Exquisite Pressure x Theatre Replacement

Theatre Replacement and What Lab are teaming up for the next round of 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:
Elio Zarrillo
Rafael Zen + Khalil Alomar

Curated and hosted by Theatre Replacement.

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 creators

---

Elio Zarrillo is a prairie-born queer originally from Treaty 1 territory, now based on the unceded lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, having recently completed an MFA in Creative Writing & Theatre at the University of British Columbia. They have spent over 15 years making live performance works across the country as an actor, writer, director, and dramaturg.
eliozarrillo.com

---

Rafael Zen is a Brazilian-Canadian sound performer and experimental composer creating on the stolen lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.

They research cyborg performance, wearable technologies, speculative languages, queer identity, and noise/disruption in improvisational composition. Their work blends video, theatre, installation, noise collage and sound performance, engaging with queer cinema and decolonial storytelling.

They hold an Master’s in Contemporary Art and currently research New Media + Sound Art at Emily Carr University.

Recent collaborations include works with the Vancouver Biennale, BC Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, Vancouver Contemporary Art Gallery, Western Front Gallery, What Lab, Kokoro Dance Society and Theatre Replacement.

Khalil Alomar is a queer Lebanese-Canadian multidisciplinary artist pursuing a degree in New Media and Sound Art with a Minor in Art and Text.

He is interested in interventions against the autopilot of contemporary life, working in the fields of multimedia performance, intermedia installation, sound art and experimental composition.

His practice blends DIY analog electronics, digital tools and multimedia environments through the language of the glitch and the absurd, reclaiming one’s agency within digital and physical systems by investigating sonic and performative satires against compulsory labor, gender troubles, surveillance as confession, and other colonial-capitalistic schemes.

---