Company 605

Co-presented by SFU Woodward's Cultural Programs

lossy is about an inability to take it all with us. these are bodies at a loss, gathering together in a stream of movement. a state of recovery. seeking and sifting, grasping for an anchor. these are the bodies that were left behind, haunted by the ghostly traces of lost futures. a nostalgia for a world that never happened. it is at once real and science fiction, digital and embodied. this liminal space holds a confrontation with the promise of future, and ever-present absences. a collision between our inexorable, ecstatic draw towards the limitless new, and a continuous loss — a perpetual state of mourning for what we are leaving behind. these are bodies compressed and incomplete. there is no answer. there is only the stream, and the blurring fragments of what we attempt to bring with us. lossy is a warped ritual of transcendence. it is a carefree conjuring of a shiny new future “us”, and a collective grieving for what the future may no longer hold, once we finally arrive. 

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Direction and Staging: Lisa Mariko Gelley & Josh Martin

Choreography Company: 605 in collaboration with Performers

Creative Collaborator / Dramaturgy: Marcus Youssef

Original Music and Sound Design: Matthew Tomkinson

Lighting Design: James Proudfoot

Wardrobe Design: Justine A. Chambers

Production Assistant: Jack Chipman

Set Design Support: Danielle Wensley

Technical Support: Wladimiro A. Woyno / The Precursor Lab

Audio Description / Access Supports: Andrea Cownden

Performers: Jade Chong, Kate Franklin, Lisa Mariko Gelley, Ruby Henderson, Josh Martin, Antonio Somera, Shana 愛 Wolfe

Managing Producer: Francesca Piscopo

Company 605 recognizes the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, BC Arts Council and Province of BC, and the City of Vancouver.

Special Thanks: Donna Spencer / DOTE, Michael Boucher and Janice Belay / SFU Woodwards, Wlad Woyno / Precursor Lab, SFU School for the Contemporary Arts, C-Space and Progress Lab 1422, Out Innerspace / Q7, and to all the additional artists who journeyed through the process including: Brandon Alley, Bynh Ho, Jamie Robinson, Avery Smith, Jessica Wilkie, Sophia Wolfe, and Zahra Shahab.

Company 605

Executive Producer and Agent: Jim Smith

Producer & Agent Francesca Piscopo

Marketing and Communications: Jonathan James

Associate Producer: Kevin Soo-Locsin

Accounts Manager: Ann Hepper

Fundraising Coordinator: Tammi Tsang

Produced by Company 605, with the support of the Canada Council for Arts, The Province of BC, the British Columbia Arts Council, and The City of Vancouver.

*Content Warning: Performance includes the use of haze and flashing lights. 

About Company 605:

Led by artistic co-directors Lisa Mariko Gelley and Josh Martin, Company 605 is an arts organization based in Vancouver, on the traditional, unceded  territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. Producing various dance projects and performances through shared creative process, the artists place emphasis on rigorous choreographic propositions and movement exploration — juxtaposing raw with precision, and highlighting effort, risk and interconnection. 605 is an ongoing exchange between separate people, bodies and ideas, with each project seeking and celebrating the unique possibilities created in their attempt to co-exist. Valuing collaboration as a critical path for new directions in dance, Company 605 continues to transform and build on an ever-evolving aesthetic, with multiple choreographic voices in pursuit of an embodied art form derived from the human experience.   

With an expanding repertoire of diverse works, the company has performed from coast to coast in over 30 cities across Canada, as well as in the US, Central America, Europe, Asia and Australia, presented at many notable festivals and venues such as: American Dance Festival (Durham, NC), New York City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival, PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, The Cultch, Usine-C and L'Agora de la Danse (Montréal), La Rotonde (Québec City), DanceWorks (Toronto), Live Art Dance (Halifax), The Banff Centre, On The Boards' NWNW and Bumbershoot Festival (Seattle), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), Festival PRISMA (Panama), Festival Parentesis (Costa Rica), Internationale Tanzmesse nrw, Tempel Kulturzentrum and Regensburger TanzTage (Germany), BODY.RADICAL (Budapest), Oduru Akita and Fukuoka Dance (Japan), Hong Kong Dance Exchange, M1 Contact (Singapore) and the Sydney Festival (Australia). 605's co-directors have created commissioned works for several dance companies, including Ballet BC (After We Glow, 2021 and Anthem, 2017). Their collaborations with filmmakers have allowed 605's work to be shared globally, with award-winning short dance films shown at over 55 dance-on-screen festivals around the world.  

