Lunar New Year Newsletter (January 2025)
- Jan 30, 2025
- 6 min read
Happy Lunar New Year! As we welcome in the Year of the Yin Wood Snake, we acknowledge and celebrate the Feminine and Renewal. Snake energy invites us to shed old skins, bringing forward intuition, care, mystery, darkness, wisdom, and transformation. The element Wood connects us with Trees — with reciprocity, expansion, longevity, growth, resilience and community.
UPCOMING
Conscious Bodies: Sharing Embodied Stories
We invite you to join us for a shared Zoom practice this Sunday Feb 2nd, 1pm PT / 4pm ET. It will be the first of a series of 90 minute online events aligning with the New Moon*, hosted by the Conscious Bodies core ensemble and co-created together with you, our community.
We are holding and creating space for coming together and honouring the profound experiences we are each embodying, as sensory beings desiring to live in good relationship, and for sharing stories — engaging our bodies, hearts, thoughts and imaginations. We hope you will join us.
Launch:
Sunday, February 2nd, 2025
1pm PT / 4pm ET (90 min practice)
Zoom, Free
* In celebration of the 2025 Lunar New Year of the Yin Wood Snake, with each new moon of the coming annual cycle we will share an embodied activation from All in Good Time ceremony on our website, beginning January 29, 2025 with “0” Entering.” All in Good Time was first produced and presented for Luminato Festival 2022.
One Night Choir
Our next “One Night Choir” is happening Monday February 10th, from 7:30-9:30pm at Morrow (910 Richards St, Vancouver) ! One Night Choir is a by-donation, no-prep-required embodied singing night, where strangers come together and learn a surprise piece of choral music over the course of an evening. Sheet music is provided, and all harmony parts are taught in the room by Kelsi James.
One Night Choir will be continuing one Monday every month until September 2025. The next three upcoming are: February 10th, March 17th and April 14th. Many thanks to Odd Meridian Arts, Morrow and Ziyian for hosting us and generously subsidizing the space for our use.
Artist Residency at Aurora Cultural Centre
As we seek to cultivate and nurture long and lasting artistic and organizational partnerships and relationships that can span cycles of seasons and years, Andrea Nann and Judy Luo will spend time in residence at the recently developed Aurora Town Hall in creation for their New Duet, created in collaboration with director Sarah Chase.
Through Aurora Cultural Centre’s Brevik Creates! Residency, they will have access to rehearsal space for 7 days in February. They will also be introduced to the ACC volunteer ensemble, will join a meeting with ACC staff, meet local artists, and will tour the spaces to learn more about the ACC and the communities they currently serve and dream of serving.
They will open their studio on Wednesday February 26th from 5pm-7pm. The new duet will be presented at the ACC in May 2026. For more information about the open studio, email kelsi@dreamwalkerdance.com.
Feeling Her Way at the AGO
3 more chances to see this unique performance experience co-produced by Toronto Biennial of Art and Art Gallery of Ontario. In February, dance artists Jen Dahl and Andrea Nann perform together, prompted by the sounds and visual elements of Sonia Boyce’s exhibition “Feeling Her Way”. This program is a part of Your Timing is Perfect: Moments and Movements of Inquiry, a performance series in which artists investigate the body as a living archive, exploring its extraordinary strength and resilience, as well as its tenderness, vulnerability, and limitations.
Performances are improvised and approximately 30 minutes in duration. Each performance begins at 7pm at the AGO (317 Dundas St W, Toronto, ON), on these days:
February 5 Andrea Nann and Jennifer Dahl
March 5 Jennifer Dahl
April 2 Andrea Nann
*Outside Eye Michelle Silagy
Jennifer and Andrea were recently interviewed by Khadra Ahmed. You can visit their discussion Embodying Feeling Her Way in Foyer, the AGO’s digital publication.
This program is presented in partnership with the Art Gallery of Ontario during the exhibition of Sonia Boyce: Feeling Her Way. The Canadian presentation of Sonia Boyce: Feeling Her Way is initiated and organized by the PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art.
