JOE INK, in partnership with SFU Woodward’s Cultural Programs, proudly presents the world premiere of
DANCE:CRAFT
SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, Fei & Milton Wong Experimental Theatre (149 W. Hastings)
May 20 to 22: Performances and Exhibition at 7pm
Joe Ink acknowledges that we live, work and are gathered on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples–Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations.
A Message from Artistic Director Joe Laughlin
DANCE:CRAFT marks my 15th production for Joe Ink and I want to thank you for coming to this performance and express my gratitude to our supporters, funders, partners and collaboratxors. It has been an unprecedented past two years and I am very excited to be back working in the theatre. A particularly devastating time for the performing arts, we are working to get back to a new normal. It has been a very special time creating with Heather and Joey alongside my esteemed collaborators. Heather has been involved in this project since inception. We’ve met crafts people and visited their studios, shot videos, pored slip molds, made ceramic babies, glass paperweights, played with wooden blocks and made dances along the way.
DANCE:CRAFT began as a research project in 2015 facilitated and curated by the Craft Council of British Columbia. Developed over time it was slated to premiere in 2020 as a site-specific interactive moving art installation but the Covid-19 pandemic changed that. Fortunately, we have been able to reimagine it with the partnership of SFU Woodward’s and their inaugural Supporting Artists in Community Program, which has given us the opportunity to realize this performance you are experiencing tonight. It has been amazing to work at SFU in the Wong Theatre for three weeks.
With DANCE:CRAFT I have been thinking about the earth, the environment, the elements and geography. The tactile sensation of handmade objects juxtaposed with the ephemeral quality of the dancing body triggers a memory experience. Movement may be carved out of the landscape, it ebbs and flows, rises and falls, ever shifting and cumulative. Dance engages fiber, sinew, muscle, bone, water, pressure, agitation and repetition, Craft incorporates, fiber, stone, wood, metal, water, pressure, agitation and repetition while a transformation occurs over time.
About the Company
Led by Artistic Director Joe Laughlin, Joe Ink was founded in 1995 and has built a reputation for its versatility. Described as “wickedly sophisticated”, “unusual” and “daring”, this Vancouver dance company speaks in a movement language all its own. Since inception, Joe Ink has balanced local performances and projects in partnership with national and international artists and organizations. The company’s mission is to engage and inspire people through the medium of dance, pushing the edge creatively and artistically as professional artists while strengthening community through dance. In addition to a large portfolio of successful works, the company has also produced multiple public performances in the context of the community-based dance program Move It!
DANCE:CRAFT CREDITS
Artistic Direction, Concept, Choreography Joe Laughlin
Curator Craft Council of British Columbia
Craft Artists Patrick Christie, Stefanie Dueck, Debra Dumka, Hope Forstenzer, Deborah E Sloan
Dancers Heather Dotto, Joey Matt
Rehearsal Direction Heather Dotto
Composers Jesse Zubot, Joshua Zubot
Lighting Design James Proudfoot
Video Projection Eric Chad
Costumes Jenifer Darbellay
Costume Assistant Alaia Hamer
Virtual Reality Films Claire Sanford
Production Manager Philomena Sondergaard
Stage Manager Kaia Shukin
Production Assistant Sylvain Senez
Publicity and Marketing Jodi Smith, JLS Entertainment
Graphic Designer John Endo Greenaway, Big Wave Design
Digital Marketing Jesse Tanaka
SFU Woodward’s Cultural Programs
Michael Boucher, Director
Janice Beley, Producer
Kaelynn Shinkaruk, Marketing & Promotions coordinator
Lori Strong, Project Coordinator
SFU Goldcorps Centre for the Arts, Production & Event Services Team
Creative Team
Joe Laughlin, founding Artistic Director of Joe Ink, has created 14 productions for the company, most recently Joe: A Solo Show, 4OUR and Retrospective: 25 Years. A particularly versatile choreographer, he has been commissioned by the Canada Dance Festival, National Arts Centre, Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Ballet BC and Moving into Dance Mophatong, among others and his over sixty works have been performed in Canada, the US, UK, Europe, South Africa and South Korea. His television credits include choreography for The Charlie Horse Music Pizza, starring Shari Lewis, and his international collaboration with South African dancers was featured in the BRAVO documentary Every Body, produced by Paperny Films. Well known for his personable teaching style, Joe’s ability to inspire dancers and non-dancers alike to discover their individual movement potential is one of his unique talents. His passion for working with communities led him to create Move It! in 2001. Honors include the Canada Council’s Jacqueline Lemieux Prize, Banff Centre’s Clifford E. Lee Choreography Award and the BC Isadora Award for excellence in choreography.