Lisa Mariko Gelley
Artistic Co-director, Direction and Staging, Performer

Lisa Mariko Gelley (she / her)  is an artist  and mother, dedicated to  sharing experiences with humans through  dance and art, and across generations. She is a mixed race settler of Japanese and European descent, living and working on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Coast Salish Peoples, including the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Lisa is Artistic Co-Director of Company 605, a contemporary dance company in so-called Vancouver, creating original works for stage and film  through collaborative processes with artists in dance and other disciplines. Lisa has worked and collaborated with artists including  Justine A. Chambers, Cindy Mochizuki, Amber Funk Barton, Miwa Matreyek, Maiko Yamamoto,  Ziyian Kwan, Vanessa Goodman, Jeanette Kotowich, Onibana Taiko, Dana Gingras,  Martha Carter, Karen Jamieson, and was a member of Aeriosa (Julia Taffe) for six years, broadening her practice to include vertical contemporary dance in rock climbing systems on urban building walls and mountains.  In addition to her work as a performer/choreographer, Lisa values opportunities to connect with young dancers and emerging professionals through dance education.

Josh Martin
Artistic Co-director, Direction and Staging, Performer

Originally from Alberta, Josh Martin is dance maker/performer who lives and works in Vancouver, on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Coast Salish Peoples. Inspired by the overlap of urban and contemporary forms, he received his diverse training across North America and Europe, studying in many genres. In his ongoing career as an interpreter and collaborator, he has worked with many dance companies and independent choreographers such as: Justine A. Chambers, Dana Gingras (Animals of Distinction), Wen Wei Wang (Wen Wei Dance), Tiffany Tregarthen and David Raymond (Out Innerspace Dance Theatre), Helen Walkley, Martha Carter (MMhop), Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg, Amber Funk Barton (the response.), Rachel Meyer, Serge Bennathan (Les Productions Figlio), Vanessa Goodman (Action at a Distance), Karen Jamieson, and as a past company member of Ottawa’s Le Groupe Dance Lab under the direction of Peter Boneham. For over 15 years, Josh has been an Artistic Co-Director of Company 605, creating and producing new works through a collaborative process, and regularly touring its expanding repertoire throughout Canada and Internationally. 

Marcus Youssef
Creative Collaborator, Dramaturgy

Marcus Youssef is a writer, actor and creator whose fifteen or so plays almost always investigate some aspect of otherness or difference. They have been produced in multiple languages in in twenty countries across North America, Europe and Asia, from Seattle to New York to Reykjavik, London, Venice, Hong Kong, Vienna, Athens, Frankfurt and Berlin. Marcus is the recipient of Canada’s largest theatre award, the Siminovitch Prize for Theatre, for his body of work as a playwright, as well as Berlin, Germany's Ikarus Prize, the Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award, the Rio Tinto Alcan Performing Arts Award, the Chalmers' Canadian Play Award, the Seattle Times Footlight award, the Vancouver Critics’ Innovation award (three times) and the Canada Council Staunch-Lynton Award. Marcus was artistic director of Neworld Theatre in Vancouver from 2005-2019 and co-founded the East Vancouver artist-run production hub Progress Lab 1422. He teaches regularly at the National Theatre School of Canada, UBC and Studio 58.

Matthew Tomkinson
Original Music and Sound Design

Matthew Tomkinson is a composer, sound designer, and SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at UBC CENES, researching sound and critical disability studies. Matthew's scores have been presented locally and nationally at CBC Gem, Vancouver International Film Festival, Festival du nouveau cinéma de Montréal, and the PuSh Festival, among many others. His work has also been exhibited internationally throughout the US, Canada, Austria, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and the UK. Matthew lives on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples, including the qʼʷa:n̓ƛʼən̓ (Kwantlen), q̓ic̓əy̓ (Katzie), SEMYOME (Semiahmoo), and sc̓əwaθən məsteyəx (Tsawwassen) Nations.

