Pop Up Dances: World Poetry Day at the VPL – March 18, 2018

POP UP DANCES AT THE VANCOUVER PUBLIC LIBRARY

Sunday, March 18, 2018
Event begins at 1:00 pm at the VPL Inspiration Lab (3rd floor)
Vancouver Public Library Central Branch, 350 W Georgia St, Vancouver, BC

In partnership with the Vancouver Public Library, Pop Up Dances will be celebrating dance and poetry at the VPL’s downtown central branch, featuring some of Vancouver’s most exciting literary and performance artists. For this series, New Works commissions artists to create short pieces for site-specific settings around public spaces, creating unique settings for audiences to experience dance in a non-traditional setting, unexpected places, and with a fresh perspective.

PERFORMANCE TIMES & LOCATIONS

1:05 PM, Inspiration Lab (3rd Floor): Julie Peters & Olivia C. Davies
1:30 PM, Promenade (2nd Floor): Project Soul – Rupert Common & Victor Tran
1:45 PM, Alice Mackay Room (1st Floor): Rabbit Richards & Jennifer Mcleish-Lewis

 ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Julie Peters & Olivia C. Davies

Julie Peters is a writer and yoga teacher in Vancouver, B.C. She has represented Vancouver twice at the Women of the World Poetry Slam and was part of the 2012 Vancouver Poetry Slam Team. She is the author of the book Secrets of the Eternal Moon Phase Goddesses: Meditations on Desire, Relationships, and the Art of Being Broken

Olivia C. Davies is a Canadian artist, working across choreography and community-activated art, exploring the emotional and political relationships between people and places. Davies’ work traverses boundaries and challenges social prejudice, conveying concepts and narratives with pieces and workshops that open different ways to see and experience the world.

Project Soul:Rupert Common
& Victor “Savage Rock” Tran

Project Soul is a crew of street dancers from Vancouver, BC that have come together to share their passions with each other and with as many communities as they can.

Rupert Common is an interdisciplinary artist and facilitator from Turtle Island, where he lives on un-ceded, Coast Salish Territory (Vancouver, B.C., Canada), and lives a freelance lifestyle devoted to art and culture. He studies and trains in street-dance, rap, improvisation, music theory, guitar, piano and voice. His background in English literature, theatre, comedy and improv inform his approach to stage and street performance.

Victor “Savage Rock” Tran is an accomplished professional dancer, choreographer, and teacher who continues to compete and perform across the globe independently and as part of Project Soul.

Rabbit Richards
& Jennifer McLeish-Lewis

Rabbit Richards is a New York born, Vancouver-base, performance poet and a story teller at heart. Her stories and poetry blend the politics of race, love and gender with the emotional grounding of lived experience. She is a member of the Kalmunity Vibe Collective and a practiced improv artist. Richards is also the two time captain of Montreal’s Throw Poetry Collective and the 2015 winner of the Underground Indies poetry slam.

Jennifer McLeish-Lewis is a dance artist who performs, choreographs, and teaches. Jennifer trained across Canada at The Alberta Ballet School, The School of Toronto Dance Theatre and MainDance in Vancouver. As a dancer, she has performed in Canada, the United States, and Europe. She worked for MACHiNENOiSY and Marta Marta Productions from 2002-2012 as a dancer. As a choreographer, Jennifer’s work has been presented by The Dance Centre, Dancing on the Edge, OFF VIDF, DIY at Dance in Vancouver, The Seattle International Dance Festival, Short and Sweet in Montreal, Crimson Coast in Nanaimo, and Lucky Trimmer in Berlin. Her choreography has been supported by BC Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts and was recently awarded the full grant amount in both for her new Dance on Screen project, directed by Lynne Stopkewich.