Photo by: David Cooper
WAIL
Created and Directed by Action at a Distance/Vanessa Goodman
In collaboration with the performing artists: Anya Saugstad, Shion Skye Carter, Ry Jackson, Hayley Gawthrop and Allison Lang
Also created in collaboration with Marisa Gold and our incredible swing Natalia Martineau
Lighting Design: James Proudfoot
Sonic Mentor: Brady Marks
Dramaturgy: Fay Nass
Lighting/Audio/Technical Director: Jack Chipman
Audio technican: Eric Chad
Backdrop Designer: Ben Didier
Artistic Producer: Hilary Maxwell
Co-presented by PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, Music on Main and The Dance Centre
Commissioning partner Music on Main
Created with generous support from The Dance Centre and The Canada Council for the Arts.
Action at a Distance and Vanessa extend their deepest gratitude to the entire creative Marisa Gold and Eoywnn Enquist team for their dedication, care, and commitment throughout this process. We would also like to thank Gail Lotenberg, Raquel Alvaro, Mirna Zagar, Gabrielle Martin, David Pay, David Cooper, and all of the team members at Music on Main, PuSh, and The Dance Centre for their invaluable support in bringing WAIL to the stage—it truly takes a village. Finally, heartfelt thanks to Justine, Caroline, Danni, Ralph, Hilary, and Ben for their generous feedback and encouragement.
Company Bio:
Action at a Distance Dance Society is a West Coast-based contemporary dance company creating on the stolen ancestral and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples, including the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō, səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations. Directed by choreographer Vanessa Goodman, the company is internationally recognized for creating immersive, research-driven performance works that investigate intimacy, perception, and the human condition through embodied and sensorial practices.
Since Goodman assumed artistic leadership in 2015, Action at a Distance has built a robust international touring history, with works presented by major festivals, producing organizations, and cultural institutions across Canada, the United States, Europe and South America. Presentations in Canada include PuSh Performing Arts Festival, DanceHouse, SFU Woodwards, Music on Main, The Firehall Arts Centre, The Dance Centre, The Chutzpah! Festival, The Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, SummerWorks (Toronto), BC Movement Arts (North Vancouver Island), Crimson Coast (Nanaimo), Arts Spring (Salt Spring Island), The Living Things Festival (Kelowna), Fluid Festival (Calgary), The Brian Webb Dance Company (Edmonton), La Rotonde (Québec City), The MAI (Montréal), CINARS official programming, Kinetic Studio (Halifax), and The Dance Made in Canada Festival (Toronto).
Internationally, the company’s work has been presented by On the Boards and the Seattle Symphony (Seattle), Risk/Reward Festival and Third Angle (Portland), Offset Dance Fest (Brooklyn), Estrogenius Festival (New York), Celebrity Series (Boston), Switch Lab (Bucharest), L1 Festival (Budapest), Moving Balkans (Zagreb), BioFriction/FACTT (Lisbon), Fabrik Potsdam, Tanz Bremen and Tanzmesse NRW (Germany), Spellbound Orbita (Italy), the National Centre of Dance (CNDB) and Stere Popescu Hall (Romania), Vitlycke Centre for the Performing Arts (Sweden), Antistatic International Festival for Contemporary Dance and Performance (Bulgaria), FIDCDMX (Mexico City), and the Bienal Internacional de Dança do Ceará (Brazil).
Action at a Distance creates immersive choreographic environments that integrate movement, sound, and visual design through generative systems. The company’s work prioritizes sensorial engagement and relational encounter, positioning performance as a shared act in which audiences actively shape meaning across diverse architectural and cultural contexts.
The company is distinguished by long-term artistic collaborations with internationally renowned artists including composer Caroline Shaw (USA), lighting designer James Proudfoot, multidisciplinary artist Brady Marks, choreographer Simona Deaconescu (Romania), and composer and sound artist Scott Morgan (Loscil).
