New Artists and Approaches in Vertical Dance is Aeriosa’s first opportunity to invite Deaf, Hard of Hearing and hearing people to come together and be our audience.

This show shares new and revised works by company members, Deaf Theatre Artist Landon Krentz, and Butterflies In Spirit.

Butterflies in Spirit is an Indigenous Dance Group that performs hip hop, contemporary and First Nations dances to raise awareness of their lost loved ones who are Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirits

Landon Krentz is a bilaterally profoundly Deaf ASL performer for theatre. In this performance, Landon weaves Deaf cultural perspectives, visual storytelling skills and the visual vernacular theatre techniques of Bernard Bragg throughout the works.

The show will be followed by a Artist / Audience Talk with ASL interpretation.

New Artists and Approaches in Vertical Dance 
Presented by The Dance Centre’s Discover Dance Series
May 18th at 12pm
Scotiabank Dance Centre Faris Family Theatre
Additional Credits:
Aeriosa Artistic Director: Julia Taffe
Butterflies in Spirit Artistic Director: Lorelei Williams
Safety Director and Rigging Designer: Colin Zacharias
Production/Stage Manager: Kayleigh Sandomirsky
Lighting Design: Gabriel Raminhos
Aeriosa Marketing Coordinator: Chandra Krown
Aeriosa Administrative Coordinator: Michelle Lock
Butterflies in Spirit Dance Coordinator: Madelaine McCallum

ASL Interpreters provided by Inside Out Theatre

 

Special Thanks: To all the fabulous, hard working performers and crew, Landon Krentz and the Aeriosa Board of Directors

 

Aeriosa and Butterflies in Spirit gratefully acknowledge the support of the BC Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, City of Vancouver, Vancouver Foundation, Inside Out Theatre and the Province of British Columbia

Artist Details:

Artistic Director
Julia Taffe

Choreographer Julia Taffe combines art, environment and adventure, making dances for buildings, mountains, neighbourhoods, theatres and trees, finding new movement perspectives in the realm of suspension.

Julia is the artistic director of Aeriosa, a Vancouver-based vertical dance company. She has choreographed over 25 works on location including: Stawamus Chief Mountain in Squamish BC, Taipei City Hall, Cirque du Soleil Headquarters, Vancouver Library Square, Banff Centre, Scotiabank Dance Centre and Toronto’s 58-storey L Tower.

Prior to founding Aeriosa, Julia performed across Canada with Ruth Cansfield, and around the world with Bandaloop. Julia attained ACMG Rock Guide certification in 1997. She has worked as a co-producer, choreographer, cast member, stunt performer, mountain safety rigger and creative movement consultant on various film and television productions in Canada and abroad.

Deaf Arts Professional on Arts + Culture and Inclusive Arts

Landon Krentz

In his early life, Landon attained a diploma in International Baccalaureate in Art from Campbell Collegiate in Saskatchewan. It was an advanced placement program where he was encouraged to spend the majority of his years in researching, critiquing and creating critical analysis of different works of art. One of his favourite activities was to work on his art research book, which included writing about the connections between different works of art as well as harvesting new information before creating his final production for his graduation art show.

The major theme of his art research project was to find queer and deaf works of arts and why the representation of both cultures, queer and deaf shared so many similarities. Once he completed his art research project of exploring different sexualities and Deaf artworks, his book was sent around the world for review. One of the comments stated that he excelled at not only drawing attention to the overlapping of different perspectives, but that he was also able to provide rich research materials which served as a great resource for others. This ultimately led to his journey into arts administration.

Art and research are vehicles for him to express issues that are not often discussed in daily life. Being an emerging artist, this has given him an understanding of the process that artists go through and has helped him to better support the arts community at large.

Indigenous Dance Group

Butterflies in Spirit

Butterflies in Spirit is a Vancouver dance group started by Lorelei Williams. Our mission is to raise awareness of violence against Indigenous Women and Girls and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls across Canada.

