Rewind & Renew

ABIGAIL SEBALY is an independent archivist based in Vancouver, BC. In addition to digitizing EDAM’s video collection, she is working on archival projects for the Taku River Tlingit First Nation (Atlin, BC), and the Pat Steir Studio (New York, NY). She was inspired to formalize her archival training while cataloging the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s collection of sets and costumes at the Walker Art Center from 2011-2014.  Abi completed a dual Master of Archival Studies and Master of Library and Information Studies at the University of British Columbia. She also holds a BFA in Dance and a BA in English from the University of Michigan and an MA in the Humanities from the University of Chicago.

KAIJA PEPPER’s writing on dance has been widely published in national and international magazines, journals, newspapers and theatre programs. Her most recent book, Falling into Flight: A Memoir of Life and Dance, was published by Signature Editions in 2020.  Her flash memoir, Summer of the Twist, was part of Room magazine’s Bodies issue in 2024. As the editor of Dance International magazine (2013-2023), she enjoyed working with writers from around the globe.

JEFF CORNESS - EDAM - my first job as a composer in 1986 - was a trial by fire. Writing and producing music for the collective’s 4 antithetical creative forces- (Lola Ryan, Lola MacLaughlin, Peter Bingham and Jennifer Mascall) was both cataclysmic and generative, preparing me for a lifetime obsession with interdisciplinary collaboration. We were ‹ Experimental Dance And Music’, and my experience was profound; it taught me how - as a composer - I could work inside different processes and honour different aesthetic values. To this day-after almost 40 years - EDAM remains a deep source of the intense love of collaboration that inspired me to continue my career as an interdisciplinary composer.

SUSAN ELLIOTT In 1990, Peter invited me to become a company member in his inaugural year as the sole Artistic Director of EDAM. It was a wild and incredibly formative time for me as an emerging, 20yr old dancer! I danced for EDAM until 1992-3, left for a year, and returned to dance for more wonderful seasons. My time dancing in the company was deeply meaningful and I'm grateful for Peter's guidance, teachings and his gathering of talented artists. Thank you, Peter, for taking a chance on me and for our friendship that has spanned decades.

JANE ELLISON is a dancer, teacher, and artist focused on embodied somatic practices. Since 1975 she has participated in and produced performances, collaborations, and workshops. She met Peter Bingham that year in what would become the EDAM dance studio, and is grateful for five decades of studio-sharing and improvising life with him and EDAM. Jane’s movement class Boing has been her primary site of research and performance. Her cross-disciplinary work reflects and has been influenced by the fertile playground of the artist-run centre, Western Front. Between 1991 and 2008, Jane taught at Studio 58, Langara College’s theatre school. This milieu provided another opportunity to explore embodied movement in art and performance.

NOAM GAGNON is a renowned Canadian choreographer and dance artist who has brought Canadian dance to the global stage. As co-artistic director and choreographer of The Holy Body Tattoo, his work has gained international acclaim. His piece our brief eternity toured major venues like the Sydney Opera House and London’s Barbican, winning the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best Ensemble Performance. Circa, which won the Alcan Performing Arts Award, was performed over 100 times worldwide. His ambitious piece monumental premiered in 2005, touring Canada and the U.S., and was remounted in 2016 with a live score by Godspeed You! Black Emperor, hailed as a “revelation” by The Guardian. The show toured major festivals in Vancouver, Adelaide, Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, Edinburgh, and New York.

In 2006, Noam founded Vision Impure and continues to reshape the dance landscape with intimate and powerful works. His creations include The Vision Impure (winner of The Isadora Award), Pathways, and This Crazy Show. Noam is an Associate Dance Artist with Canada’s National Arts Centre and is frequently commissioned by artists and companies.

JACI METIVIER - Jaci has been doing theatre since she was 13, but it was a contact workshop taught by Peter Bingham on Hornby Island in 1985 that brought Jaci into the dance world. She soon moved to Vancouver, and after doing classes at EDAM, mainly with the two Peters (Bingham and Ryan), joined the company from 1987 to 1992. She worked with Runaway Moon Theatre for 5 years and still plays with theatre and dance, performing, producing and teaching in the Salmon Arm area. She has a solo studio for movement and pilates and runs an online vintage shop on Etsy.

