Exquisite Pressure x Foolish Operations
Nov 1–3, 2024
11/01 @ 7pm
11/02 @ 2pm
11/03 @ 10am
Regular: $10 Youth: $2 , No one turned away for lack of $
What Lab 1814 Pandora Street
tickets online or at the door
Foolish Operations and What Lab are very excited to welcome you to back to a very special Exquisite Pressure!
ExP allows artists to try something new and to share those works in progress with you. It’s a night to experience new work in a beautiful, brave, and vulnerable early stage. This time around, with the help of Foolish Operations, we’re offering these works to all ages, as an experiment in intergenerational community gathering and witnessing. Bring your kid! Bring your grandma! Or just bring yourself! All are welcome.
featuring the work of:
Ashley Whitehead
Kaia Shukin
Rafael Zen + Khalil Alomar
Curated and hosted by Foolish Operations. A few words from them:
What is performance inclusive of children as part of the audience?
Children are rarely considered as potential attendees during creative processes and during presentations outside of Theatre or Dance for Young Audiences. As parent artists, we discovered that our little humans weren’t always welcome in “art spaces”. Let’s change that. Let’s welcome the next generation of artists and their audiences – and consider that children have a seat in this room.
A few notes for parents and caregivers:
Questions about the space or the event? Check out our Visual Guide! It will give you tips on how to find our space, & what and who to expect when you get there!
- Our main entrance is up a flight of stairs, but we do have a ground level entrance through they alley, just south of Pandora Drive.
- We have limited room for stroller parking, but we are able to accommodate some if needed.
- Alcohol may be present but we’ll have juice, bubbly water, and some snacks available at our concessions. You’re also welcome to bring your own!
- Each piece will be at most 15 minutes long, and there will be time to move around and explore between the performances.
- We will have a small quiet room available if kids or caregivers need to step away, including to change diapers or breastfeed (but you’re also welcome to breastfeed wherever you feel comfortable).
Questions? Email us at studio@whatlab.ca
Who knows
By Ashley Whitehead
Are questions ever big? Or small? What makes something important, heavy, overwhelming, too much? This work-in-progress uses clown to explore universally personal questions and our relationship to finding their answers.
No…but it’s this
By Kaia Shukin
“No…but it’s this” is the attempt to find and return to a moment in time.
And stay there.
Experiencing the past, then and now simultaneously and finding the threads that make staying impossible.
Trying to hold on to the sensation of it all – but always being pulled back to now.
Or pushed forward.
Wait, where was I?
No…but it’s this.
LEAF / LARVA / LOOP
By Rafael Zen + Khalil Alomar
LEAF / LARVA / LOOP is a multimedia installation + sound performance.
Trapped in a cage, two birds recreate an electro-forest through electronic music, sound art, video projection, and ecological storytelling.
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.
about the artists
Ashley Whitehead
Ashley Whitehead (they/them) is an interdisciplinary creator, performer, producer, and teacher. They are a third generation European (Swedish, English)-Canadian living on the unceded Coast Salish territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations – also known as Vancouver, BC.
Ashley has an extensive training and performance background that includes gymnastics, commercial dance, contemporary dance, clown, singing, and Lindy Hop swing dance. Ashley is half of the clown duo ‘Pulsive Party’ and they are also a certified sexual health educator.
Currently, Ashley’s practice serves as a self-reflective blend of somatic, analytic, and creation tools that is most reflective of the clown practice they developed from their training with David MacMurray Smith. Their reasons to perform now come as a modality to share themselves with others and to share something that hopes to connect us to our shared humanity.
Kaia Shukin
Kaia Shukin is a dance artist on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations currently known as Vancouver. She received her BFA in Dance from SFU in 2018 and since then has had the privilege of working with and learning from Justine A. Chambers, Amber Barton (the response.), Daisy Thompson, Eowynn Enquist, Jennifer Mascall (MascallDance) and Isak Enquist.
As an emerging choreographer they have had the opportunity to explore their own work through residencies and performances at 12 Minutes Max and DanceLab Interdisciplinary Research (The Dance Centre), LEÑA Artist Residency, Dance Cafè (the response.), Chalk it Up, Startle Reflex Residency and Workin’ it Out (Tara Cheyenne Performance).
Rafael Zen
Rafael Zen is a queer Latinx media artist + performer, currently living in the land of the Coast Salish peoples – Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Musqueam. Here, they research intersections between new media, performance, and decolonial resistance, and they organize Durations, an independent sound art + video art + performance festival that offers an open stage for emerging artists. Academically, they hold a Master’s degree in Visual Arts – Contemporary Artistic Processes, researching anti-colonial + anti-capitalist poetic practices, and political counterattacks through new media + performance. Currently, they are pursuing a degree in New Media + Sound Art at Emily Carr University.
Khalil Alomar
Khalil Alomar is a queer Lebanese-Canadian artist whose creative practice primarily revolves around sound art, multimedia installation, and performance. He works through anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, and anti-establishment theory and practice. Currently, he is pursuing a degree in New Media + Sound Art at Emily Carr University. He lives in the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓ əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Selíl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. His recent practice is centered on sound, video/paper collage, and photography as mediums that provide a platform for critiquing systemic aggressions and abuse.
This presentation is funded in part by