Heather Dotto began her performance career with Josh Beamish’s Move: The Company in 2005-2013. Within the company Heather performed works by: Simone Orlando, Amber Funk-Barton, Susan Mensinger, and Danny Austin. After seeing stages all over the world (Shanghai, Singapore, New York, England, Brazil, Bangkok, Seattle, Los Angeles, Toronto, Nanaimo) Heather planted her feet back in Vancouver and has worked with many members of the dance community: Vision Impure, mmHop, Kinesis Dance, Coriograph Theatre, Heather Laura Gray, Caitlin Griffin, Lara Barclay, Monica Proenca. In 2012 she found a new home with the Joe Ink. She has since performed in the company’s Retrospective Show, 4OUR and worked as rehearsal director for several other shows. Since 2009, Heather has choreographed for Move the Company, Chop Shop Seattle, Brilliant Fashion Show, Small Stage 35 and 37 and Vancouver Urban Forum. In the last three years, Heather was commissioned twice by both Lamondance and Ballet Kelowna. Heather has loved working with Joe and Joey on DANCE:CRAFT, her soul is so happy.
Joey Matt was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta and has been dancing, competing and performing since the age of seven. He was part of the top sixteen on the first season of So You Think You Can Dance Canada. Since then he has been assisting both the Canadian and American So You Think You Can Dance television series. He moved to Vancouver and joined Modus Operandi to further explore the foundations and technique of contemporary dance. He has worked as a dancer/ actor on the CW series Hellcats and NBC’s Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist and performed in industrial trade shows and galas for Bell Mobility, Telus, CN Railway, and Toyota. Other credits include performing with Sarah McLachlan, K’naan, Carly Rae Jepsen, Mariana’s Trench, Ciara, Tyga, and Nelly. In 2015 Joey toured Switzerland with Art on Ice, dancing for Nelly Furtado, Tom O’dell, Jessie J, and the Jacksons. Currently a member of Joe Ink and O2 The Dance Company, Joey is a much sought-after teacher throughout Western Canada.
Jesse Zubot is a musician, producer and composer whose praxis spans multiple genres and transcends contextualization. Zubot, a four-time Juno Award winning musician, has produced recordings such as the Polaris Music Prize winning album ANIMISM by Tanya Tagaq. Zubot, a sought after musician, has worked with artists such as Steve Reich, François Houle, Dan Mangan, Destroyer, Hawksley Workman, Marc Ribot, Stars, Ken Vandermark, Eyvind Kang and many more. Films Zubot has scored include the acclaimed Indian Horse and he has been nominated for multiple Canadian Screen Awards. Zubot has an extensive history composing for modern dance. A highlight was the presentation of the production Body Scan (Su-Feh Lee, Benoit Lachambre) at the prestigious Centre Pompidou in Paris, France. He has arranged music for many orchestras including the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Nova Scotia, the Victoria Symphony and Filmorchester Babelsberg (Potsdam, Germany). This is Jesse’s second time working with Joe Ink.
Joshua Zubot is a masterful violinist and composer whose music combines conviction, emotion and power. Before relocating to Vancouver in 2017 Josh was a fixture in Montréal’s vibrant music community for over a decade performing live and composing music for his own projects. He’s now made himself at home on the West Coast where he has immersed himself in all aspects of music. He has toured internationally in ensembles such as Subtle Lip Can, In The Sea, Marie-Jo Therio, Patrick Watson, Now Ensemble, Quartestki and most recently invited by the Canada Council to perform in Bremen, Germany with his String Quintet. His main focus of music involves styles in and around the avant-garde and improvisation but he feels right at home in genres such as rock, jazz, classical, folk and anything in between the lines.
James Proudfoot is from Edinburgh, Scotland, where he received his initial theatre training has been living in Vancouver since 1993. Specialising in the realm of dance lighting, James has contributed designs for dance works to many companies, including: Lola Dance, Company 605, Co. Erasga, Wen Wei Dance, Joe Ink, EDAM, The Contingency Plan, battery opera, Kinesis Dance, Ballet BC, Move the Company, Restless Productions, Holy Body Tattoo, Dumb Instrument, MACHiNE NOiSY, Anatomica Dance, Tara Cheyenne Performance, Les Productions Figlio, Karen Jamieson, Trial & Eros, Rachel Meyer, Action at a Distance, Out Innerspace, Helen Walkley, Ballet Jazz Montréal, Justine A. Chambers, plastic orchid factory and Nederlands Dance Theatre.
