Kaha:wi Dance Theatre’s Creation Lab is co-presented with the Woodland Cultural Centre and is taking place from July 31 to August 12. It’s an intensive lab for artists to explore creating from indigenous process and to find the identity of their creative work; be that a performance, song, dance or video.
The Lab is about fostering creativity, indigenous performance and artistic practice. It features an incredible line-up of community classes with visiting indigenous artists from around the world including:
Performance installation artist Jaime Black from Winnipeg, Hawaiki TŪ Haka Theatre director and choreographer Beez Ngarino Te Waati from Aotearoa, New Zealand, Okareka Dance Company director and choreographer Taane Mete also from New Zealand, Choreographer and Dancer Thomas E.S. Kelly, a Bundjalung, Wiradjuri and Ni-Vanuatu man from Queensland and New South Wales, Australia, Alejandro Ronceria director/producer and choreographer based in Toronto via Bogota, Colombia.
Thomas E.S. Kelly said that he is using the lab as an opportunity to share.
“I am really taking the opportunity to share my cultural practice with other First Nation artists from around the globe as well as exploring a new work that looks at how our knowledge from the past can inform today’s society,” he said. “We are finding similarities and differences that our people have across the globe and this really open your eyes to what we need to do to strengthen our respective cultures. During this lab I am not only just sharing my culture of the Bundjalung and Wiradjuri people from Australia but I am also developing tools that will strengthen my cultural and contemporary performance practice and knowledge with the other amazing First Nation artists participating.”
All classes are Pay-What-You-Can at the Door for ages 13 and older. For more information email arts@woodlandculturalcentre.ca
