Exquisite Pressure II
February 24 & 25, 2023
7:30pm, 7pm doors
$10
No one turned away for lack of $
tickets online or at the door
New(to)Town collective and What Lab are very excited to welcome you to our Exquisite Pressure! ExP is a night for artists to share their new works in progress in front of an audience, gather feedback, and put their investigations to the test.
Featuring :
Alyssa Favero
Ryan Jackson
Liz Oakley & Niloufar Samadi
Hosted by New(to)Town Collective
Questions? Email us at studio@whatlab.ca
Accessibility Info
What Lab is located at 1814 Pandora Street. There is no dedicated parking, only street parking. The venue is located on the second floor up one flight of stairs, but there is a ground level accessible entrance through the back of the building. Seating is typically informal, and will include some combination of chairs, floor seating, couches, and cushions. There is one single-occupancy, gender-inclusive washroom. The washroom is not big enough for larger style wheelchairs to completely turn around in while the door is open. We are a trans-inclusive space.
Shift (working title)
By VOLT24
Shift is a duet set in the intimate performance space of What Lab, the work begins with a dance party where everyone in the room is encouraged to groove. The focus shifts and the performers will invite themselves and perhaps others to move through space, emotions and physicalites to explore the layers of intimacy, multiplicity of self and queering sexuality.
Thanks to What Lab’s Exquisite Pressure II, VOLT24 has been able to go into the first phase of research of Shift to culminate in a work in progress premiere.
Artistic direction by Alyssa Favero
Performed by Audrey Sides and Anna Lamontagne
Choreography by Alyssa Favero in collaboration with performers
Stump
By Ryan Jackson
Inspired by nurse logs and the different characters I’ve encountered while out on walks, Stump is a work in progress about a being waking up from deep slumber, spilling outside of themselves, transforming and being transformed, witnessing and being witnessed.
You are Stump. Stump is a seed.
Melding mutating thing.
Gnarled bark and mossy mouth.
Flickering, falling, unfurling.
You sprout.
You sprout.
Created and performed by Ryan Jackson
Projection by Reed Jackson
Costume by Osa Lewis Ahunwan and Shaeah Kim
Look Both Ways
By Niloufar Samadi & Liz Oakley
A hand and a face are dancing.
Created and performed by Niloufar Samadi and Liz Oakley
Sound by Aidan Lytton
Exquisite Pressure is funded in part by
About the Artists
Alyssa Favero // VOLT24
Alyssa Favero is an emerging queer multiracial dance artist currently based on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples–Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations (Vancouver, British Columbia). They are a choreographer, teacher, dancer, facilitator and director of VOLT24. Alyssa is interested in questioning binary systems and using artistic exchange as a meeting point for transformation. Their current choreographic curiosities include non-linear ways of creating, diving into dance theatre and blending the worlds of performer/audience. Alyssa has choreographed works for Vines Art Festival, 12 Minutes Max and The Source Dance Company. As a dancer they have had the honour of performing works by Out Innerspace Dance Theatre, OURO Collective and Khoudia Toure (Dakar, Senegal). Alyssa is incredibly grateful for What Lab’s support and simply stoked to be working on a new piece with Anna Lamontagne and Audrey Sides for Exquisite Pressure II.
Photo credit: Sina Taherkhani
Ryan Jackson
Ryan Jackson is an emerging artist based on unceded, ancestral, and occupied xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ lands. The primary modalities they explore in their practice are dance and theatre, interested in the possibilities of blurring and converging forms.
Ryan finds joy in exploring the many characters and selves that pop up when dancing, and is excited about movement as an embodied vessel for worldmaking; where our bodies – being and being part of many ecosystems – contain complex worlds of interconnected mechanics, capable of composing and decomposing stories through movement. He is currently training at Modus Operandi Contemporary Dance Program.
Liz Oakley
Liz Oakley (they/she) is a puppeteer, deviser, designer, and teaching artist who creates multidisciplinary object-based performances, installations, and processions. Originally from New York City, they are currently pursuing an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts at SFU. www.lizlizliz.com
Niloufar Samadi
Niloufar Samadi is a puppeteer and performance maker based in Vancouver, BC. She received a bachelor’s degree in puppet theatre from Tehran University of Art in Iran and is currently pursuing an MFA in interdisciplinary arts at SFU. She is interested in the intersections of puppetry and other mediums. Her works investigate the relationship between the performer’s body and the body of the puppet and new experiences in digital media.