Eric Chad is an interactive projection artist and show control/integration specialist based in Vancouver, BC. Eric’s work blends interactive elements, generative design, and live tracking into his love for natural forms. Eric is one of the founding members, and the current Technical Director, of Lobe Studio in Vancouver BC, the first permanent 4DSound venue in North America. Eric’s credits include works with Crystal Pite (Animation), Plastic Orchid Factory (Entre Chien et Loup), Action at a Distance (Graveyards and Gardens), Out Innerspace Dance Theatre (Bygones, Major Motion Picture), Shay Kubler Radical System Art (Epilogos, Feasting on Famine, Telemetry), Kidd Pivot (Revisor, Betroffenheit)), Chuthis. Group ( -in3s- , Smile Masking, Face Her), Joe Ink (4our). Eric was also a primary designer on Sanctuary: The Dakota Bear Ancient Forest Experience, and The Canadian Pavilion at the Dubai Expo.
Jenifer Darbellay has designed for theatre and performance for many years. She has been blessed to work with Arts Club Theatre, Gateway Theatre, UBC Theatre Department, Theatre Calgary, Alberta Theatre Projects (Calgary), Lunchbox Theatre, Decidedly Jazz Danceworks (Calgary), University of Calgary Theatre Department, Mount Royal College Theatre Department (Calgary), Two Planks and a Passion Theatre (Nova Scotia), Tarragon Theatre (Toronto), Veritgo Theatre, Ground Zero Theatre, and others. She is thrilled to be a part of this production with Joe Ink. Jenifer has received three Betty Mitchell Awards and one Merritt Award for Outstanding Costume Design. She works, paints and lives in Vancouver with her family. xo
Hope Forstenzer is a native New Yorker who worked extensively in film, theatre and ceramics before falling in love with glass. She moved to Seattle to study glass with as many glass artists as she could find, and slowly developed a feel and style of her own. She has lived in Vancouver since 2012, and is a proud member of Terminal City Glass Co-op, where she works and teaches. She has shown her sculptures at D’Adamo Woltz Gallery in Seattle, Seymour Art Gallery, The Craft Council of British Columbia Gallery, PoMoArts, The Art Gallery of Burlington, as part of a group commission for the Vancouver Opera, and a variety of other locations. Her work can be found for sale at the Craft Council shop on Granville Island, the Audain Art Museum in Whistler, and yearly at the Eastside Culture Crawl. She is thrilled to be part of this project.
Deborah Dumka was born in Northern British Columbia and has lived three quarters of her life in rural communities across Canada, for the most part on the shores of an ocean. She draws on the physical and emotional landscape of rural life to make contemporary textile work exploring our important connections with nature. Using the sustainable materials and ancient techniques of traditional wet felting her work celebrates natural materials and the process of transformation that leaves the mark of the hands on objects. Deborah holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from MUN (1978) and a diploma from the Textile Studies Program of the Anna Templeton Centre (1994), St. John’s NL. She advocates for the Canadian Craft Community by serving on the board of the Craft Council of British Columbia and as a past president the Canadian Crafts Federation. She works from her home studio on Texada Island in the Strait of Georgia.
Debra E Sloan started a six-year self-directed apprenticeship 1973-79 at a pottery school, attended the VSA 1979-82, attained her BFA from ECUAD, 2005. Parent, maker, exhibitor, teacher, adjudicator, writer, presenter, and President of the North-West Ceramics Foundation. She received a BC Arts Council grant, 2010, residency in Hungary. In 2015 she received the Hilde Gerson Award (Craft Council of BC) and the Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award. Attended residencies at the International Ceramics Studio – Hungary, CRETA – Rome, Leach Pottery – St. Ives, a year-long residency studying the Koerner Collection at Museum of Anthropology, UBC. In 2019 Debra received a Canada Council Grant for a residency at Shigaragki – Japan. In 2021 included in the 10th Changchun International Biennial – China. Collections; Changchun-China, UBC Museum of Anthropology, Leach Pottery – UK, ICS – Hungary, Shigaraki – Japan, Ceremart Collection – Romania, Slovenia National Museum, Latvian Centre, City of Port Moody, City of Coquitlam, UBC Library, and private collections worldwide.
