NW Spotlight | New Works Artist Support Programs Go International
New Works Spotlight
A look inside our multifaceted, value-driven, community-responsive service organization
New Works delivers many unique programs, in many different ways, in support of many communities of artists. If you’ve ever asked a New Works staff member, “so, what does New Works do exactly?”, you’ve likely been met with a rambling run on sentence and a laundry list of exciting programs and projects that we have on the go. Up close it may look a little messy, but take a step back and you will see the container: all of our work exists in response to current gaps in the needs of the dance community. This looks like performance opportunities, partnership and collaboration, professional development, teaching engagements, mentorship, skills training, and many more. And we are just one small piece of this vitally diverse dance milieu.
We envision a healthy artist-centred arts ecosystem where connection, collaboration, and opportunity is celebrated beyond the container of our own organization. Through this ongoing blog series, we invite you to join us in witnessing artist experience through and beyond New Works programs, and in celebration of our living, breathing, shared communities.
New Works Artist Support Programs Go International
Insights into France-Canada creative exchange from dance artist Alyssa (Lyzah) Favero
By: Alyssa (Lyzah) Favero
Since 2022, New Works has been supporting an international artistic collaboration project, initiated by Compagnie KHOR/Khoudia Touré (France/Senegal) with Out Innerspace Dance Theatre (Vancouver). Vancouver-based Alyssa (Lyzah) Favero shares their experience as a dance artist engaged in the most recent phase of this project – December, 2024.
As I write this article, I’m on a plane flying back to Vancouver from Paris, after a transformative experience working on Óró with Compagnie KHOR and Khoudia Toure. Whoa. I really just did that—spent a month working in France for dance, performing for the first time in a full-length international show. Gratitude – as I reflect on how Khoudia believed in us, in me.
A mother tree type of creator, Khoudia spreads her roots, sharing the networking of creation, production, and facilitation with everyone around her. Based out of Dakar, Senegal and Paris, France, everywhere Khoudia goes, she brings humility, hard work, and the essence of street/club dance. Her capacity for empathy, sensitivity and sharing her love of dance inspires people across generations and backgrounds.
Creative exchanges with non-dancers are a core part of her company, Compagnie KHOR, which centres untold stories to create work that resonates with audiences beyond the professional arts community. I saw the result of how her work connects to people reflected in the smiles of workshop participants and the diverse demographics of families in the audience.
I first met Khoudia in so-called Vancouver in 2018 while studying at Modus Operandi (MO). Instantly, I knew she was powerful. She brought ease and warmth into the process of cyphering, sharing the energy of house dance in a studio setting and leaving us vibrating with joy. At that time, she was a mentee of Crystal Pite through the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.
I recently asked Khoudia about three pivotal moments in her career, and her mentorship with Crystal stood out as a highlight, one that continues to resonate within her body and practice today.
Óró is a full-length performance created by Khoudia Touré in collaboration with dancers from Senegal, France, and so-called Canada. Featuring original music composition by Julien Villa and lighting design by Quentin Pallier and Judith Leray, the show exists in multiple versions. The finished trio version, performed by Khoudia, Rayan Amu, and Sada Diop, premiered in Spring 2024. The process for Óró began in January 2022 with a seed grant from the Rolex Mentoring Program, enabling Khoudia to start her first residency in Gandiole, a small town in the North of Senegal. There, she held workshops with young adults in Dakar and began conceptualizing a project spanning the globe. Khoudia is a dreamer but also an action-oriented leader. Through her, I’ve learned that seemingly impossible is possible. That through the action of starting and doing you realize what is possible. This spirit filters through her work, reflected in the final image of Óró, where hope and empowerment radiate through the dancers and sound.
Vancouver 2022 Residency Photo by: © Julian Hunt
I joined the Óró project in 2022, along with eight other emerging dancers from contemporary and street/club dance backgrounds, during my final year at MO. Khoudia invited us to form the Vancouver lab group, working with us for a total of four weeks of residency at Q7 Studios. This phase of the project was supported by Out Innerspace with International Co-production funding from the Canada Council for the Arts. It explored themes of the shadow—within the individual, the collective, and our community. From insights shared by the French labo dancers, I learned that sections of the show were explored in different parts of the world: in Paris, Khoudia worked with five emerging dancers, focusing on empowerment, and in Dakar, with nine dancers, exploring projections of hope into the future. Our Vancouver research process not only included creating dynamic movement phrases but collaging, writing monologues, recording sound cyphers, and freestyling often. When I arrived in France in November, it felt surreal to witness the show: seeing Sada perform choreography I helped create, hearing my friends’ voices in the sound score, and experiencing how our research evolved into a creation that deeply moved me as a viewer.