James Proudfoot
Lighting Design

James Proudfoot is a lighting designer based in Vancouver, Canada.

He is originally from Edinburgh, Scotland, where he received his initial theatre training. Self-taught in the realm of dance lighting, he has contributed designs to many artists and companies over the past 25 years. 
James is grateful to live and work on the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəyə̓ m (Musqueam),Sḵwxw̱ ú7mesh(Squamish)and Selí̓lw̓ itulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

Justine Chambers
Wardrobe Design

The anchors of Justine A. Chambers movement based practice are found in collaborative creation, close observation, and the idea of choreography as living archive. She is concerned with a choreography of the everyday; with the unintentional dances, as she describes them “that are already there.” She emerges from the Black American Diaspora, bi-racial and a dual citizen. Her practice extends from this continuum, and its entanglements with western contemporary dance and visual art practices. Her recent choreographic projects include: Zephyrs, Heirloom, And then this also, One hundred more, tailfeather, for all of us, it could have been like this, ten thousand times and one hundred more,  Family Dinner, Family Dinner: The Lexicon, Semi-precious: the faceting of a gemstone only appears complete and critical; Enters and Exits and COPY.

Jack Chipman
Production Assistant

Jack is a Vancouver based projection designer and technologist. His work integrates physical elements into digital spaces through the use of cameras, digital props, and image filtering. He is excited by the merging of different mediums to create an immersive experience. Jack’s past credits include The Flying Dutchman (Vancouver Opera), The Door Project (plastic orchid factory), An Undeveloped Sound (Electric Company Theatre), Szepty/Whispers (Rumble Theatre), Romeo and Juliet (Vancouver Symphony Orchestra), Dance Craft (Joe Ink), and Ghost Forest (Simon Fraser University). Jchipman.com

danielle wensley
Set Design Support

danielle wensley is an artist and settler of Acadian, Macedonian and English ancestry based on stolen + occupied Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil- Waututh), and xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam) territories, colonially known as Vancouver. Since 2016, danielle has contributed to All Bodies Dance Project as a performer, describer and facilitator. Her involvement in ABDP’s Translations: Dance for the Non-Visual Senses piqued her interest in using language to describe dance and art. Since, she has written and performed audio descriptions of ABDP dance films Ho.Me (Carolina Bergonzoni), Translations: Dance for the Non-Visual Sense (in collaboration with Andrea Cownden), and a number of art exhibitions (SFU Audain Galleries, grunt gallery, Remai Modern, Capture Photography Festival, Vancouver Art Gallery). danielle is a facilitator of the Ready Dance Youth Project in collaboration with Harmanie Rose. She embraces community-engaged creative inquiry as an endless source of discovery, generosity and care.

Wladimiro A. Woyno
Technical Support

Wladimiro A. Woyno R. is a designer and technologist passionate about live performance. Originally from Bogota, Colombia, he holds a M.F.A. in Design from Yale School of Drama and a B.F.A. in Theatre Design and production from The University of British Columbia. A devoted collaborator with the creative teams of several companies, he is often prototyping tools, processes, images, and environments that engage the sensory imagination. With a technical background in lighting, video, and staging, his work explores the adaptation of new technologies into the theatrical tradition. He is Interested in the development of rapid prototyping tools, scenography, theatrical spaces, media servers, documentation systems, and show control systems. He is an avid learner, constantly creating, inventing, and exploring. His credits include: Since I Can Remember (The Wooster Group, USA); Kiss (Yale Repertory Theatre, USA); Parade (Nederlands Dans Theater, Netherlands); The Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst (Ghost River Theatre, Canada);  This American Wife (Next Door @ NYTW, USA); Salome (M3 Productions, USA); If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka, Bulgaria! Revolt!, The Merchant of Venice (Yale School of Drama, USA); RE:UNION (Yale Cabaret, USA); Gallery+Lumia (Yale Art Gallery, USA);  Ziriguidum (Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, Canada); and Sometime Between Now and When the Sun Goes Supernova (Theatre Junction, Canada).

