A multi-disciplinary artist and emerging choreographer of Indo-Caribbean, British and Ukrainian ancestry, Nyda Kwasowsky orients towards abolitionist approaches rooted in experimentation, improvisation and community. Libratory practices motivate her creative senses beyond representation and strive for practices that are transformative and embodied, without erasing her identity both present, past and future.

Her work centers around grief, hybridity and belonging in racialized diasporic experience. Studied in somatics and trauma informed practices, a practitioner in TCM cupping and Auricular Acupuncture and training in Harm Reduction, Restorative Justice, Polyvagal Certified, craftworks, Earthwork and studying as a Birth Doula. Her most recent explorations look at the intersections of cultural materiality and the moving dancing performing body.

Andrea Spaziani (she/her) records improvised moving and talking to create choreographic scores with interdisciplinary artists. Since 2019 she has been researching dance as spatial sound in collaboration with the CNIB and individuals living with vision loss, questioning how the rich perceptive experience of dancing might be conveyed in ways that decenter visual primacy. With support from the Canada Council for the Arts they created DoppelTone.com, an accessible web prototype for the creation of spatial sound dances.

Other recent projects include “Crisis of Froth” at the Emily Harvey Foundation in Venice, Italy, “AGGRO INFINITUM: estrogen amnesia” the gonzo dance mockumentary film tryptic on femme aggression with Alicia Grant, and “BADLANDS: A Dance in Time” sound-choreography for LOBE 4D in Vancouver with Matt Smith / Prince Nifty, made in collaboration with Julia Male, Germaine Liu, and Sofi Gudiño.

Moving between sound and performance, Be Heintzman Hope is a facilitator of music, dance and embodiment ritual based between Tio’tia:ke/Mooniyang, colonially known as Montréal and the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (musquem), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Wateuth) peoples.

Their practice bridges dance training with conflict resolution, healing and community arts. They hold workshops in transitional spaces, dance institutions, universities, DIY contexts and festivals.On a physical level, their body is engaged in experimental, erotic and expressionist dance making, meditation, daoist martial arts, gyrokinesis, and a shit ton of physio.Their studies in eroticism, energetic boundaries, meditation, medicine, illness, and death are tentacles of ongoing research and curiosity. A larger part of this work is a quest to co-create alternative economies, spaces and ways of relating to one another through performance and facilitation practices.