Each research lab conducted by Khoudia and Compagnie KHOR integrated outreach within the local communities. For Khoudia, these workshops are not about teaching but a mutual learning process of exchange. During the Vancouver research phase, I helped co-facilitate a workshop through New Work’s Share Dance program at Rainbow Refugee, where we shared Óró repertoire and street/club dance practices. Though, I think the deeper outreach occurred in 2023, thanks to support from structures in Senegal and France. While in residence at Théâtre Louis Aragon, Khoudia and the French labo dancers worked with two groups: young adults who immigrated to France and were learning the language, and young men in a prison setting. Similarly, in Senegal, Compagnie KHOR led workshops in a children’s prison. Hearing about these workshops left a big impact on me, especially the story of a child who repeatedly performed a Krump move of throwing something out of his head—an image that now lives within Óró. When I performed this movement with fourteen others on stage, I couldn’t stop thinking about where it came from.
Vancouver 2022 Residency, Photo by: © Jessica Han | "Construire Ensemble" Résidence, Nov 24. Photos by: Théâtre de Corbeil-Essonnes, Grand Paris Sud
FRANCE EXCHANGE
During my first two weeks of the project, I had the incredible opportunity to shadow Khoudia as a choreographer, facilitator, and self-producer, supported by a British Columbia Arts Council professional development grant. Time and again, Khoudia and I were in awe at how aligned this mentorship felt with our curiosities and ambitions. Inspired by her and my current artistic practice, I aim to create a full-length performance that incorporates outreach in the research process, street/club dance—specifically whacking—and going back to motherlands.
In the final two weeks, I transitioned into the role of interpreter, what a time of leveling up and inspiration it has been. With the grant support of OFQJ’s programme “Odyssart 2024”, six of the Vancouver labo dancers joined us for a residency at Théâtre de Corbeil-Essonnes, supported by a passionate team led by Vanina Sopsaisana where each staff member had a clear deep love for dance and community. Meeting the French labo dancers and collaborating with some Senegalese dancers felt like a convergence of worlds. A rigorous, joyful and special experience. Khoudia also encouraged us to explore France, and Paris filled my cup with wh/acking classes, an abundance of bread, and powerhouse street/club dance performances in beautiful theatres. Many of us from the Vancouver labo are leaving France feeling full.
This experience was beyond anything I’d ever imagined for myself. Now, I dare to manifest experiences I have yet to dream of. For Khoudia, it would be a dream to unite all the “Vancouver”, French, and Senegalese labo dancers in person. For me, there is a dream to bring this powerful show to “Vancouver" and across “Canada.” Perhaps it will happen one day. With Khoudia as a leader, I am reminded that an empathetic, free, and joyful world is possible.
— Alyssa (Lyzah) Favero
About Alyssa Favero
Alyssa / Lyzah is a transient being who navigates the world with fluidity, curiosity, and love. They are an experimental dance artist, choreographing, performing, and facilitating primarily in so-called Vancouver and so-called Montreal. As an interpreter, Lyzah collaborates with choreographers across street dance and contemporary creation, including We All Fall Down (Montreal), Khoudia Touré (Senegal), and Alyssa Amarshi. Other career highlights include facilitation mentorship with All Bodies Dance Project, performing their self-choreographed solo Vibrate locally and internationally, and premiering Gigil at Morrow during Asian Heritage Month.
About Khoudia Touré
Khoudia Touré, a Senegalese choreographer and performer, discovered her passion for street dance in childhood. Trained in Modern Jazz, she expanded her expertise in Hip Hop and House Dance by training in France and the USA with pioneering artists of HipHop and HouseDance styles. Returning to Senegal in 2012, she co-founded “Sunu Street,” an EU-funded project empowering young Senegalese street dancers. Since 2017, she has been a core member of Dakar-based Compagnie La Mer Noire, whose work has toured internationally. As a Rolex Arts Initiative Protégée under Crystal Pite, Khoudia created her first solo work, “When the Night Comes,” highlighting her artistic evolution. She founded her own dance company, Compagnie KHOR in 2023,which produces her dance projects and her latest piece: Óró.
Learn more about Khoudia>>
Compagnie KHOR would like to thank Out Innerspace, New Works and Belsher Arts Management for their ongoing support of this project.
Top Photo: "Construire Ensemble" Résidence, Nov 24. Photos by: Théâtre de Corbeil-Essonnes, Grand Paris Sud