Butterflies in Spirit (BIS): Dance, Healing, & missing and murdered Indigenous women and Girls (MMIWG2S) builds on the years of community healing work Lorelei Williams has done with her dance group, BIS. Founded in 2011, BIS is a dance group consisting of family members of MMIWG. With a mission to raise awareness of violence against Indigenous women and girls. BIS has performed at numerous gatherings and events throughout Canada, the US (Alcatraz Island), Mexico and Bogota, Colombia to perform at International events. On stage, members of the group wear shirts depicting images of their missing and murdered loved ones.

Follow these links for more information and the reports from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (including the Calls to Action) and the Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls

Aeriosa Dancers

Dancer
Alex Tam

On the unceded traditional Coast Salish territory, Alex Tam is a Vancouver-based dance artist. A natural born thrill seeker, Alex was instantly hooked on vertical dance while gazing out, suspended, from a Grand Fir tree and has been performing and collaborating with Aeriosa since 2015. Alex studied Fine Arts at KPU (Hons.) and professional dance at Arts Umbrella and Modus Operandi. Alex has toured and performed both independently and collectively at international dance festivals in Canada, United States of America, South America, and Taiwan. He is currently advancing his education in health through the Registered Massage Therapy Program at Langara Collage.

Dancer
Alyson Fretz

Alyson Fretz grew up in Vancouver BC, and received her dance training at Arts Umbrellaon Granville Island. She has danced professionally with Ballet BC, Wen Wei Dance, andPro Arte Danza in Toronto. She has a passion for movement within the body and the connection between all living organisms in the natural world. Alyson has been working with Aeriosa since 2015, and is thrilled to be a part of the company; exploring the boundaries of vertical dance, expanding dance further than the stage, and making it available to all audiences.

Dancer
Gina Alpen

Georgina Alpen is a contemporary trained dancer who received a BFA in dance from Simon Fraser University in 2014. She is honored to live and work on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqeum, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. Gina joined Aeriosa in 2015 and has been performing with the company ever since. She is involved in the social dance community as a blues dancer, and until recently danced with the Ukrainian Folk Ensemble, the Dovbush Dancers, for over 20 years. Outside of dancing, she is attending UBC medical school to become a midwife.

Dancer
Meghan Goodman

Originally from Toronto, Meghan Goodman is an interdisciplinary dance artist and Iyengar yoga instructor. Graduating from Simon Fraser University in 2003 with a BFA in dance and minor in mathematics, Meghan has continued to actively perform, choreograph, and teach in Vancouver for the past 17 years. In addition to her work with Aeriosa, she has performed pieces by choreographers such as Jennifer Clarke, Hanna Kiel, Justine Chambers, Michelle Olson, Rob Kitsos, and Sarah Chase. Meghan has also performed in two productions with the Vancouver Opera. Meghan is currently teaching Iyengar yoga, training with Aeriosa, and raising her two young boys.

Guest Dancer

Dancer
Vince Virr

Vince Virr is a highly experienced and accomplished international dance artist with a career spanning six continents and more than fifty productions. He is skilled in performance, creation, collaboration, teaching and mentoring, with a particular passion for work for young audiences, cross-cultural exchange, and intergenerational participation. Vince has worked with numerous companies and organizations, including Barrowland Ballet, Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake, Scottish Opera, and the National Theatre of Scotland. He has also created digital dance content and choreographed performances for Art Space for Kids (A.S.K.), Imaginate, and the Beijing Acrobatic Troupe. Vince is a member of The Workroom (Scotland), on the Bradford Creativity Council (England) and is on the advisory panel for Action for Children’s Arts (A.C.A). To learn more about his current projects, please visit his website.

Riggers

Safety Director and Rigging Designer

Colin Zacharias

Colin Zacharias is an internationally certified mountain guide and has worked in avalanche or guiding operations since 1980. He enjoys working with Aeriosa’s dancers whether on mountain cliffs, tall buildings, trees or in the theatre. Colin also guides thoughtfully designed climbing and skiing adventures to destinations spanning the globe, from Nunavut to Antarctica.

