Against – Site Specific
2018
Brooks Corning Showroom
Vancouver, BC
Dancing on the Edge
AGAINST was presented at Dancing on the Edge 2018 as a site-specific creation laboratory that combines dance, theatre, soundscape and live-video feed throughout the sprawling space of the Brooks Corning showroom and warehouse.
AGAINST looks at our perception of ‘normal’ through the lens of three “events” (each approximately 20 minutes in length, and presented by 3 dancers in a series of solos, duets and a trio). AGAINST uses three verbs in pursuit of this artistic inquiry – Entrap, Detach and Divide:
- Entrap: a cinematic duet for Elissa Hanson and Arash Khakpour to music by Matthew Tomkinson. Intimacy, harmony, connection is contrasted by dysfunction, aggression, repulsion.
- Detach: Three simultaneous solos for Renée Sigouin, Elissa Hanson and Arash Khakpour to the soundscape by Vancouver composer Stephan Smulovitz. This segment explores further sense of loneliness, monotony and loss of control in a world increasingly dominated by technology.
- Divide: A physically demanding trio for dancers Renée Sigouin, Elissa Hanson and Arash Khakpour to the music of Barry Truax; explores complex group dynamics in which intricate movement patterning is broken down by video projections resulting from the prior section.
These three verbs also reflect Paras Terezakis’ own experiences:
- Entrap: as an adopted child, feelings of rejection, confinement and lack of choices
- Detach: as an immigrant, you are an outsider in your chosen home and now an outsider in your birthplace
- Divide: xenophobic misconceptions and stigma of appearing ‘different’
AGAINST works as a live organism, a shape-shifter that can modulate and adjust depending on the space at play.
Collaborators
Choreography, Concept & Direction:
Paras Terezakis
Interpreters:
Elissa Hanson, Arash Khakpour & Renée Sigouin
Videographers:
Video Artist – Kimia Yazdi
Video Consultant – Sammy Chien
Archival Video – Chris Randle
Photographers/Performers:
Kent Lins, Sally Buck
Composers/Performers:
Entrap – Matthew Tomkinson
Divide – Stefan Smulovitz
Detach – Barry Truax
Set Design:
Paras Terezakis
Production/Stage Manager:
Donna Chen
Dramaturg:
Andreas Kahre
Extracts of rehearsals of site specific work Against at Brook Corning Showroom.
Dancers: Arash Khakpour, Renée Sigouin, Elissa Hanson
Composers: Barry Truax, Stefan Smulovitz, Matthew Tomkinson
We would like to express our deepest and sincere appreciation to our funders, partners, volunteers and supporters who made this project possible.
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
We acknowledge the support of the City of Vancouver.
This project was made possible by the support of the Firehall Arts Centre and The Dance Centre.
We would like to acknowledge that we are gathered and are creating on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples–Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations.
Review
by Tessa Perkins, Dance International
Best site-specific work
The festival has presented works on beaches, in parks, in trees, off the side of buildings, and on the street. Small Stage’s Granville Island performances were a hit, but this year’s most innovative site-specific work was Paras Terezakis’ work-in-progress, Against, at the Brooks Corning furniture showroom. The interdisciplinary piece began in the glass-walled boardroom where Elissa Hanson and Arash Khakpour faced off in a figurative tug of war laced with sexual tension. The room was covered in plastic — as if Dexter had prepared for his next kill — and the strawberries and blueberries on the table were soon bleeding red and blue as Hanson and Khakpour rolled over them. From there they joined Renée Sigouin and the action moved from workspaces to the warehouse and finally to the loading bay.