Action at a Distance has been artist-in-residence at The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Cutivamos Cultura/BioFriction (Portugal), Harbourfront Centre, Dance Victoria, The Dance Centre, and The Shadbolt Centre. Under Goodman’s leadership—recognized with honours including the Isadora Award, The Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award, and multiple Chrystal Dance Prizes. www.actionatadistance.ca
Vanessa Goodman acknowledges that she lives, works, and creates on the stolen, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples, including the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō, Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Simon Fraser University and is the Artistic Director of Action at a Distance Dance Society. Goodman’s early training includes studies with Laurie Raymond, Gabby Kamino, and CCDT. As a performer, she has collaborated with a wide range of contemporary artists and companies, including Judith Garay, Evann Siebens, Justine A. Chambers, Julia Sasso, plastic orchid factory, and Mascall Dance, among others. Her choreographic practice is drawn to work that carries resonance beyond the aesthetic, using choreography as a site for investigating liminal states within the human condition. She weaves generative movement, sonic embodiment, and spatial sensitivity to create immersive performative environments that foreground intimacy, perception, and presence. Goodman’s work has toured extensively throughout Canada, the United States, Europe, and South America, and has been recognized with numerous awards and honours, including The Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award (2013), The Yulanda M. Faris Scholarship (2017/18), The Chrystal Dance Prize (2019 & 2024), the Schultz Endowment from the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (2019), and the Isadora Award (2025). She was also a participant in the international Space to Fail program (2019/20). Her practice is sustained through long-term artistic collaborations, including Graveyards and Gardens with Caroline Shaw, BLOT with Simona Deaconescu, and multiple works with Loscil (Scott Morgan), Brady Marks, and James Proudfoot.
Fay Nass is an Iranian-Canadian director, dramaturg, and interdisciplinary artist working across theatre, film, installation, dance and community-engaged performance. For over 20 years, Nass has created hybrid works that explore language, diaspora, queerness, and memory, often blurring the boundaries between performance, exhibition, and social practice. Their directing approach is rooted in collaborative dramaturgy and research-creation, centering experimentation, intimacy, and political inquiry. Nass is the Founder and Artistic Director of Aphotic Theatre and Executive Artistic Director of frank theatre company, where they have led nationally and internationally presented projects. Their work has been developed and presented with organizations and festivals including PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, SummerWorks, The Cultch, SFU School for the Contemporary Arts, Hamburg International Film Festival and Madrid International Film Festival.
Ben Didier is an independent graphic designer, illustrator and art director. He specializes in branding, packaging, and print projects, with a focus on illustration, typography, and custom lettering. From 2010–14, he worked in-house for CBC, where he cut his teeth with daily lettering experiments as the primary designer for CBC Radio 3. An avid cyclist, rain or shine, he overcompensates for a lifetime of cold Canadian winters by swimming in as many lakes and rivers as humanly possible each summer. https://prettyugly.ca/
Brady Marks is a digital media artist working primarily in audiovisual practices, new media and kinetic art. She has collaborated with Geoffrey Farmer on seven works, including “And Finally The Street Becomes The Main Character (Clock)” (2005–2008), a sculptural installation with computer-generated sound presented and acquired by the Art Gallery of Ontario; and “Let’s Make the Water Turn Black” (2013–15), a 24-hour computer-generated installation composed of 50 light fixtures, 26 audio speakers and 18 synchronized, animatronic sculptures presented at REDCAT (Los Angeles), Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst (Zurich), Nottingham Contemporary (UK), Kunstverein (Hamburg), Pérez Art Museum (Miami) and the Vancouver Art Gallery.