Colin was one of the riggers for the 2000-2002 video production of Granite Ocean, that featured Julia Taffe dancing on vertical rock faces of the Stawamus Chief Mountain in Squamish, BC. Since then, he has worked with Julia and Aeriosa on more than 40 productions. His responsibilities have included site safety inspections, risk management planning and documentation, dancer safety supervision, rigging and climbing, tree climbing, training riggers and dancers, and writing the Aeriosa safety manual.

Aeriosa is one of the foremost vertical dance companies in Canada and as a result has collaborated with the Vertical Dance Forum (Europe), Gravity and Levity (England), Kate Lawrence Vertical Dance (Wales), Il Posto (Italy), Wired Aerial Theatre (England), Histeria Nova (Croatia), Compagnie Retouramont (France) and Bandaloop (USA) to support and develop risk management planning and training strategies for the art form.

Colin is the past Technical Director for the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides, and currently participates in professional level curriculum development for the Canadian Avalanche Association and the American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education. He is a professional level avalanche educator and operations safety consultant for ski areas, cat and heliski operations. Outside North America, his work training and mentoring mountain professionals has taken him to Europe, Japan, Chile, and Iceland. His rigging and mountain safety experience also includes feature films such as iRobot and Touching the Void and TV programs including Burnett Productions EcoChallenge and Expedition Impossible series filmed in Morocco, Argentina New Zealand, Fiji and Borneo.

Colin’s certifications include ACMG/IFMGA/UIAGM (internationally recognized mountain guides associations), SPRAT (rope access), ACTSAFE Fall Protection, ACTSAFE Aerial Lift Operator, and the Wilderness First Responder.

Production Crew

Stage Manager and Production Management

Kayleigh Sandomirsky

Kayleigh Sandomirsky is a stage/production manager, producer, curator and performer. She is also starting to dabble in design and building, and loves to constantly shake things up artistically. Recent Touring credits: 003_playback by Caroline MacCaull (Chimerik), BLUSCRN by FakeKnot, New Societies by Re:Current Theatre, Ying Yun by Wen Wei Dance, and Departure by The Falling Company. Production Management credits: Family Room by The Falling Company, and Dancing to Remember by Aeriosa Dance and Butterflies in Spirit. Stage Management credits: PIÑA by FakeKnot, Black and Rural presented by Pi Theatre, Matriarchs Uprising and Maamawi by O.Dela Arts, Double Happiness: Detour this Way by Nancy Tam and Robyn Jacobs, The Array by UpintheAir Theatre, The Sun and The Moon by Crimson Coast Dance, In Response to Alabama by Little Thief Theatre, and Kwê by Jeanette Kotowich and collective. Curation credits: two live (rEvolver Festivals) and two digital festivals (eVolver Festivals) with UpintheAir theatre, and the 2022 Conversation Series for Peek Fest by Impulse Theatre.

Lighting Design

Gabriel Raminhos

Gabriel RAMINHOS holds a BFA from the SFU SCA Theatre Production and Design Program. He is an active Vancouver freelance Technical Director, Production Manager, Lighting Designer, Stage Manager, Technician, and is a member of IATSE Local 118. Past projects include Lighting Designer for PIÑA (Fakeknot, 2023); Associate Lighting Designer for This & The Last Caribou (New Dance Horizons – PuSh 2023); Technical Director/Stage Manager for The Outliner (Mascall Dance); Lighting Designer for Vidya Kotamraju’s Longing (VIDF 2021). Additionally, he has worked on a few film projects, and is co-Technical Director & Facilities Manager at KW Studios.

Huge Thanks To Our Generous Supporters

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Province of British Columbia, BC Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, City of Vancouver, Vancouver Foundation, and Inside Out Theatre