10 minute read
re:group
By Claire French from Restless Productions
The idea for re:group was conceived as an extension of my PhD research. In my PhD thesis, I call my research focus ‘choreographic sensemaking’. I draw on philosophical notions of assemblage and the social cognition theory, participatory sensemaking. My practical research explored the making of a framework as a potential choreographic tool inviting emergent, choreographic forms. My current research focuses on emergence through social, collective endeavour at one end of the spectrum and solo creation at the other.
I invited and gathered a cohort of choreographers/dancemakers as willing and enthusiastic as me to engage with composition and share and articulate how they develop their choreographic practices. Realizing that I was providing something that some of my fellow choreographers and dancemakers felt was essential and had recognized as previously missing in their artistic lives validated this direction and intensified my commitment to the idea and to the cohort. The cohort is Jeanette Kotowich, Simran Sachar, Virginia Duivenvoorden and Vanessa Goodman.
Admittedly, re:group is an acquired taste because we are not setting out to make dances. It offers a space for choreographic thinking to be explored independently of dancing. For example, we might not do any dance or movement steps or phrases, and if we do, the emphasis is not placed on the movement choice but rather on the spatial configuration, temporal relationships, duration, interrelating narratives and intentionsyou could think of this as the containers for content. But this is dependent on the group’s needs each time we meet. We collectively engage in making, and being accountable for, the social contract. At this stage, we are not a dance company or even a choreographic collective working on choreography together. Rather, we approach our re:group time as an alternative option, and complementary to, attending dance technique or dance improvisation classes. It’s an opportunity to work on our craft. We are developing and practicing choreographic tools and skills, exploring scores and frameworks together and participating in the tasks we decide to explore in each session. The physical ideas are borne and accumulated from curiosities, problems, questions, and interests we contribute in the room.
re:group has quickly become an entity unto itself defined by the group members. We meet once a month. We launched our monthly meetings for the first time in July 2024 with the invaluable support of The Dance Centre through their artist residency program. The pilot cohort is expansive and inspirational. Our needs, interests, re:group © Virginia Duivenvoorden and contributions co-inform and co-influence the time we spend together, opening space for creative, generative discovery for its own sake, and our sakes, as movers, independent creators, and world-builders. We explore creative possibilities in this social and collective space, sharing resources, networks, and ideas. We take the time to talk, listen, offer support, and respectfully call each other out. We are comfortable sharing physically and verbally and confident in our unique perspectives. We entertain and challenge one another. Discovering our differences and similarities each time is invigorating. We have a social contract to exchange ideas through a co-facilitated practice and stay generative. We do this generously.
regroup
The word regroup is synonymous with recuperation, rearranging, and recovering. All these action words allude to choreographic processes and compositional thinking.
They also connect to the humanness involved in creating—desires, the desire to connect, reflect, find meaning, feel heard/seen, lead, follow, discover, iterate, evolve…
re: group invites reciprocal exchange, relative to the material, the people, the timeframe and the context.
Adaptive and emergent, we define and redefine the sense of group when we meet.
The group work is particular to the group, and, in the same measure, our contribution is specific to each of us. We understand that we each choose how we integrate and subsume the collective's influence into our independent choreographic work.
To acknowledge the inevitable levels of familiarity that accumulate and embed through our collective experiences, we are factoring in ways to offset and unsettle the familiar, seeking new resources and inviting guest participants. DIV was one such rewarding and appropriate off-set, as our first public sharing.
An aside:
Being seen, questioned and confronted by people outside of our group, being seen differently by the re:group members, looking out from within the group context…
seeing and sharing through a re:group lens felt real, fresh, and tightly new as if it were finding its rhythm…
Significantly, our sharing at DIV was our first public acknowledgement of the group. While I felt it was premature, it will likely always feel this way. We are developing our choreographic skills as a group and destabilizing the conditions to maintain a sense of emergence. Our agenda is not to create a unified-looking ensemble or necessarily achieve synchronicity. We focus on connection to the pursuit of choreographic ideas and each other, responding from and with our choreographic perspectives. We do not expect to explore the same task twice and while we have removed any agenda to produce choreography we are aware that we inevitably constantly produce it.
As default, we do not video/record our explorations. However, the sessions are generative, and we inspire each other. Reflecting, note-taking, considering how we might develop and implement something we discovered in our processes; suggesting, digesting, investing, claiming—our time is spent focusing on our needs.
This DIV publication is our opportunity to contribute through an alternative medium to movement and an alternative context to the studio. I invited the cohort members to design diagrams responding to the prompt “How does re:group connect to you?” The visual context enables us to represent the autonomy that re:group affords. We maintain our different interpretations as the following diagrams display. We hope you appreciate and engage with these for their sense of individuality while simultaneously joining us in discovering our found connecting values.
re:group is a constant catalyst of inspiration, peer support, and gratitude. Thank you!
