Call for Artists: Movement & Circus Workshop (Calgary)

May 21, 2022, 12-3 pm

Location: Inside Out Theatre, in Eau Claire Market, 200 Barclay Parade SW, Calgary.

Sign up here.

Image Description: Outside, mid-performance in Nogojiwanong /Peterborough market square, four ropes covered in canvas hang from the side of a building. Four performers are wrapped in the ropes, about a story-high, suspended in the air. Three are white, one is queer, and one is a Colombian amputee, Some are upside down and some are upright. They wear bright colours. 

The Workshop:

Seeking theatre, dance, movement and circus artists of all disciplines for an upcoming workshop hosted by Inside Out Theatre, Springboard Performance, and ĀNANDAṀ. The workshop will be led by Erin Ball and Brandy Leary.

The focus of the workshop is to meet and cultivate relationships and dialogue with local artists who would be interested in collaborating on a site specific project in the late summer of 2022. 

This workshop will introduce some of the themes, ideas and working methodologies of the piece, including adaptive movement, story-telling, and accessibility as an aesthetic and valued part of a creative process.

After the workshop participants are invited to submit themselves to be a part of the performance ensemble. Participating in the workshop is not required to audition but it is a great chance to start building a relationship with the creative team. We are striving to welcome and collaborate with the Mad, Deaf, and Disabled (and any other underrepresented identities that are not listed) community. We are also prioritizing Two Spirit, Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour communities.

Accessibility: This workshop is specifically designed to embrace physical, cognitive, and communication differences. The Inside Out venue is fully wheelchair accessible and a relaxed environment.

ASL Interpretation & sighted guides are available.

Please provide specific access requirements when signing up. 

How to Register:

To sign up for the workshop please follow this link to the online sign up form… https://forms.gle/mLBcJfmjwDDcJbsd7

If you require any assistant in filing out the form, or have any questions at all, please reach out to Col Cseke at Inside Out Theatre, col@insideouttheatre.com or 403-282-4801

The workshop is free.

About The Artists:

Erin Ball (she/her) identifies as a white, Mad (from the Mad Pride Movement), Disabled, treaty inhabitant. She is a double below knee amputee and circus artist based in Katarokwi/Kingston. Erin is the director of Kingston Circus Arts and is the co-founder of LEGacy Circus (a performance company co-created with Mad artist, Vanessa Furlong). Erin achieved Disability in 2014 and took a year off. She has since returned to her passion of training, coaching and performing with a focus of including as many people in her audiences, as collaborators and performers in shows, and as students in her classes. She has traveled internationally to perform and teach. Erin strives for representation, access and inclusion in the arts.

In 2017, Erin developed a course and manual for movement-based coaches called Flying Footless. The course centres around dismantling ableism, Disability theories, access and methods of teaching and suggestions to work towards welcoming the Disability community into movement-based classes.

Brandy Leary (she/her) creates contemporary performances with an artistic practice informed by dance, martial arts, circus, and theatre. Her works have been produced and performed in Canada, Europe, India, the Arctic, South Africa and the USA in theatres, urban environments, festivals, museums, art galleries and isolated landscapes. She is active as a performer, choreographer, collaborator, curator and Artistic Director of ĀNANDAṀ.

Brandy holds a degree in Theatre from York University. She is a triple Shastri Indo-Canadan Fellow in the performing arts (2003,06, 09) and a Chalmers Arts Fellow in choreographic research (2020). She is a disciple of Padma Shri Guru Kedar Nath Sahoo (Seraikella chhau) and Guru Janmejoy Saibabu (Mayurbhanj chhau). She began her kalaripayattu training with Vijayan Gurukul at the CVN Easthill Kalari in Kozhikode (Kerala) and continues as a senior student with his son VM Vikas Gurukul. In addition she has trained with Phillip Zarilli,Kaite O'Reilly,Frey Faust, Jennifer Lacey (Ponderosa), Kevin O’Connor, P.A. Binoy, Usha Nangiar, G Venu and Kapila Venu (Navarasa Sadhana). As a dancer Brandy has performed in the works of Gitanjali Kolanad, Lee Su-Feh, Jenn Goodwin, Chandralekha (posthumous remount), Denise Fujiwara (The WITCH, film, dir. Robert Eggers) and is currently working with choreographer Padmini Chettur.

She has been called “a heart stopping dancer” (Toronto Guardian) and her works have been described as “phenomenological interventions” (Canadian Theatre), “soulful and sensuous” (NYTimes) and “embodying a hallucinatory, dreamlike state” (NOW).

The work she develops considers aesthetic and structural inquiries for the body, performance architectures and customs of audience/performer relationships. She has lived between Canada and India for the past 18 years; training, collaborating and creating. www.anandam.ca