Presented in partnership with CMHC Granville Island
All Over The Map 2025
Feat. Vidya Kotamraju, Shay Dior and Maiden China, Salomé Nieto of Kokoro Dance, Ry and Reed Jackson, Sudhesna Mohapatra, Judith Colibri, Punit, Ysadora Dias.
July 20 & August 17, 2025
Picnic Pavilion, Granville Island
FREE
New Works proudly presents All Over the Map 2025, a free series of outdoor dance and music performances taking place on Granville Island this summer! This season we are proud to feature eight artists and groups over four performances which will take over the Granville Island Picnic Pavilion on Sunday, July 20, and Sunday, August 17, 2025. Performances will take place at 1pm and 3pm, and audiences of all ages are welcome.
Sunday, July 20 at 1pm & 3pm
Picnic Pavilion, Granville Island (next to the bridge on Old Bridge Walk footpath)
Performances by Vidya Kotamraju, Shay Dior and Maiden China, Salomé Nieto of Kokoro Dance, Ry and Reed Jackson
Vidya Kotamraju
Artist Bio
Vidya Kotamraju is a South Asian dance artist, emerging choreographer, and educator based on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations (Vancouver). She is the founder of House of Indian Dance, a platform for teaching and developing culturally rooted movement practice. Her choreography reimagines Bharata Natyam for contemporary audiences, blending classical rigor with global music, storytelling, and emotionally charged performance.
Vidya’s work explores themes of identity, migration, and resilience, creating vivid journeys that bridge tradition and innovation. Her performances have been featured at the Vancouver International Dance Festival, Diwali in BC, Namaste Canada, and The Dance Centre’s Silk Route Festival, among others. She has been an Artist-in-Residence at The Dance Centre and is a recipient of the Shade of Hope Award. She is rooted in training under Jai Govinda (Canada), Bragha Bessell (India), and Sheila Kumar (India). www.vidyadance.com
// photo by: Stephanie Cragg
About the work
WIND (excerpt from Maktub: Ashes To WIND (excerpt from Maktub: Ashes To Alchemy)
A solo dance work by Vidya Kotamraju, WIND is a kinetic passage through unseen forces - a breath between resistance and surrender.
Blending the Indian classical dance form of Bharatanatyam and its contemporary expressions with global music, and voice, this evocative excerpt draws from Maktub: Ashes to Alchemy, inspired by The Alchemist and the lived realities of displacement.
Presented as part of New Works’ All Over the Map, WIND offers a glimpse of a larger journey of Maktub: Ashes to Alchemy, which continues into the 2026 season at Kelowna’s Rotary Centre for the Arts as part of the RCA Presents Series. Future opportunities to share the full work in Vancouver are currently being explored.
Ry and Reed Jackson
Artist Bio
Ry and Reed are real life siblings and artists based on unceded, ancestral, and occupied xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ lands. Their practices span dance, film, song, sound, and eco-printing. Together, they have been known to clown around or even make a mean salad. They are excited about exploring art as means to connect to humanity, the more-than-human, and all the grey areas in between. Stump is their first live performance collaboration together.
About the work
Stump is a movement and sonic ritual – a compost heap of sounds, selves, landscapes, and critters. In this work, we encounter Stump and Reed. Together these beings invoke a river of transformation – a current at once braced against, and surrendered to. In this seesaw of silly and serious, the performers construct a container to witness and grieve, a place to become and unbecome together.
Salomé Nieto of Kokoro Dance
Artist Bio
Kokoro Dance, founded in 1986, creates deeply evocative performances inspired by butoh and rooted in the fusion of Eastern and Western aesthetics. With works spanning proscenium stages, site-specific locations, and international tours, Kokoro Dance redefines Canadian culture through cross-cultural and multidisciplinary collaboration. The company acknowledges its work takes place on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Coast Salish Peoples.
Barbara Bourget, Kokoro Dance’s Artistic Director and a pioneer of butoh in Canada, brings over four decades of choreographic innovation. Her emotionally charged work reflects a deep commitment to feminist perspectives and the exploration of human experience. A co-founder of both Kokoro Dance and the Vancouver International Dance Festival, Barbara continues to inspire and mentor generations of artists.