REFLECTIONS
Su PinWen at Morrow
This past weekend, Dreamwalker had the joy of collaborating with Odd Meridian Arts to host Su PinWen for a weekend of sharing at Morrow. PinWen offers these reflections:
“We had a weekend that went beyond expectations at Morrow in Vancouver. With the support of Odd Meridian Arts/Ziyian Kwan plus Dreamwalker Dance Company's partners Andrea Nann and Kelsi James, we held the Skin and Skin workshop and an Artist Talk with Michael Caldwell, the Artistic Director of SummerWorks Performance Festival (Toronto). We discussed how the body's five senses negotiate practices before the gaze, shared insights on how feminism and nudity are perceived in Taiwan. Reflected on my journey of body-centered embody practice, charting the path I’ve been shaping and reclaiming since 2013. We also raised questions about the cultural and conceptual differences in how gender is understood in Taiwan’s Mandarin context to English-speakers. There are so many values we are truly standing together on — SO RICH, Amazing!!”
We offer big thanks to PinWen, Ziyian Kwan and Odd Meridian Arts, Allie Lang, Michael Caldwell, and everyone who was a part of this beautiful experience.
JL² Juolin - Judy in Tkaronto
The JL² exchange began this January! Judy Luo and Juolin Lee share this reflection:
“The seed of this exchange was planted Fall 2024 in Vancouver: bridged by Kelsi James over jiggly pancakes for brunch, ideas during this initial encounter evolved into this exchange! Extending invitations to become housemates and collaborators, we (Judy and Juolin) became JL2². Over the last 2 weeks, Juolin has been immersed in the city Tkaronto.
With a desire to weave “life” and “work” together, we embedded ourselves into the local dance communities and danced our way through the subway, studios, and pastry shops. Stories exchanged by the kitchen island became themes in our improvisation practice. Based off a spoken word game played during long road trips, we named our improvisation structures “接龍,” connect the dragon. Pronounced as “jiē lóng” (yes, another JL), it was our holding space to dig for vocabulary and identify the inspirations and sensations that arose from an embodied way of observing. We named what we were perceiving, and these phrases were introductions for the next prompt. “Connecting” was our way of beginning and continuing.
Our one week “Plug N Play” Residency at TDT concluded with a community workshop, and a sharing of 接龍 1, 2, and 3, alongside an excerpt of Juolin’s solo, “Soup of Forgetfulness.” On route to the airport with mochi donuts for celebration, we marvelled at this net of community and the spaces that made this exchange possible.
A big thank you to Dreamwalker for co-producing this residency and being the bridge to the communities here in Tkaronto. To Michelle Silagy, Gillian Grant and Gordon Potts, Danielle Denichaud, Oriah Wiersma, Steph Harkness and Brigita Gedgaudas, Kenny Pearl, Toronto Dance Theatre, Wild Soma: Andrea Nann, Shannon Litzenberger, Roula Said, Julia Aplin, thank you for your hospitality and support! We look forward to the next iteration of JL², with Judy travelling to the West Coast in the Spring.
Much love,
JL²”
IN THE COMMUNITY
Peggy Baker
Our friend and colleague Peggy Baker and the magnificent Jera Wolfe are premiering new short work as part of the concert program Joy Of Music, 7pm on Saturday February 1st at the Betty Oliphant Theatre (404 Jarvis St, Toronto). Jera is dancing with Miyeko Reguson and Peggy has a new solo for Sonja Boretski (formerly with TDT).
Arts workers tickets are available on Eventbrite.
Left of PuSh at Left Of Main
Our friends at plastic orchid factory (pof) are presenting the 7th edition of Left of PuSh, featuring three experiments-in-process by Jammin' Cameron + Ily + Billy on Jan 30 and Compagnie Katie Ward on Feb 1.
📍Left of Main, 211 Keefer St, Historic Chinatown
Double Bill JANUARY 30 | 4:30 PM + post-show social
For on the Floor
Jammin' Cameron
Get into the room with A WHOLE LOT of vintage clothing, inanimate or ... otherwise, and their transformation through hip hop, house and contemporary dance forms.
GLAMOURING
Ileanna Cheladyn & Billy Marchenski
An experiment with a timeless spell drive. An interrogation of all the intimacy never had. A fleeting memorial of being crushed by the fullness of everything’s expression
Double Bill FEBRUARY 1 | 12:00 PM
Anything Whatsoever
Katie Ward / Compagnie Katie Ward
(Double Bill with For on the Floor)
Movements and words evolve in parallel during Katie's remarkable imagination practice experiment.
We are so grateful to be in community with you, and to journey together through this year of the Yin Wood Snake. We wish you all good things for the year to come, and hope to see you soon.
Dreamwalker
Comments