Andrea Peña &
Vanessa Goodman

UNTITLED I

A picture of a man. But the picture alone doesn’t suffice, so he has to be active. And being active means wanting to become better. Faster. In whatever. So repeat! What the dancer François Richard performs in the solo UNTITLED I and Andrea Peña worked out with him is tirelessness in an actually senseless activity. This figure on stage constructs movement phrases out of swings, jumps, rolls, bends, and it runs; or is it itself built, guided, laid down and raised up? As if this muscular, fleshy being had no personality, was only a surface, the title calls it “Untitled”. The “I” behind it, says the choreographer, is an “I” as in “me”. For it is, after all, a human being. “With this work, we speak of being human in our own way”.

Trained as an industrial designer, Canadian choreographer Andrea Peña is interested in cross-genre work, in the relentlessly recurring movement sequences which are shaped by objects of everyday life, and in vulnerabilities. Born in Colombia, she first worked as a dancer in major Canadian companies, then founded her own label ANDREA PEÑA & ARTISTS in 2014 and has since won several awards.

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Artistic director: Andrea Peña

Choreography: Andrea Peña in collaboration with François Richard

Dance: François Richard

Music: Bobby Leon

Lighting design: Hugo Dalphond

Technical direction: Roxanne Bedard

andreapena.net

FOKUS KANADA is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada (Embassy of Canada) and the Quebec Government Office.

CONTAINER

She is never alone, and yet she is the only person on stage. Canadian choreographer and dancer Vanessa Goodman’s solo CONTAINER unfolds the relationship of a person, a woman, to her inside and to an outside. It seems to be a struggle with expectations. The dancer: Andrea Peña. She stands on stage in her boots like an able-bodied Super Woman; she strides forwards, backwards, forwards, she is buffeted, bent, struggles through a matter that presses against her body, invisible. Frees herself – almost. Paths of light open up to her, crossroads too. But like a forbidding pointer, such a bar of light threatens her. It swings. Sharp scythe blade. A Yiddish good-humour song frames the solo: “Chiribim Chiribom”. Its cheerfulness wears the dancer out. The End. A Beginning.

VANESSA GOODMAN, artistic director of the Vancouver company ACTION AT A DISTANCE DANCE SOCIETY, worked as a dancer after her studies. The 2013 Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award enabled her to produce her first full-length piece as a choreographer. The works are intended to reflect on the human condition and use dance to break down contemporary experiences, she writes about her company.

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Artistic Director/choreography/sound arrangement/costumes: Vanessa Goodman.

Dance: Andrea Peña

Sound: Loscil and the Barry Sisters

Original music: Loscil

Lighting design: James Proudfood

Lighting: Eric Chad

actionatadistance.ca

FOKUS KANADA is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Government of Canada (Embassy of Canada).