DAELIK has a performance career of over 30 years.  He began devising physical theatre in Toronto in the late 80s as part of a collective of emerging theatre artists. In 1990 he moved to Vancouver where he was introduced to Peter Bingham and Contact Improvisation. Daelik studied the technique of CI for 3 years at EDAM before completing a 2-year professional dance training program.  He was hired by EDAM and was a company member from 1995-2000 performing in 7 works, developing a lasting association with EDAM and friendship with Bingham.  Daelik lived and worked in Berlin 2001-2002 before returning to Vancouver and starting his own company MACHiNENOiSY.  He was the co-Artistic Director of MACHiNENOiSY with long time collaborator Delia Brett for 17 years producing over 10 full length works, numerous short works performed across Canada, the US and Europe.

In the fall of 2019, with the support of the DTRC, Daelik retired from dance and became a certified dog trainer.  In 2021 he moved to Kelowna BC where he operates his business dog.able.

DELIA BRETT - Delia‘s arts career began when she was 15 years old in film and television. Interestingly, it was at that same age that she had her first Contact Dance class with Peter Bingham (at a high school theater festival). Little did she know, that by 19 she’d have left the acting dream and by 1997 be working as a dance artist in Peter’s very own company. Through the various epochs of her life, including motherhood and the rise and fall of her own collaboratively led company, MACHiNENOiSY, Delia continued to improvise and perform with Edam Dance. It wasn’t until 2021, just shy of a quarter of a century later, that Delia finally said good bye to the dance practice and company that had formed the foundation of her arts life to transition from being primarily a dance artist to being primarily a transformational coach and yoga teacher. Through those 2 + decades Delia contributed to 20 of EDAM’ productions and performed them countless times.

NIKITA CARTER is an incredibly lyrical and inventive improvisor. She was the founder, leader, and later co-leader of Vancouver's renowned NOW Orchestra with multiple recordings and international touring. The breadth of her music includes extensive work with dance, spoken word, Intercultural music and electronics. A prolific composer she has created work for a variety of instrumentations from saxophone quartet to large ensembles.

Her work with Peter Bingham and EDAM spanned from 1989 till 2010 and included intensive process (co-creating shows like Born Naked Died Blonde and Red Handed with Peter and Ron Samworth) as well as touring and annual workshops with the collaborative group The Echo Case.

Whether it's "Inspired improvising." coming from François Couture in his blog about her playing or "the crowning achievement of the evening." Plank Magaziner Kedrick James about her composing, Ms. Carter evokes superlatives for her music.

www.theenikita.com

ANNE COOPER trained and performed in Winnipeg before joining Le Groupe Danspartout in Quebec City, eventually landing in Vancouver, BC where she’s danced with EDAM and other dance-makers such as Chick Snipper for 30+ years. She is grateful to live and work on the unceded and ancestral lands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Anne has taught Contact Improvisation at EDAM and other locales since 2000. With EDAM since ’94, she’s danced in Peter Bingham’s work both choreographed and improvised. She has improvised with Nancy Stark Smith in the U.S. in Nancy’s Glimpse Performance Installations. Anne has created and presented her own work in Vancouver. She’s excited to be part of Olivia Shaffer’s new work and to share this evening with you. Anne is an avid ‘jammer’.

KATHLEEN MCDONAGH - Kathleen joined EDAM in 1992 beginning a rich era of discovery and growth in dancing Peter’s work and artistically evolving with her colleagues in the decade plus that followed. She’s so grateful for the learning from and exposure to originators and masters of CI and Improvisation as she continually sources from this immersive period in her work today.  Throughout the 90’s and 2000’s she danced with numerous companies, intensively through to 2007 at which time her teaching practice, initiated in the late 90’s, became of almost equal value in balance with that of creative process and performance.

The early dancing years were busy with seeding what were to become flourishing and ongoing creative relationships, notably forging bonds with Chick Snipper, Cornelius Fischer-Credo, Peter Bingham, Lola MacLaughlin and among her peers Lee-Su-Feh, Dana Gingras, Noam Gagnon, and Pipo Damiano. Although of lesser duration, yet still impactful were her opportunities to work with Harvey Meller, Karen Jamison, Cori Caulfield, Deborah Dunn, Olivia Thorvaldson, Michelle Olson/Raven Spirit Dance and Crystal Pite.

Kathleen is now and has been a movement Instructor for Langara’s Studio 58 Theatre Arts Program since 2008, in addition to running Gravity Gyrotonic®, Vancouver’s first and only studio dedicated to this wonderful movement modality.