CONTAINER

(20mins)

Container is a work by choreographer and performer Vanessa Goodman that explores heritage, culture and resilience.

"Goodman's solo Container, a version of which she presented earlier this June at the Magnetic North Festival, showcases what an amazing mover she is. Clad in nude-coloured dance semis and what looked like mini combat boots, and combining hyper-kinetic android-like movements with various club grooves, Goodman reminded me at various points of a cross between Priss from Blade Runner and Miley Cyrus--but without the look-at-me twerking, and with a much more gorgeous silhouette. At one point, early on in the piece, Goodman launches into a deep lunge, arching her back in way that had me wishing I could mimic that pose on the beach. Then, too, there is Goodman's innate musicality, as when she pulses her upper body and arms in simple yet hypnotic time to the electronic sound score by Loscil (the Vancouver-based artist Scott Morgan). To go back to that sci-fi connection I made via the Blade Runner reference, Container ends with Goodman dancing in a single, slowly fading spot upstage (the lighting is again by Proudfoot), her upper body raised to the ceiling as if she is about to be transported to another world, one that is big enough to contain her outsized talents."
Peter Dickinson/Performance, Place and Politics (2015)

This work was made possible with generous support from The Shadbolt Centre for the Arts and Small Stage 

Performance History:

Excerpts:

The Canada Dance Festival with Small Stage June 2015, Ottawa ON, Dancing on the Edge Festival July 2015, Vancouver BC, Push Off Feb 2016, Vancouver BC

Full-Length:

The Shadbolt Centre for the Arts March 2016, Burnaby BC, On the Boards June 2016, Seattle USA, Risk Reward Festival June 2016, Portland USA, The Dance made in/Fait au Canada Festival August 2017, Toronto ON, The Bienal Internacional de Dança Do Ceará October 2017, Fortaleza Brazil, Fluid Festival October 2018, Calgary AB, Tanz Bremen, Bremen Germany performed by Andrea Peña

ECHO CHAMBer

(35mins)

Looking at the body as a living archive, "Echo Chamber" explores the residues of past dances. It looks at the body as a container for experience, pleasure, desire and effort. "Echo Chamber" is the newest work from Action at a Distance, created by Vanessa Goodman in collaboration with performing artist Ileanna Cheladyn, with original sound by Loscil and arresting lighting by James Proudfoot. Ileanna transports her audience to a hauntingly beautiful world thick with visceral physicality and full of soft, tender vulnerability.

Premiered Nov 20/21, 2022 at the Chutzpah Festival