Claire French, PhD
https://www.restlessproductions.com/ https://clairefrench.wixsite.com/2025
Claire is an established choreographer, dance artist, teacher, and researcher and has received multiple choreography awards and academic accolades in Europe and Canada. She is the artistic co-director of Restless Productions, an interdisciplinary project-based performance company (est. 2011) and enjoys collaborating and producing across the arts. Claire has a firstclass BA (Hons) degree in Dance with Inter Arts (Bretton Hall College-Leeds University, UK 1994) and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies from SFU, Canada (1999). In 2022, she gained her PhD in Dance from the University of Chichester, UK.
Based in Vancouver (on the unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations), Claire wears many hats and dances many dances. Currently, she hosts The Dance Centre podcast, teaches creative movement, and choreographs and collaborates with Restless and other companies, institutions, and artists. Her newfound passion for tap dancing revolves around developing rhythm as a form of communication and serves as a central inspiration for her current choreographic creations. She is a dance artist-in-residence at The Dance Centre, devising collaborative performances and professional community practices, including re:group. Claire is also developing Creative Influence Facilitation and helping coordinate, create, and produce new ventures. She believes in supporting and learning with other artists of multiple generations and perspectives, complementing her desire to be involved in a vibrant, authentic, and inclusive creative arts ecology.
Jeanette Kotowich
https://www.movementhealing.ca/
Originally from Treaty 4 territory Saskatchewan, Jeanette creates work that reflects Nêhiyaw/Métis cosmology within the context of contemporary dance, Indigenous performance, and Indigenous futurism. Fusing interdisciplinary collaboration, decolonial practices and embodied research methodologies; Jeanette’s work references protocol, ritual, relationship to the natural/ spirit world and Ancestral knowledge. Their practice is intergenerational and vocational; it’s a living and lived experience. Jeanette has self-presented and been programmed at theatres and festivals across Turtle Island and internationally.
Her solo Kisiskâciwan premiered in Vancouver 2022, and has since toured to 11 cities nationally, and to Germany and Australia. Her ensemble work Kwê was presented at Matriarchs Uprising and Dance in Vancouver 2021/22. She is now working on a new ensemble called BOLT, a work for 4 performing artists which will premiere in 2026, at Vancouver International Dance Festival and Festival Transamériques. Jeanette is the Artistic Associate at Raven Spirit Dance, and co-founder of aka collective. She facilitates movement workshops with Indigenous worldview, workshops on decolonial perspectives in the arts, and is a Métis dance and cultural knowledge carrier. She resides as a guest on the Ancestral and unceded Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ/, and Xʷməθkʷəy̓əm territories, colonially known as Vancouver.
Virginia Duivenvoorden
Virginia Duivenvoorden is a choreographer, performer, and educator working at the intersection of dance, film, and community engagement. Trained at Arts Umbrella, SFU, and the European Dance Development Centre (now ArtEZ), she has performed with Karen Jamieson Dance Company and in solo works by Serge Bennathan and Cornelius Fischer-Credo. Her current projects include Kite, a dance film she choreographed, Seams, a film by Jerry Trieus in which she is the lead actor, and Echo Chamber, her latest solo dance work in development. She is honoured to be part of re:group with Claire French and the team. Virginia’s practice is shaped by interdisciplinary collaboration, arts education, and an ongoing inquiry into movement and cinematic storytelling.
Vanessa Goodman
Vanessa Goodman respectfully acknowledges that she lives, works and creates on the ancestral and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples, including the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō, Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (TsleilWaututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations. She holds a BFA from Simon Fraser University and is the artistic director of Action at a Distance Dance Society. Vanessa is attracted to art that has a weight and meaning beyond the purely aesthetic and uses her choreography as an opportunity to explore the human condition. Her choreographic practice is driven by weaving generative movement and sonic systems into performative environments. Her work creates a sense of intimacy between our surroundings and the body. She has received several awards and honours, including The Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award (2013); The Yulanda M. Faris Scholarship (2017/18); The Chrystal Dance Prize (2019/18 & 2024/2025); The Schultz Endowment from Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (2019); and the "Space to Fail" program (2019/20). Vanessa's work has been presented across this continent and in Europe.
Simran Sachar
Simran Sachar is a South Asian dance artist, choreographer, writer, and actor originally from Calgary, Alberta, but currently dedicates time to their artistic practice in Vancouver, Canada on the unceded, ancestral territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Simran stands on versatility being trained in classical, contemporary, and street dance forms. Mostly known for her work as a contemporary and street dancer, she is a captivating anomaly in this industry who consistently works in ground-breaking spaces. Through choreography, text, or XR technology - specifically volumetric film, Simran’s work uncovers distorted memories and how they disfigure us, the duality of relief and grief, and our own identity as the mirror.
Through battling in street dance, Simran is the Winner of 2023’s Release Yourself Whacking Battle in Montreal at Artfulness Festival, Top 16 at Hotmess 2023 (Montreal), Top 4 at Redbull Dance Your Style (Vancouver), Top 16 at Step Ya Game Up (New York City). Simran’s other credits include Netflix, CW Riverdale, The Vancouver Opera, Dairy Canada, The Vancouver Art Gallery, Dancing On The Edge, Dance in Vancouver, OFF-FTA, OFF-Parcours Danse, Luna Arts Fest, F.O.R.M Festival, Apple TV, National Arts Centre, Fringe Manila and more.
Title image: re:group © Virginia Duivenvoorden