Andrea Cownden
Audio Description / Access Supports

Andrea Cownden is a dancer of european settler descent living on the unceded territory of the  xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, and sə̓lílwətaʔɬ nations. Since completing training at Modus Operandi in 2018, her dancing has been shaped by the training she has received from Lee Su-Feh, Helen Walkley and Peter Bingham, as well as the work she has done with and for All Bodies Dance Project, Sasha Kleinplatz, Mardon + Mitsuhashi, and The Party (Layla Marcelle and Kyla Gardiner). Andrea’s practice also includes facilitating accessible dance classes for All Bodies Dance Project, and creating audio descriptions of dance films to increase access for blind and low vision audiences. You can hear her words describing works by All Bodies Dance Project, Company 605, Mardon + Mitsuahshi and many solos commissioned by Arts Assembly. She is a co-creator of the imperfect ongoing internet dance archive, WATERFALL FALLING FOREVER AGAIN.

Jade Chong
Performer

Jade Chong (she/her) is a contemporary dance artist living and working on the traditional, unceded territories of the Coast Salish Peoples. Jade completed her post-secondary training at Modus Operandi Contemporary Dance Program in 2020 with the support of BC Arts Council scholarships for all four years. Since graduating, she has had the pleasure of performing across Canada and internationally with Radical System Art and Out Innerspace Dance Theatre, as well as being a swing role for Kidd Pivot’s “Revisor”. She has also worked with artists such as Khoudia Toure, Kirsten Wicklund, MUCCI, and is currently an Associate Artist with Company 605. 

Kate Franklin
Performer

Kate Franklin has worked with/for nearly 50 different companies and creators over the past two decades. Working with Company 605 since 2019 has been one of the most fulfilling dance experiences of these past twenty years. She has been based in Vancouver on the unceded Indigenous land belonging to the Coast Salish peoples, including the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations since 2012. She is a passionate dance educator who has just completed her 8th season as Associate Artistic Director of Modus Operandi, where she teaches and mentors a group of exceptional younger dance artists. She creates her own choreographic work from time to time. She is happy to be here, still getting so much out of her dance practice. 

Ruby Henderson
Performer

Ruby is an emerging dance artist based in Vancouver BC. She is entering her fourth year as a dance major at Simon Fraser university where she trains under accredited artists such as Justine Chambers, Nini Dongnier, Rob Kitsos, Emmalena Fredriksson, Daisy Thompson, Margarida Macieira - Ventura, and more. Ruby has been grateful to continue working on professional projects as she furthers her training at SFU and explores her artistic identity. 

Antonio Somera
Performer

Antonio Somera Jr. is a quirky character, robust space-eater, and a nimble cat-lover. Based out of Vancouver, Canada, he is a member of emerging collectives: MAYCE, Konichiwaack, and OURO. Graduated with a BFA from the SFU Contemporary Dance Program, he had the privilege of interpreting works by: 605 Collective, The Response Dance Company, Dancers Dancing, Katie DeVries, Noam Gagnon, Rob Kitsos and Julie Chapple. Antonio has performed on various stages around Vancouver such as 12 Minutes Max, Vancouver International Dance Festival, OnTheBoards and Dancing on the Edge. Antonio recently worked in Seattle, WA alongside choreographer, KT Niehoff, in her remount of A Glimmer of Hope or Skin or Light in 2015.

Shana Ai Wolfe
Performer

Shana 愛 Wolfe is currently based in so-called Vancouver, working as a freelance dance artist with local companies such as OURO Collective, The Falling Company and Company 605 as well as with artists such as Cindy Mochizuki, Justin Calvadores, Lisa Mariko Gelley and Anya Saugstad. Through these artists she has been able to perform at Dancing on the Edge, Dance Deck, Guelph Dance Festival, Hold On Let Go, Left of Push, the Edam Performance Series, BC Movement Arts Society and with the Edmonton Opera. 

Special Thanks:

Donna Spencer / DOTE, Michael Boucher and Janice Belay / SFU Woodwards, Wlad Woyno / Precursor Lab, SFU School for the Contemporary Arts, C-Space and Progress Lab 1422, Out Innerspace / Q7, and to all the additional artists who journeyed through the process including: Brandon Alley, Bynh Ho, Jamie Robinson, Avery Smith, Jessica Wilkie, Sophia Wolfe, and Zahra Shahab.