Exquisite Pressure x OURO Collective

OURO Collective and What Lab are very excited to welcome you to back to Exquisite Pressure! ExP allows artists to try something new, to share their works in progress in front of an audience, gather feedback, and put their investigations to the test. It’s a night to experience new work in brave, risky, and vulnerable early stages.

Featuring the work of:
Kevin “Shazam” Li
Rita Spirit
Ronald Li

Curated and hosted by OURO Collective:

ABOUT OURO COLLECTIVE

OURO was created to support and promote street dance artists/culture. As individual artists coming from diverse cultural and dance backgrounds, OURO sees collaboration as a catalyst for dialogue, creative innovation, and community building. 


CONCEPT

This ExP, we’re highlighting street dance artists who are interested in expanding their practice into theatrical contexts, while having a deep understanding and consideration of the foundation, histories, and core foundational philosophies of the culture in their creative process. We’re featuring artists who take risks outside their comfort zone and challenge their artistic process to experiment and develop individual approaches to creating street dance-based dance works that fully represent their artistic identity and dance style. We can’t wait to share how these artists stretch both their forms and themselves in the spirit of Exquisite Pressure.

Questions? Email us at studio@whatlab.ca

about the artists

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Best known for his hand choreography work on the American fantasy TV series The Magicians, dance artist Kevin “Shazam” Li’s dance journey began after moving from Hong Kong to Vancouver in 2009. He trained with hip hop company SOULdiers and focused on tutting and flow arts afterwards. In 2014, Kevin joined Modus Operandi, a Vancouver based contemporary dance training program.

Since graduating, Kevin has choreographed for various projects such as Apple TV series SEE and theater production Sparkle Bunny: The Last Raver Dancing. He is a member of Earthen Bodies, a multidisciplinary art collective. He is currently working with New Works as artist/instructor and All Bodies Dance Project as facilitator/live translator. Kevin is passionate about uniting diverse dance forms, mediums and cultures while forging artistic connections within communities.

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Rita Spirit is a Ukrainian-born, Vancouver-based Popping and Hip Hop dancer specializing in freestyle. For over a decade, she has taught, performed, and competed across Asia, Europe, and North America. Rita completed a three-year, full-time street dance program at Åsa Folkhögskola in Sweden, including a year of mentorship under the legendary Niki Awandee and David Fowkus Rigo.

She is the founder of Cypher Killa, her own dance event with a unique concept focused on cyphers and using dance as a tool for conversation, held in Ukraine, Sweden, China, and most recently Vancouver. Rita travels extensively to engage with dance communities worldwide, sharing her craft and building connections with fellow dancers. For Rita, dance is a tool for healing, self-discovery, and connecting with others while expressing one’s own story.

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Ronald Li aka “Ooze” is a Chinese-Canadian dance artist from Surrey, B.C known for his unique and expressive street dance style that incorporates tutting and gliding–drawing greatly from the street dance styles that he practices: Turfing (Bay Area) and Flexn (New York). Ooze represents “illest illusionz” crew, a dance/arts collective from Surrey and has competed in and won many street dance competitions, making a name for himself both locally and internationally. Embedded within his art are bits and pieces of the story of his essential experience.

Tegvaran Sooch is a versatile artist from Surrey, BC, training in styles like Hip-Hop and KRUMP. Representing the “illest illusionz” crew, Teg has had the opportunity to compete in various local and out-of-town street dance tournaments, spanning cities such as Toronto, Calgary, Montreal, and Seattle. For Teg, dance is a way of storytelling and emotional expression. He draws inspiration from the energy of the people around him, movie characters, and anime. His artistic approach involves the fusion of experimental concepts with foundational elements in unconventional ways, resulting in distinctive and captivating movement

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