, both evenings. In-person audience capacity is limited to 30 people, masks must be worn inside the studio, and proof of vaccination (2 doses) will be required to enter.
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Kelly McInnes and Eric Cheung
April 29, 2022 @ 5 PM PST
Sophia Sosa and Marco Esccer
April 30, 2022 @ 5 PM PST
About the artists:
Kelly McInnes
Gratefully based on the unceded Coast Salish territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations, Kelly McInnes is a dance artist concerned with embodying care, sensuality, hope and complexity. As choreographer, performer and community-engaged facilitator, the intention of her work is to inspire collective healing. Recently completing her training in Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, Kelly's artistic practice is now powerfully inspired by this practice. Often multi-disciplinary, collaborative and site specific, her choreographic work has been presented locally as well as internationally. Kelly is also currently in her 4th year as facilitator and artist-in-residence with the Roundhouse Community Dancers. kellymcinnes.com
Description of work:
Mouth to Mouth is a collaborative co-creation work-in-progress project between Kelly McInnes and Luciana D'Anunciação celebrating our animality, sensuality, biological cycles and interdependence with all living beings. Following intuition, Luciana and Kelly experiment with transformation and relationship through the weaving of imagery and voicework, physicality and material objects.
Eric Cheung
Eric Cheung is a street dance artist based in so-called Vancouver, on the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh Nations. Eric is a company member of Ouro Collective, partaking in the creation of HAKO, SOTTO51, Fire06, and 7y98D. Eric explores different mediums to further expand the boundaries of street dance in film, theatre, new media, fashion, and Virtual Reality (VR). Projects such as E_GO, I(n)finite, Re:1974, iye, wave, and iyeism. Eric is currently pursuing a VR dance project in collaboration with the Museum of Other Realities (MoR) entitled ALT.
Description of work:
Re:1974 is a re:embodiment of my Father's immigration story from Hong Kong to Canada in 1974 to the present day. From his son's perspective, recollecting, remembering and reliving the struggles and tribulations that he went through to start this new life for us, and observing how his immigrating experiences have affected his physical and emotional health in pursuit of stability.
Sophia Sosa
Sophia “SOSA” Laurio is a Filipina born and raised, multi-disciplinary artist and a first-generation immigrant. Sophia embarked on her journey of becoming a full pledged performance artist by training for over a decade under the guidance of educators like Jeri Chien, Victor Tran, Kenny Mugisha (Now or Never Crew), Deni Kang (Black Mamba Crew), Mikhail Venom Moris (Dancehall Donz), Elite Force Crew (NYC), Mr. YouTube (NYC), PyroTechs (NYC) and University professor and Streetdance educator, Moncell Durden (NYC). Sophia is well versed in freestyle dance, choreography and has won and judged battles across the lower mainland.
In 2016, Sophia became a cast member of Vancouver’s first authentic Dancehall theater production under the direction of Ketch di’ Vybz’ Mikhail Moris and Judy Madaraz. During that production, she was noticed by Kevin Fraser who invited her to become a member of Vancouver’s leading art and fashion collective ‘Immigrant Lessons’. Since then, Sophia has traveled and performed on international stages like RAW Artist Emerge Fashion Show in Los Angeles, California, Bronx Academy of Arts & Dance in New York City and Manila Fringe Festival in the Philippines.
Sophia currently trains in a plethora of styles outside of Street Dance such as contemporary, movement exploration, GAGA, theater, acting and creative writing. Through her most recent work, Sophia explores her identity and the complexities of coexisting being featured in prestige theater and dance platforms like Dancing on the Edge, Vancouver Fringe Festival, Manila Fringe Festival, Daloy Dance Company, Co. ERASGA and Emily Carr University. This has ignited her to unravel her purpose as an artist, student, director and leader in her own community by starting a non-for-profit organization focused on providing art & dance education to BIPOC youths and emerging artists alike.. In her classes, Sophia shares her experiences of navigating through the arts as a visible minority and specifically as a woman of color. Sophia aspires to give back to people who were like her; a street kid in Manila Philippines and she wishes to do this through free dance education while pushing the Hip Hop mantra “Love, Peace, Unity and Having Fun”. With this, she aims to guide the next generation of young artists to grow and mold their voices to be the leaders of their communities.
Description of work:
Maleta is a story about a young Filipina child, uprooted to a new home where she finds herself constantly reshaping the ways she understands herself and the world. This work-in-progress that will develop into a short film aims to showcase Sophia’s complex upbringing as a young Filipina navigating society, language and culture. Maleta is a 10-minute film that explores concepts like “code-switching” and how it has become part of our everyday interaction. Maleta in Tagalog means suitcase. As a first-generation immigrant, finding home is always a confusing space. We romanticize the idea of our homelands yet home has become something intangible it has become only a memory; an ongoing search. Now that we are here, speaking a foreign tongue more than our own… where is home now and who have we become?
Photo credit: Daniel J Collins (@danieljcollinsfoto)
Marco Esccer
Bachelor in Classical Dance, Marco Esccer graduated from the National School of Classical and Contemporary Dance of México City in 2016. Course the Diploma in Research, experimentation and artistic production: Transits; and the Diploma in Dance Therapy taught by Sensodanzaterapia A.C. He attended the Ballet Intensive Summer Course at the Jeoffrey Ballet School in New York 2014. He has danced for many companies in Mexico such as Ballet Independiente A.C.,La Infinita Cia, Prodanza México, Convexus ballet by Francisco Rojas, Danza Capital, among others. He created Explor-Arte, a workshop that involves movement and dance therapy based since 2018 in Mexico and Canada. Winner in the First New choreographer competition in 2018. Public Relations of La Infinita Cia (Mexico City) 2019-2020 and assistant productor of Bridges Over Walls since 2019. Currently dancer in Coastal City Ballet (Vancouver) season 2019-2022.
Description of work:
In this piece we will explore the topic of Being Queer and its relation with Mental Health in the human. The process of discovering oneself uniqueness in a society that's constantly shaping us as we should be rather than taking in consideration what we are. As an expansion of our most recent work "Possibilities: Embodied Poetry", we'll make use of the impact of Words (Poetry) and the present movement (improvisation tools).
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.
