Mascall Dance

Lurch explores a body and an inanimate object. Each commissioned choreographer was given the same inanimate object (a larger set piece, welded by sculptor Alan Storey in 2010) and the same dancers. From Streetdance to Somatics and Ballet to Ballroom, their diversity in age and life experiences bring profound questions to their improvisations. The three investigators are well known for mature work, big ideas, and a powerful knack for talking about dance. From each set of discussions and research has emerged a unique ecosystem containing philosophies of movement, stillness and life. For the first time these perspectives are being presented together.

Choreographer 1: Justine A. Chambers
Pronouns: she/her/hers
justineachambers.com

Justine A. Chambers is a dance artist and educator living and working on the unceded Coast Salish territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Nations in Vancouver, Canada. Her practice is a collaboration with her Black matrilineal heritage, and extends from this continuum and its entanglements with Western contemporary dance and visual arts practices. At the centre of her practice is a question often posed by her grandmother: “You feel me?” This question is both a declaration of one’s personal orientation, and an invitation to reorient and include what is held in our flesh. Chambers meets this question in her work by attending to individual and collective embodied archives, social choreographies of the everyday, and choreography/dance as otherwise ways of being in relation. Chambers’ work has been hosted at galleries, festivals and theatres nationally and internationally including EMPAC, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Toronto Biennial of Art, Libby Leshgold Gallery, Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery at Concordia University, Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver), Sophiensaele (Berlin), National Arts Centre of Canada, Agora de la Danse, Art Museum at University of Toronto, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, Artspeak, Vancouver Art Gallery, The Western Front, The Dance Centre (Vancouver), Burrard Arts Foundation and the Hong Kong Performing Arts Festival. Chambers holds a MFA in Interdisciplinary Art and is currently Assistant Professor in Dance at the School for Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University and Associate Artist to The Dance Centre. Chambers is Max Tyler-Hite’s mother.

Choreographer 2: Sarah Chase
Pronouns: she/her/hers
sarahchase-hiddenbotanicaluniverse.com

Sarah Chase is based on Hornby Island, in the Salish Sea. She is a performer and choreographer whose distinctive signature has garnered her an international reputation. Her work has been presented across Canada and Europe, at such venues as the National Arts Centre (Ottawa), Festival TransAmerique (Montreal), DanceHouse (Vancouver), the Holland Dance Festival, Klapstuk Festival (Belgium), Salzburg Szene Festival (Austria), Kaaitheater (Belgium), Tanz Quartier (Vienna), Fondation Cartier (Paris) and Theater der Welt (Germany). She has performed and toured with Benôit Lachambre’s Dance par B. Lieux, and German choreographer Raimund Hoghe, and has created work for many Canadian artists including Peggy Baker Dance Projects, Toronto Dance Theatre, Dreamwalker dance and Andrea Nann, Heidi Strauss and Darryl Tracy, Theatre Replacement, Jacinte Armstrong, Robin Poitras and Ron Stewart, Antonija Livingstone, Montreal Danse and Marc Boivin.

In recent years she has extended her work into visual art, using botanical materials to create portraits of dancers, animals and birds. In 2024 her work “hidden botanical universe” was chosen to be the first exhibit at San Francisco’s new Public Works Street Tree Nursery. Sarah is the recipient of the 2004 Jacqueline Lemieux Award for Excellence from the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Prize of the Festival at the 2006 Munich Dance Biennale for her piece The Passenger. Solos she created for both Peggy Baker and Andrea Nann won Doras in the category of Outstanding Performer in Dance. She is an associate dance artist of the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.

Choreographer 3: Ame Henderson
Pronouns: they/them/she/her/hers
amehenderson.com

An artist of settler ancestry raised on Nuu-chah-nulth territory on the west coast of Vancouver Island and now living and working in so-called Toronto which stands upon territory of the Dish With One Spoon Covenant, an agreement made amongst Indigenous nations to share and protect the land and waterways around the great lakes. With a practice that spans publication, performance and exhibition, her work activates dance and choreography to propose experiential modes of being together. Henderson’s collaborations enfold a diverse assembly of people and organizations and have been created and shared across Canada and abroad.

With the Toronto collective Public Recordings she created over a dozen ensemble works including /Dance/Songs/ (2006), relay (2010) and what we are saying (2013). performance encyclopaedia (2013), a performance in the shape of a book, was created with Evan Webber; The Most Together We’ve Ever Been (2009) and Out of Season (2015) were co-created with the Croatian choreographer and performer Matija Ferlin; and, Room with Sticks (2013) with the choreographer Tedd Robinson and musician Charles Quevillon. As artist in residence at The Art Gallery of Ontario, Henderson staged rehearsal/performance (2014), a series of public performances that investigated that institution’s forgotten history of live work. She created three full length ensemble works for Toronto Dance Theatre exploring the relationship between movement and sounding: voyager (2014) in collaboration with the songwriter Jennifer Castle, Noisy (2017) with musicians Robin Dann and Matt Smith and RING (2019) with composer Sarah Davachi. Henderson has contributed variously as a guest choreographer, dramaturge and outside eye to the choreographic processes of artist peers including Joshua Beamish, Aleesa Cohene, Katie Ewald, Christopher House, Marie Lambin Gagnon, Emily Law, Katie Ward and Evan Webber. She has taught and facilitated in a variety of contexts including University of British Columbia Okanagan, University of Calgary, Toronto Dance Theatre, Toronto Community Love-in and Banff Centre."

Composer: Jeff Corness

Extracts from the score of The White Spider (2010)

Performer: Nick Benz

Performer: Ralph Escamillan 

Performer: Chris Wright

Performer: Ben Kamino