From an early age, Patrick Christie was encouraged to create through making and repurposing as opposed to buying new. He grew up in an environment where creating a sustainable life meant being a good host, being generous, and investing time into relationships. As a creator living and working in Vancouver, regionalism, hyper-localism and decolonization inform his practice. His primary medium today is the wood species native to British Columbia. With this material, he seeks to create value locally for communities and clients through producing physical objects, environments and human experiences. Wood is not only a medium to construct with but an agent of storytelling and connection. The work Patrick crafts is intended to inform and excite people’s curiosity about wood through texture and form with simple shapes and pops of colour. As a human Patrick oscillates between the practices of an artist, a designer and a craftsperson, working towards a collective whole.
Drawing from her experiences in art, craft, and trade, Stefanie Dueck employs traditional metalworking techniques in unconventional ways. Both functional and sculptural works are driven by process and an experimental spirit. Her explorations with metal have taken her from the Kootenay School of the Arts in Nelson, BC, to an apprenticeship in Southern Spain, a scholarship at the Center for Metal Arts in Pennsylvania, and over a decade of independent practice in Vancouver, BC. Having recently relocated to the Sunshine Coast, Stefanie continues to create, focusing on her line of hand forged flatware, sculpture, and commissioned projects.
For the Dance:Craft collaboration with Joe Ink, Stefanie will be examining how the industrial themes and structural elements of her art relate to the human form. She is excited to be incorporating interactive components and looks forward to watching the work evolve once it leaves her metal shop and enters the dance studio.
Claire Sanford is a Canadian filmmaker, cinematographer and video artist working in two- and three-dimensional documentary storytelling. Her practice focuses on sensorial stories exploring the natural world, human identity, and how they overlap. Originally from Texada Island, British Columbia, Claire grew up immersed in nature and became versed in the quiet art of observation. She earned her BFA in Film Production from the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver (2009). Her work has been exhibited at film festivals and galleries internationally, most recently her intimate documentary Violet Gave Willingly which had its world premiere at Hot Docs 2022. She is currently creating documentary and virtual reality work that explores and distorts anthropocentric visions of the natural world in partnership with the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the National Film Board of Canada.
The Craft Council of British Columbia is a charitable arts service organization, which supports all stages of artistic practice in the craft sector; creates opportunities for artists to exhibit, sell, and produce art; provides a voice for artists and craft organizations and aids in the development of active communities around craft. Since 1973 they have been making craft more significant in the cultural life of British Columbians and Canadians. Through their public gallery and social enterprise shops on Granville Island, at the Vancouver Airport Crafthouse, at LS Travel Retail in Victoria, and now at VanDusen Gardens, they exhibit and interpret contemporary objects in ceramic, glass, fiber, metal, and wood that honor innovation in art, craft, and design and celebrate materials and processes. As a membership-based organization, CCBC welcomes all those who are interested in or curious about craft. Many individuals and institutions belong to CCBC – artists, teachers, scholars, collectors, gallery owners, and professionals in related fields in British Columbia.
A special thank you to Raine McKay, Heather Dotto, Amber Barton, Newworks, K&S Dance, Ballet BC, CCBC, Raquel Alvaro, Janice Beley, Miles Lavkulich, SFU Woodwards, Morrow
JOE INK Board of Directors
Raine McKay – Chairman
Izabela Lindal – Treasurer
Heather Howe – Secretary
Fran Brafman
Beth Gunderson
Sofie Raowens
ADMINISTRATION
Artistic and Managing Director Joe Laughlin
Financial Management Ewa Borkowska, Valiant Accounting
Production Management Philomena Sondergaard
Technical/Lighting Director James Proudfoot
Dance:Craft Production Support Newworks
MOVE IT! Coming this Summer 2022 on Vimeo Video: Move It! with Joe #1, #2 and #3 are Educational and Entertaining! In each of the videos Joe introduces 5 Move It! exercises to get you moving and grooving. Tune into your body. Experience the joy of dancing and connect to an innate and playful spontaneity. Have Fun! Everyone!!
Support JOE INK
Support the work of Joe Ink by becoming a donor. Donations are an invaluable way to contribute towards the ongoing creation of new work and Move It!
Joe Ink welcomes donations of any amount. Please consider supporting dance in our community by donating to Joe Ink Performance Society today. You can donate online https://joeink.ca/support/ or you can mail a cheque (payable to Joe Ink Performance Society to:
Joe Ink
312-1811 Adanac Street
Vancouver, BC Canada
V5L 4Y8
info@joeink.ca
www.joeink.ca
Joe Ink gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council and City of Vancouver.