Stir Cheat Sheet: 5 artists to catch on Granville Island at New Works’ Pop Up Dances Festival

Curator Amber Barton shares all the unique outdoor locations where this year’s dance performances will appear

By Emily Lyth

Josh Cameron (left) and Grace Ritcher. Photo by Kyra Wittkopf

New Works Dance presents Pop Up Dances Festival on September 19 at the Vancouver Public Library’s Central Branch and September 20 and 21 on Granville Island

PERFORMANCES THAT MAGICALLY appear out of nowhere: that’s how New Works program director Amber Barton describes the organization’s annual Pop Up Dances.

Expanded into a festival this year and curated by Barton, the three-day event features dance artists who are truly thinking outside the black box by putting on shows in totally unexpected locations.

Five of the performances will take place on September 20 and 21 across Granville Island. Hosts Madeleine Cruz and Mia Pelayo will lead three free tours per day to all the pop-up spots, kicking things off each time with a duet of their own called Two Girls Collide outside Dundarave Print Workshop. Their concept for the celebratory piece is a pair of women meeting inside a club bathroom and instantly hitting it off.

Speaking to Stir by phone before this year’s Pop Up Dances, Barton says that part of what makes the festival so special is all the unusual performance spots.

“I’m a born and bred Vancouverite—I’ve lived in the Lower Mainland my whole life,” the curator says. “And seeing some of the changes that are happening on Granville Island is so exciting….If the island is always in flux, then there are new spaces. There are new little nooks and crannies that could have potential in terms of just putting on a lovely, random dance where you would never expect a dance performance.”

Elsewhere in the city, if you’re browsing the Vancouver Public Library’s Central Branch around noon on September 19, you just might find flamenco dancer Jhoely Triana performing her solo Arboles (Trees) to live music by Maria Avila, Peter Mole, and Matteo Sampaolo, on the staircase between the eighth and ninth floors. Arrive a bit later, and you could come across Ysadora Dias performing nowHERE Vol. 3 there (choreographed by Amok Project founding artistic director Carol Mendes) to live music by Daniella Gramani. What’s cool about that location in particular, Barton shares, is that you essentially have a 360-degree view of the dancers and musicians.

“Seeing the immense creativity and talent of the artists, it never fails to humble me watching these individuals and what they come up with,” Barton says excitedly.

So, without further ado, here’s a sneak peek at what the rest of the dancers are offering on Granville Island during the fest.

Josh Cameron. Photo by Evan Morash

#1

Josh Cameron

Chain & Forge Plaza

Right underneath the Granville Street Bridge, outside the Chain & Forge building, there’s a recently repurposed plaza that Barton calls a “beautiful new kind of meeting and social space”. It’s there, in the wide-open brick area, with the ambient noise of traffic flowing to and from downtown, that street dancer Josh Cameron will perform a new solo called For on the Floor: LOOP. He’ll be drawing on house dance—a rhythmic freestyle form that emerged from the late-’70s underground club scenes in Chicago and New York City—to show cycles of repetition and change. What can audiences expect from Cameron? As Barton puts it: “Pure, sweet dance moves.”

Rebecca Margolick. Photo by Jingzi Zhao

#2

Rebecca Margolick

The Alley

Rebecca Margolick’s recent performances range from her impactful duet to begin with no end, with Tushrik Fredericks at Dancing on the Edge, to the matriarch-inspired Fortress at the Chuztpah! Festival, with Livona Ellis. On Granville Island, she’ll be performing “Bunker”, an excerpt of a longer solo called Bunker + Vault that urgently expresses some of the generational pressures placed on the female body.

Her performance will crop up in another unique spot. In the middle of Granville Island there’s a tool manufacturing and supply business called Micon Products and, right beside it, a small alleyway that connects Railspur Alley to Cartwright Street. The concrete delivery area there, framed by sheets of corrugated metal, is where Margolick will be. “She’s got a really grounded type of movement,” Barton says of the artist, adding that it wasn’t hard to picture her “dancing up a storm in this alley”.

Sophie Dow. Photo by James Doyle

#3

Sophie Dow

Amphitheatre at Ron Basford Park

Just on the other side of the huge hill at Ron Basford Park, there’s a small glade that overlooks the water, framed by lush cherry-blossom trees. When Barton saw the location, which is called the Amphitheatre, she immediately thought that Métis-Assiniboine dance artist Sophie Dow would be a great match for it because “there’s such a wonderful connection to nature in her work,” the curator says. Dow’s solo waashakaashkawew is rooted in a relationship to the water, rocks, trees, and animals in the park.

Jacalyn Tatro (left) and Eduardo Jiménez Cabrera. Photo by Millisa Martin

#4

Jacalyn Tatro and Eduardo Jiménez Cabrera

Ballet BC

Though these two artists hail from vastly different places—Jacalyn Tatro was born in Illinois, while Eduardo Jiménez Cabrera is Costa Rican—they both bring dynamic style to their roles as Ballet BC company members. This collaboration with New Works shows off the gorgeous Granville Island building that Ballet BC has occupied for the past couple of years. “You can just lift these garage doors, and there’s the studio,” Barton explains, adding: “There’s this cute little green space just kind of tucked away safely off the main road where people can watch them.” Tatro and Jiménez Cabrera will be performing a duet that addresses the varied facets of relationships: passion and intimacy, rage and forgiveness, freedom and consequence.

Kaili Che. Photo by David Cooper

#5

Kaili Che

Granville Island Brewing

Operation: Blueprint is what Kaili Che is calling her new solo, which she’ll perform on a narrow metal staircase around the side of Granville Island Brewing’s building, next to Carousel Theatre for Young People. The brewery is painted a deep shade of blue, as are those industrial steps—and Che is using the colour as a motif in her piece. It will serve as a jumping-off point for playful explorations of movement using tarps, textures, and tones. Plus, hints Barton, there just may be brews waiting inside for viewers 19 and up who finish the tour.  

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