Anya Saugstad

Debris is a work in research and progress by Anya Saugstad (dancer and choreographer) and Dora Prieto (writer and poet). Using themes of debris and shedding Dora and Anya are interested in how poetry and dance intersect, the space that lies between movement and words, and movement and language as ways of spilling/sharing our insides out.

credits
a work in research by Anya Saugstad and Dora Prieto
choreographed and danced by Anya Saugstad
written by Dora Prieto

Lucy M. May

Dreaming intrinsic motivation. Two warbles that didn’t make the cut for Lu’s last work The Conditions. The word ‘IN’ summoned in a psychic reading recently: “the ground of hope,” she suggested. Who lies at the bottom of the deep and what rises from their sunken shapes? The ground sends an antenna up through the deeper and shallower pasts, into nebulous clouds.

credits
movement and costume by Lucy M. May
music by Shifternity, Isochronic Tones: From Theta to Gamma (Wide Spectrum of Benefits) ⧊ 33Hz Pyramid Frequency
outside eye and photography by Fran Chudnoff
thanks to Erin Hill

Aisha Sasha John

The Minimum because the sensual imperative of emotion is expression.

The Minimum because a faculty was developed in response to a need.

The Minimum is the generosity and erotics of “What is the least I can give?”

(Do you like it?
Do you fucking like it?)

I want to make my minimum less.

The Minimum is/or Aisha loves breathing.

credits
work-in-progress created and performed by Aisha Sasha John

jaamil olawale kosoko

(chrysalis: activation 2) is a hybrid media performance work that integrates sculpture, moving image, original poetry, and emergent choreographic strategies prompted by the audience. The work examines concepts of metamorphosis, intergenerational knowledge, blood memory, negative space, and the environmental grief that lingers in the aftermath of the living gesture.

credits
created and performed by jaamil olawale kosoko
composition and sound design by Mlondi Dubazane
photography by Jason Serrano

Aisha Sasha John is interested in performance as a site of rehearsing being and in the power of reception as creative methodology. She’s the 2023-2035 Toronto Dance Theatre Affiliate Artist. John’s duet with Devon Snell, DIANA ROSS DREAM (Danse-cité), premiered in fall 2022 and was developed during a 2019-2022 Dancemakers choreographic residency. Her first full-length solo work debuted as the aisha of oz at the Whitney Museum in 2017, and in 2018, iterations of the aisha of is were presented at MAI and Toronto’s SummerWorks Festival. From 2015-2017, John choreographed, performed and curated as a member of the collective WIVES, presenting ACTION MOVIE at La Chapelle (2017). John’s video work and text art have been exhibited in galleries (Doris McCarthy, Oakville Galleries). A celebrated poet, John is the author of the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize nominated collection, I have to live. (McClelland & Stewart 2017). Her fourth collection total will be published in spring 2025.

Anya Allegra Saugstad is a dancer and choreographer based in Vancouver BC, on the unceded territory of the Sḵwx̱ wú7mesh', Stó:lō and Səlílwətaʔ/ Selilwitulh, and xwməθkwəyə̓ m First Nations. Anya trained at ArtsUmbrella, and has a BFA in Dance from Simon Fraser University. Anya Saugstad is the Artistic Director of a non profit dance organization called Furious Grace Dance Theatre, (originally Judith Garay’s company Dancers Dancing). Furious Grace / Anya Saugstad create live collaborative performance works in theaters and outdoors. Anya builds vigorous and highly physical ensemble choreography to express stories that encompass strength, celebration, and yearning. Anya has created works for ArtsUmbrella, LamonDance, Simon Fraser University, Method Dance Company, Coastal City Ballet, and she is currently teaching Choreographic Lab at Simon Fraser University. Anya’s work has been presented through The Dance Deck (Belle Spirale), Dance West Network, The Scotiabank Dance Center, Crimson Coast Dance, The Rotary Center for the Arts, and has toured her work across BC and to Montreal Quebec. Anya Saugstad is grateful to be the recipient of the Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award for 2023/24.

jaamil olawale kosoko is a multi-spirited Nigerian American author, performance artist, and curator of Yoruba and Natchez descent originally from Detroit, MI. jaamil’s practice considers emergence, queer Black theory, and critical rest-care strategies as conceptual, interdisciplinary forms for BIPOC liberation and reparation. kosoko moves across the creative realms of live art performance, video, sculpture, and poetry merging cultural, political, spiritual, and academic frameworks of inquiry. As an educator and community organizer, they approach politics and education as extensions of their creative process. Through a rooted continued investigation of the elements mentioned above, kosoko seeks to craft perpetual modes of freedom, healing, and care when/where/however possible. jaamil’s works—including Black Body Amnesia (2022), Chameleon (2020), Séancers (2017), and the Bessie Award-nominated #negrophobia (2015)—have toured to venues and festivals such as Abrons Art Center, Gibney Dance Center, Wexner Center for the Arts, Fusebox Festival, and Montréal Arts Interculturels (CA). jaamil has received several awards including the 2022 Slamdance Jury Prize for Best Experimental Short Film, 2022 LaBecque Residency (Switzerland), 2021/22 MacDowell Fellowship, 2020 Pew Fellowship in the Arts, 2019 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Choreography, and a 2017-2019 Princeton Arts Fellowship.

Lucy M. May (she/they) is a dance artist born in Eqpahak/Wolastokuk/Fredericton and based in Tiohtiá:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal since 2003. Her choreographic projects explore the materiality of human attention and our relationships to place and to each other. Improvisation resides at the heart of their work as a dancer, creator, and teacher, nourished by experiences performing in Contemporary dance and practicing Krump. She has lead workshops and classes for such organizations as RQD, EDCM, Love-In, Studio 303, Kinetic Studio, DansEncorps, Empirical Freedom, and Fada Dance. Interested in collective ways of transmitting movement knowledge, she has co-created gatherings such as Off_Script.