Salome Nieto, Kokoro Dance's Associate Artistic Director, is a Mexican-born Vancouver-based dance artist whose work draws on butoh, ritual, and intersectional feminism. A long-time collaborator with Kokoro Dance, she brings a rich blend of cultural and artistic practices to her solo and ensemble performances. Her contributions have been recognized across Canada and internationally, earning her awards and acclaim for her transformative presence on stage. // Tonya NG
About the work
BLOOD AND TEARS
Kokoro Dance's Artistic Director Barbara Bourget and Associate Artistic Director Salomé Nieto are collaborating to create a new 40-minute duet, Blood and Tears, rooted in an improvisational score. This partnership honors their thirty-year relationship, founded on deep admiration, mutual respect, care for one another, and a shared love for dance. Together, they convey their experiences of love, loss, and hope as women, mothers, sisters, and artists, emphasizing the remarkable strength of women and their essential qualities: loving, kind, nurturing, sensual, and powerful.
Barbara and Salomé’s collaborative journey has ignited profound reflections on the themes of legacy and embodied memory, emphasizing that a choreographer's true legacy endures through the transmission of dance creation to dancers' bodies. This 12-minute solo excerpt of the duet is a powerful testament to the lasting relationship between the two artists. This connection is made evident in Nieto's unique and emotional movement choices that resonate deeply with the imagery and vocabulary established with Bourget in the score. The performance invites the audience to witness the seamless interplay of past influences and present expression, creating a vivid tapestry of movement that honors her mentor's influence and Nieto's expression.
Credits for the piece:
Choreography: Barbara Bourget in collaboration with Salome Nieto
Performance: Salome Nieto
Rehearsal Director: Jay Hirabayashi
Music: Michael Stearns, Rivers of Rhythm and Vicki’s Dance from the album Collected Ambient & Textual Works (1977-1987)
Costume: Kokoro Dance
Shay Dior and Maiden China
Artist Bio
The House of Rice is an all-Asian collective of interdisciplinary drag artists with a shared goal of creating pieces that challenge societal expectations by merging traditional cultural references with contemporary lifestyles of queer Asian artists. Before this drag family was established, Shay Dior and Maiden China were making their mark across the city as the Mother-Daughter Duo, cultural icons, and inspirational leaders in queer Asian advocacy. From local queer bars to concert stages such as The Commodore, these two illustrious artists were already representing various intersectional identities of culture and sexuality through live drag performances. Their incredible work in performance and art garnered attention beyond the community as the House of Rice became the subject of published articles and multiple documentaries featuring Shay Dior in CBC's Canada's A Drag and Maiden China in Love Intersection's Yellow Peril: Queer Destiny. // Photos by Queer Based Media
About the work
Sleeves From The Vine is a new performance piece that presents contemporary drag alongside traditional Chinese water sleeve choreography. Shay Dior and Maiden China learn Chinese water sleeve dancing to explore themes of community and spiritual healing. The soft and fluid nature of water sleeves is juxtaposed with a lipsync performance depicting expressions of communal grief, loss, and anger in a violent world with an uncertain future. Shay Dior and Maiden China aim to embody the intersections of cultural heritage and queerness through Sleeves From The Vine.
Sunday, August 17 at 1pm & 3pm
Picnic Pavilion, Granville Island (next to the bridge on Old Bridge Walk footpath)
Performances by Sudhesna Mohapatra, Judith Colibri, Punit, Ysadora Dias.
Sudhesna Mohapatra
Artist Bio
Sudhesna is an Odissi dance artist with over a decade of performance experience. Her journey with Odissi began in 1990 at the Odissi Research Center in Bhubaneswar, India, where she was introduced to the depth and discipline of this classical art form. She later completed her Visharad certification in Odissi through Pracheen Kala Kendra, further grounding her in the rich tradition and technical mastery of the style.Dedicated to lifelong learning, Sudhesna continues her advanced training under various gurus while transitioning as an independent artist and collaborator with other artistic forms in Canada. She enjoys performing pieces that reflect both the grace and spiritual depth that define Odissi, while her passion lies in sharing its timeless stories with audiences across cultures. In recent years, Sudhesna has brought her art to Vancouver’s diverse cultural landscape, performing at a variety of community events and festivals. Through each performance, she aims to celebrate and preserve the beauty of Indian classical dance while fostering cross-cultural connection. // Photos by KJO Photography
About the work
Naba Durga is a captivating Odissi dance performance that celebrates the nine forms of Divine Mother – Goddess Durga — each symbolizing an aspect of feminine power: protection, nurture, creation, destruction, and transcendence. Rooted in the ancient temples of India, Odissi is known for its sculpture-like postures, fluid movements, and deep spiritual expression. Inspired by the sacred verses of Maharshi Vyasa, through graceful yet powerful choreography and abhinaya (expressive storytelling), the dancer embodies Durga’s dual essence — the fierce warrior and compassionate mother — reflecting the universal cosmic balance of masculine and feminine energies with strength and grace. Signature Odissi poses like tribhangi (three-body-bend) and chauka (square stance) add depth to the performance, while rhythmic footwork and gestures bring the Goddess many forms to life. Naba Durga is more than a performance; it is a moving invocation of the eternal feminine, inviting audiences to experience the divine energy that protects, transforms, and nurtures life in all its forms.
