From contortion to krumping, OUROFEST shines a spotlight on form-pushing street dance
OURO Collective’s second annual festival features mainstage performances at Massey Theatre by the likes of TARANTISM and RubberLegz
Vasiliki Papapostolou, a.k.a. TARANTISM
RubberLegz and Matt Luck. Photo by Harrison Glazier
OURO Collective presents OUROFEST mainstage offerings at Massey Theatre on November 14 and 15
DESPITE WHAT ITS NAME may imply, street dance isn’t confined to the sidewalks anymore. Over the last decade, more and more artists have been pushing the bounds of the form’s original styles and settings, paying homage to its roots in underrepresented communities while bringing it to the mainstage for all to see.
One group that’s putting its twist on street dance is Vancouver’s own OURO Collective, which was co-founded in 2014 by current dancer and managing director Cristina Bucci, dancer and outreach coordinator Rina Pellerin, and past members Maiko Miyauchi, Dean Placzek, and Mark Sille. Bucci and Pellerin were the minds behind last year’s OUROFEST, a celebration of the company’s 10th anniversary. The street dance festival highlighted trailblazing artists, both local and international, who are working across styles.
Now, OUROFEST is back for another edition. Much of the second annual festival is taking place at the Massey Theatre, with two evenings of mainstage performances on November 14 and 15.
“I’m really excited for people to see street dance in a different light,” Pellerin says. “We’ve been doing it since 2014—and there aren’t many companies working with street dance as their main focus in B.C., so it’s going to be great to have audiences see different perspectives of that and show how accessible it can be without being a child-friendly, instructional, or educational show, which is usually what we see with street dance.”
OURO Collective’s own Bucci is showcasing a work-in-progress on night one of the fest, called Project Inizi. The group piece bridges movement backgrounds by featuring a cast of seven predominantly contemporary-trained dancers who have learned locking techniques from Bucci.
That same evening, OUROFEST will host Greece’s Vasiliki Papapostolou, the multidisciplinary artist also known as TARANTISM. Ranging from physical theatre and street dance to Latin and ballroom, Papapostolou works in a variety of mediums to tell captivating stories onstage. Here, she’ll perform her internationally acclaimed solo Panopticon for the first time in Canada, after touring with it all over Europe and the U.S. The innovative piece draws on the concept of the panopticon, an architectural design for a prison that allows a single guard to keep all the inmates under constant surveillance, without them knowing whether they’re being watched. Papapostolou’s red-painted hands act as the guard by policing the movements made by the rest of her body, which is outfitted in a black cloak.
Elsewhere on night one, Vancouver-based dancer Joanne Park, a youth recipient of an Ouro Collective open call, will bring a work for four artists to the stage. It draws on a variety of street-dance styles, including popping, waving, waacking, and krumping, to touch on learning to be comfortable in one’s own skin.
Lewen Han, another youth artist who was chosen through an open call, will perform on night two. But while OUROFEST will showcase these young artists, Pellerin also acknowledges that the form typically sees folks starting later in life, compared with other dance styles.
“A lot of open calls are catered to youth under 35, or youth under 25, and that’s just not reflective of what our climate is in street dance,” Pellerin says. “And I think this is very important to stress: there’s no age limit in street dance for emerging artists. And our programming will definitely showcase that.”
Local industry trailblazers Casual Gay Funk, a duo composed of friends Clarence Tang and Antonio Somera Jr., were also open-call recipients. Pellerin describes the pair’s style as unapologetic and campy. They focus mainly on waacking, paying homage to its 2SLGBTQIA+ roots in the 1970s underground club scene in L.A.
“They haven’t performed in a really long time, so I was thrilled when they applied,” Pellerin says of the dancers, who’ll take the stage on night two.
Another highlight that evening will be German-born, L.A.-based B-boy RubberLegz, who’ll be performing an electrifying duo called Vulcano with Matt Luck. RubberLegz, whose full name is Rauf Yasit, is an icon on the street-dance scene who’s capable of contorting his body into crazy positions. He recently collaborated with OURO Collective on the climate change–centred dance film 7y98D.
RubberLegz will also host a master class with TARANTISM at Q7 Studios on November 16. Elsewhere at OUROFEST, there’ll be an opening social event at KW Studios on November 13, featuring SoulFunk Collective and exhibition dance battles; plus professional development workshops for dancers—which will cover administration, finance, and nutrition—on November 17.
With this year’s festival shaping up to be an epic display of the unlimited possibilities street dance has to offer, OURO Collective plans to build on this momentum for upcoming editions of the bash.
As Pellerin puts it: “I feel like this is the right direction for us—having international guests, and having it on a big stage, and giving street dance the platform it so desperately needs to grow in whatever shape the artists want.” 
Related Articles
