Andrew Tay
Cullberg
Practice presentations
Photo by Hanna Johansson
Fr 4.10.2024, 19:00-20:00, MDT, Stage
Andrew Tay
Since I haven't performed a solo work in years, this will be an exciting opportunity to see how I react and reflect on my personal artistic practice when faced with it. Getting tangled in and getting out of the different roles of choreographer, artistic director, dancer, curator, DJ etc etc etc etc.
I return to previous choreographic strategies to better understand where I am today. It will be a conversation - I want to be witnessed when I deal with problems - maybe I need your help... It can get chaotic.
As someone who loves to challenge others to sit with their problems, or to put themselves in an uncomfortable situation, this feels only right.
Cullberg
The political dimension that unites people in a repertory company creates a unique environment where artists/dancers have the opportunity to develop their personal skills, adapted to this specific professional context. Invisible practices and forces influence the choreographies.
Knowledge production is an important part of the creative process. Each context has its specific conditions and unspoken norms, which are expressed through aesthetic, experimental and experiential regimes. Curiosity and empathy are fundamental for dancers to be able to develop choreographic methods that do not dictate, but support emerging structures. Through embodied practice and knowledge, dancers can encounter foreign ideas and concepts without the requirement to be able to immediately understand them.
The question of how clearly and in detail a practice needs to be described and codified in order to be considered defined recurs frequently. When obstacles arise in a production, what experiences are there that support the ensemble and preserve the work's artistic integrity?
In our practice presentation, we want to highlight the diversity of voices that characterizes our ensemble today. We dance our way through the mechanism that allows both discord and harmony to coexist.
”A heartfelt thank you to Anna Grip for her support through her invaluable mentoring and coaching during our research process, which significantly enriched our practice. And thank you to Chrysa Parkinson, Cecilia Roos, and Eleanor Bauer for their time and support.”
- Eleanor Campbell, Mohamed Y. Shika, Freddy Hondekindo
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Andrew Tay
Andrew Tay, 1977, Toronto Canada. Multi-hyphenate choreographer, performance curator, dancer and DJ, Andrew’s work seeks to trouble dominant perceptions of power informed by his lived experiences as a queer Filipino Canadian. His work Make Banana Cry (co-authored with Stephen Thompson) questions perceptions of “Asian-ness” in Western culture and has been presented at the Festival TransAmériques (Montreal), Kampnagel (Hamburg), Fierce Festival (UK) and continues to tour internationally. His other works Fame Prayer / EATING (created with Katarzyna Szugajew and François Lalumière), The Magic of Assembly (created with Whacking artist Ashley Colours Perez) and Odd-Sensual have received numerous accolades including the Risk and Innovation Award (Summerworks Toronto) and 5 Dora Mavor award nominations.
Andrew is known for reimagining possibilities within historic dance institutions through his work as the inaugural Artistic Curator of the Centre de Creation O Vertigo (CCOV) Montreal and his current role as Artistic Director of Toronto Dance Theatre (TDT) one of Canada’s oldest contemporary dance companies. In 2022 Andrew was named on the list of “50 under 50 shaping tomorrow” by Concordia University. He actively thinks about community, irreverence and resistance in both his performance and curatorial practices.
Cullberg
Eleanor Campbell
Eleanor Campbell (b. 1985) is originally from Australia. She was drawn to ballet and sports in her youth and began her early dance career working for Australian companies The Queensland Ballet and Dance North. Eleanor traveled to Europe at age 21, landing first in Scotland before studying contemporary dance. After one year at SEAD, Salzburg, she entered the 4-year program at PARTS, Belgium.
After graduating, she worked with theatre directors Mokhallad Rasem and Thomas Ryckewaert and choreographers Peter Savel, Georgia Vardarou, and Albert Quesada. In 2015, Eleanor joined Cullberg and performed in the work of Deborah Hay, Jefta Van Dinter, Eleanor Bauer, Ian Kahler, Alma Söderberg, Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir and Halla Ólafsdóttir. Throughout her time in Cullberg, Eleanor's focus has been on improvisation in performance, group processes, and how somatic practices merge with and support choreographic forms.
Mohamed Y. Shika
Mohamed Saleh (b. 1989), Shika "Mohamed Saleh, known as Shika, is an Egyptian contemporary dancer of Nubian origin. His dance journey blends influences from Nubian folk dances, martial arts, house, and Afro-traditional and contemporary dances studied at Senegal's Ecole des Sables. Inhabiting various worlds and identities intersect, Shika's artistic sensibilities thrive in the fusion of these diverse experiences.
Shika's interest extends beyond dance to different art mediums, such as painting and photography, influenced by the dynamism of his movement. In 2017, Shika was awarded the Pina Bausch fellowship following the work of Nora Chipaumire, where their close collaboration continues to evolve to date. Shika has been dancing with Cullberg since 2018.
Shika's invitation to the Within Practice festival ignited his interest in exploring, through the lens of his own experience, how dancers' roles within companies like Cullberg shape and inform the utilization of the various tools and practices they have developed or been exposed to. Specifically, he's intrigued by the intersection of dance practices and long-term approaches.
Freddy Houndekindo
Freddy Houndekindo (b. 1991), Stockholm, Sweden, is an interdisciplinary artist positioned at the intersection of music, spoken word poetry, dance, film, and performance. His interest in dance originated from street dance, later he studied contemporary dance at the Conservatoire National superior de Musique et de Danse de Lyon (France) and German modern dance at the Folkwang Universität der Künste in Essen (Germany).
Movement Director and Choreographer, Freddy's expertise and interest in multimedia led him to work in a variety of contexts, such as stage work, film, and fashion. A dancer at Cullberg, he joined the ensemble in the autumn of 2018. Freddy's recent project proposes to look at performance practices as sites where ethics and theory could potentially self-actualize into practice.