Featured Artists
Good Women Dance Collective ·
Good Women Dance Collective (GWDC) is a creation-based company committed to supporting a vibrant, sustainable and inclusive dance community in Edmonton. The collective’s artistic focus is on creating, commissioning and producing innovative new contemporary works that simultaneously challenge and expand our audience. GWDC also dedicates a large part of its season toward partnering with local organizations to offer performance, educational, and professional development opportunities to artists working in Edmonton.
Alida Kendell ·
Alida Kendell is a contemporary dance choreographer, performer and instructor in amiskwacîwâskahikan. She has trained in both ballet and contemporary dance, completing her BA at the School of Contemporary Dancers in Winnipeg, MB. Her artistry is fed by her work as a collective artist with the Good Women Dance Collective (GWDC) and her independent projects. Her participation in the Hack Lab (Theatre Direct) and Balancing Act Canada’s Level UP! initiative has inspired her to work in ways that incorporate the experience of motherhood rather than working in spite of it.
Alida’s artistic interests depart from mainstream choreography that presents polished, predetermined performance. Instead, her works are intimate and dynamic, often abandoning traditional notions of structure and performance in favor of non-linear and vulnerable experiences.
Career highlights so far include creating and performing alongside Alison Kause in the Sterling award nominated production, there we are. There (GWDC), and in the Sterling award-winning productions BEARS (Pyretic Productions) and The Cardiac Shadow (Northern Light Theatre and GWDS). Recent works include her solo project, break room, in collaboration with Sasha Kleinplatz.
Alison Kause ·
Alison Kause is a founding member of the Good Women Dance Collective and an independent dance artist. She is a graduate of the Grant MacEwan Dance Program and the School of Contemporary Dance at SFU, as well as the Education program at the University of Alberta. She has trained and performed across Canada and been inspired by work with local and international colleagues. Alison is inspired by the challenge of finding an intersection between being an artist, mother and teacher – these roles constantly demand attention, inform one another and provide diverse perspectives.
there we are. There.
there we are. There. is a 30 minute, highly specific and rigorous exploration of the unknown. The duet mixes demanding choreography with isolated body movements, text, and visceral experiences with water to explore themes of intimacy and absurdity. The performers share the space with a fish tank filled with water, which they slowly and repetitively submerge their heads in and out of.
They are continuously in sync, never leaving each other's side as they inhabit their world in ways that are recognizable, yet slightly off kilter. They talk straight and sit crooked. They are in between, unraveling, navigating and arriving. Text from Joe and Ethan Cohen’s No Country for Old Men and Bob Ross’s The Joy of Painting are delivered live and through pre-recorded sound.
The work provokes, without pointing a finger directly at a narrative or concept. As the piece evolves, the performer's humanity is slowly revealed. They emerge on the other side soggy and short of breath, but having connected through a visceral human experience disguised as a pair of sterile white suits.