UNTITLE(d)ISTANCE(s)

Photo: Yvonne Chew

Through their encounter they tell stories from the past to illuminate their possible imagined individual and collective futures. They entertain, inquire and provoke as they move through universal themes such as togetherness, aging and love to those more arrestingly contemporary such as our rapidly changing climates and migration. What is it that links this wild range of themes? Us. Through questions, answers and attempts to understand this moment in time, Arash and Emma bring humanness to the foreground in far reaching dances of seriousness and silliness, madness and hope.

Created by Arash Khakpour and Emmalena Fredriksson, UNTITLEdISTANCE explores contact and text improvisation in dance performance. The research began with a residency at Simon Fraser University in the summer of 2016. In 2017 they received the Chrystal Dance Prize from Dance Victoria to develop the project further through a residency in Victoria and in Örebro, Sweden.

As Artists-in-Residence, Emmalena and Arash are continuing the research with 6 Vancouver-based bilingual dancers in the fall of 2019 and 2020 with the support of the Canada Council for The Arts.

https://www.thedancecentre.ca/programs/residencies

Studio showing from the 1st fase of rehearsals of UNTITLEdISTANCE(s) with 6 dancers.
From left to right: Diego Romero, Natalie, Gan, Isabelle Kirouac, Juolin Lee, Dario Dinuzzi and Luciana D’Anunciacao.

More on Emmalena Fredriksson:
https://www.emmalenafredriksson.com/

Arash Khakpour:
http://www.bitingschool.com/