Dance Victoria 2021-2022 Season | John by Helen Walkley program insert

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SEASON SPONSOR

25TH ANNIVERSARY SPONSOR

Helen Walkley John January 20, 2022 • 7:30 pm Mary Winspear Centre Running time: 55 minutes • No intermission Join us for an on-stage conversation with the choreographer and dancers following this performance. Free.

We respectfully acknowledge that the Mary Winspear Centre is within the ancestral, traditional and unceded territories of the SET,TINES - WSÁNEĆ people.

Chris Randle

Choreographer: Helen Walkley Performers: Josh Martin, Billy Marchenski Composer: James Maxwell Light Design: James Proudfoot Text: Helen Walkley and an archive of family letters dating from 1959 to 2010 Costumes: Leah Weinstein, Helen Walkley Construction of the shirts: Leslie Parent Set: Helen Walkley Construction of the box: Chris Nicols

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About the Work John is a memoir of choreographer/creator Helen Walkley’s oldest brother John, who disappeared from Vancouver in May 1969, never to be heard from again.

Walkley sourced her material from an archive of family letters dating from 1959 to 2010, which document the years leading up to his disappearance, his medical history, police reports, and the subsequent tracking her parents did of his disappearance. Performed by two of the top dance and theatre artists of their generation in Western Canada, John is a profoundly moving and strikingly relevant piece that resonates long after the curtain falls. Walkley weaves text with movement seamlessly, in this perfect jewel of dance theatre. John was 23 at the time of his disappearance.

Walkley was 13.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Helen Walkley gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the BC Arts Council, the Dance Centre, the School for Contemporary Arts/ Simon Fraser University, the Firehall Arts Centre and SFU Woodwards Cultural Programs.

Helen and all the collaborators are grateful to live and work on the traditional and unceded territories of the Coast Salish Peoples.

Artist Biographies HELEN WALKLEY Since 1980, Helen Walkley has, as a contemporary dance artist, certified Laban Movement Analyst, and somatic movement educator, lived in the U.S., Germany, the Netherlands and Canada, choreographing, performing, and teaching. She completed an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies at the School for Contemporary Arts /Simon Fraser University in 1996 and has since been based in Vancouver. In 2020, she received the Dance Centre’s Isadora award, peer recognition of an artist’s lifetime achievement. helenwalkley.com JOSH MARTIN Originally from Alberta, Josh Martin is a diversely trained dance artist now residing in Vancouver. He has worked with many creators such as Justine A. Chambers, Out Innerspace, Dana Gingras, Serge Bennathan, Vanessa Goodman, Wen Wei Wang, Helen Walkley and as a member of Le Groupe Dance Lab (Ottawa). For over 10 years, Josh Martin has been an Artistic Co-Director of Company 605, a Vancouverbased organization producing various dance projects, regularly creating, and touring new collaborative works

throughout Canada, and internationally in the USA, Central America, Europe, Japan, and Australia. company605.ca BILLY MARCHENSKI Billy Marchenski completed a BFA in Theatre at the School for Contemporary Arts/SFU in 2000. He was a founding member of Screaming Flea Theatre for ten years and has worked in independent theatre and contemporary dance for the past twenty years with companies such as Battery Opera, Radix, The Leaky Heaven Circus, Caravan Farm Theatre, Boca Del Lupo, Kinesis, Co.Erasga Dance, Serge Bennathan, Mascall Dance, Neworld Theatre, Helen Walkley and Kokoro Dance. He is the recipient of the Sydney Risk Prize for Outstanding Original play by an emerging writer in 2014 and is the 2021 winner for Best Experimental Film for light-bearer at the Cannes World Film Festival.

JAMES MAXWEL James Maxwell is a composer of concert music and music for contemporary dance, theatre, film, and media, and is Artistic Co-Director of Restless Productions. Recent works include Mama, do we die when we sleep? by choreographer Rachel Meyer; The

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Artist Biographies (cont’d) Razor Hiss of a Whisper for Turning Point Ensemble and Couloir; and Finding itself [it] deviates for Standing Wave. Upcoming and inprogress works include a new production with Fight With a Stick Performance, a new work for Tempest Flute Choir, and a new interdisciplinary performance project with Restless Productions. jamesbmaxwell.com JAMES PROUDFOOT Lighting designer James Proudfoot hails from Edinburgh, Scotland, where he received his initial theatre training, has been living in Vancouver since 1993. He is currently Resident Lighting Designer and Lighting Director for Ballet BC and has designed more than twenty pieces for the company. Specializing in the realm of dance lighting, James has contributed designs for dance works for many local and national companies. jamesproudfoot.com LEAH WEINSTEIN Leah Weinstein is a Vancouver-based artist working in sculpture, costume, and performance. Using everyday objects and readymade materials, she explores relationships between individuals and collectives, and the space between action and display. She completed an MFA at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in 2014, and her work has been supported by Access Gallery; Dynamo Gallery;

50/50 Raffle

the BC Arts Council; Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation; Banff Centre; Touchstones Nelson Museum of Art & History; Charles H Scott Gallery; and City of Richmond Public Art Commissions. leahweinstein.com LESLIE PARENT Leslie Parent is a Métis designer and was raised in Chestermere Lake on her family’s heritage farm. She attended Kwantlen Polytechnic University for Fashion Design and has been designing from her White Rock studio for the last thirty years. Leslie has collaborated with several dance troupes, athletic performance groups, dancers, and choreographers in the Lower Mainland.

CHRIS NICHOLS Chris Nichols is co-founder and co-owner of Wood Shop Workers Co-op in Vancouver. Founded in 2013, Wood Shop Workers Co-op makes and sells reclaimed wood furniture and interiors, commercial millwork, and metalwork and engages in community collaborations including DIY workshops. As a democratically run worker-owed organization, Wood Shop’s mandate is to provide meaningful employment to its members while growing the cooperative economy and being at the forefront of material reuse in Vancouver. woodshop.coop

50/50 tickets are on sale in the lobby of the Mary Winspear Centre before and after the performance of John this evening. Proceeds from our raffle support the many artists whose projects are developed in Dance Victoria’s studios and then performed across the country and around the world. Tickets are also available at our performances at the Royal Theatre in the lobby and online at DanceVictoria.com.

Tickets are $10 each or a book of five for $40. With fewer than 2,400 printed, your odds are great, plus you’ll be supporting Victoria’s vibrant dance community.

Draw: April 26, 2022, 2:00 pm at Dance Victoria Studios.

Licence #130806

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Dance Victoria’s Chrystal Dance Fund and Endowment Fund are held at Victoria Foundation. Dance Victoria is a proud member of the CanDance Network and the Greater Vancouver Alliance for Arts and Culture.