Punit & James
Artist Bio
Punit is a Surrey-based Indo-Canadian dance-theatre artist whose practice blends contemporary and street dance with voice and narrative, exploring themes like masculinity, identity and existence. He has collaborated with artists and companies such as Deanna Peters (Mutable Subject), Marissa Wong (The Falling Company), and Arash Khakpour.
James is a UK-based dance artist, known for his cross-disciplinary work spanning contemporary theatre, commercial film, and live performance, with credits including Akram Khan, Trashdollys, FKA Twigs, and 'Black is King'. A former member of NYDC and graduate of NSCD, James brings a movement language shaped by global hip hop scenes, companies like Peeping Tom, and theatrical physicality.
Rooted in improvisation, curiosity, and embodied narrative, their partnership reflects a shared commitment to vulnerability, identity, and creation.
Punit photo by Carla Alcantara, 2024.
About the work
“Loitering” is a duet rooted in improvisation, where movement becomes an act of lingering, unrushed, curious, and open. Drawing from both street and contemporary vocabularies, the work meanders through space with grounded gestures and playful partnering that unfolds like conversation. Sometimes aimless, sometimes precise. Loitering here is not idle, but intentional: a quiet resistance to productivity, a reclaiming of public space without justification. Beneath its casual exterior, the piece pulses with existential wonder. What emerges when we pause without purpose?
Judith Colibri
Artist Bio
Judith Colibrí is a multidisciplinary artist and activist originally from Mexico. Her work weaves together reflection on social and environmental issues, audience engagement, and the healing potential of art as a catalyst for personal and collective transformation. She currently collaborates with the Indigenous dance activist group Butterflies in Spirit and the 2 Rivers Remix Indigenous Music Festival. Judith also facilitates therapeutic dance sessions as a means of healing and community rebuilding for two groups of women who have experienced abuse or are in vulnerable situations. // Photo by Shelanne Justice Photography
About the work
ROOTS is a short piece from a larger work in progress—an embodied journey into the search for connection and a deeper investigation of my ancestral roots. Blending traditional dances with contemporary movement, this choreography emerges from a desire to reconnect with nature and to reclaim the wisdom inherited from our origins. It is an offering to the Earth and a call to remember who we are, seeking balance and harmony within ourselves and with the world around us.
Music: Tradicional Songs
Deer Head: Judith Colibrí
Song live: Tradicional nahuatl song "Tonanzin"
Ysadora Dias
Artist Bio
Ysadora Dias (she/ela) is an emerging artist based in so-called Vancouver, drawing her creative spark from improvisation and deeply inspired by her Brazilian roots and culture. Since moving to Vancouver, she has collaborated with many artists and performed with Coastal City Ballet, Amok Project, Co. Erasga, MascallDance, Inverso Productions, Raven Spirit Dance.
As she explores her artistic voice, Ysa has developed a strong interest in interdisciplinary work, driven by her curiosity about the relationship between movement and sound. She is fascinated by how improvisation brings both dance and music to life, fostering a profound sense of presence and connection. // Photos by Carla Alcantara
About the work
Raiz is a piece that intertwines contemporary movement with the rhythmic traditions of Capoeira, drumming, and singing. This dance solo is rooted in afro-brazilian ancestry, self-discovery, and resilience.
A relationship between sound and body: the dance becomes a voice and the movement shapes the drums into an atmosphere that unfolds through grace and strength, stillness and energy.
choreography and performance: Ysadora Dias
original music composition: Jean David Muco
Work created with the support of Dance West's Recentering Margins Residency 2024.
Presented with
Top photo L-R: Sudhesna Mohapatra, by KJO Photography | Judith Colibrí, by Shelanne Justice Photography | Shay Dior & Maiden China , by Queer Based Media | Salomé Nieto – Tonya NG.