James Proudfoot is a lighting designer based in Vancouver, Canada.From Edinburgh, Scotland, where he received his initial theatre training has been living in Vancouver since 1993. After establishing a busy freelance career designing lighting he was Resident Lighting Designer / Lighting Director for Ballet British Columbia under the Artistic Director Emily Molnar from 2014 to 2021 designing 20+ pieces and touring nationally and internationally with the company. Specialising in the realm of dance lighting, James has contributed designs for dance works to many companies, including: NDT 2, Lola Dance, Company 605, Sarah Chase, Co. Erasga, Wen Wei Dance, Joe Ink, EDAM, The Contingency Plan, battery opera, Kinesis Dance, Ballet BC, Move The Company, Restless Productions, Jeanette Kotowich, Dance Novella, Holy Body Tattoo, Gothenburg Opera Dance, MACHiNE NOiSY, Anatomica, Ingrid Vallus, Tara Cheyenne Performance, Les Productions Figlio, Karen Jamieson, Trial & Eros, Rachel Meyer, Action at a Distance, Out Innerspace Dance, Helen Walkley, Ballet Jazz Montréal, Justine A. Chambers, plastic orchid factory, Deanna Peters - Mutable Subject, Gibney Dance, Vision Impure, Rouge Gorge, Ballet Kelowna, Hessisches State Ballet and Ouro Collective. James is grateful to live and work on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
Natalia Martineau (she/her) is an emerging dance artist, choreographer, and teacher based in Vancouver, on the unceded Coast Salish territories of the xwməθkwəy̓ əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. She holds a BFA in Contemporary Dance (Hons) from Simon Fraser University. In the process of expanding the physical bounds of her dance practice, Natalia hopes to investigate how embodied sensations can reveal inarticulable truths about identity through movement. Natalia has danced in projects with Vanessa Goodman (Action at a Distance), Shion Skye-Carter, Margarida Macieira, and Alexandra Caprara. Her work has been presented at the Dance Centre as part of their 12 Minutes Max and DanceLab residencies. She is grateful to have participated in EDAM’s Fall 2023 Training Scholarship Program.
Marisa Gold is an intuitive multidisciplinary artist born and raised in Vancouver, BC, with a passion for soulful creative expression. She holds a Bachelors of Fine Arts in dance from Simon Fraser University, is a graduate from The Ailey School Independent Study program (NYC). Marisa has professional experience as a spoken word poet, film/tv actor/dancer, musical theatre performer, voiceover artist, vocalist and choreographer. As a collaborator, Marisa joyfully brings her multifaceted experience to each creative process she takes part in. Most recently, Marisa has had the opportunity to collaborate with Mascall Dance, Odd Meridian Arts, Raven Spirit Dance, Action At A Distance, Inverso Dance, The Biting School, and Belle Spirale Dance Projects. Marisa's artistic influences are strongly rooted in the heart space of her ancestors. Her work is embedded in self reflection, a deep love for humanity and reverence for our planet Earth.
Shion Skye Carter (they/she) is a dance artist originally from Gifu, Japan, based in Vancouver, Canada on the unceded, traditional lands of the Coast Salish peoples. Through a movement language of sensitive intensity, hybridizing choreography with heritage art forms like calligraphy, and interweaving materiality into performance, Shion’s artistic practice peels apart layers of identity and reflects on the complexities of the human experience. Recent presentations of their work include Vancouver International Dance Festival (BC), Art Gallery of Ontario (ON), Tangente (QC), Live Art Dance (NS), b12 free radicals (Berlin), and L’AiR Arts Atelier 11 (Paris). As a performer, they have performed and toured with companies including Action at a Distance/Vanessa Goodman, Furious Grace Dance Theatre/Anya Saugstad, Wen Wei Dance, and Odd Meridian Arts/Ziyian Kwan. Recent recognition for their choreography include receiving the Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award (2021) and the Chrystal Dance Prize (2023), and most recently, their solo Cobalt was shortlisted for the Rose International Dance Prize at Sadler’s Wells, London, Bloom category (Second Edition, 2027).
Anya Saugstad is a dancer, emerging choreographer, and the artistic director of Furious Grace Dance Theatre. She is originally from Xwlil’xhwm (Bowen Island) and now based in Vancouver, Canada, on the unceded territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh', Stó:lō, Səlílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh, and xwməθkwəyə̓m First Nations. Anya trained at ArtsUmbrella in the professional training program, and has a BFA in Dance from Simon Fraser University. As a dancer, she has toured and performed around the world with Action at a Distance. Her company, Furious Grace Dance Theatre, creates live collaborative performance works in theaters and outdoors. She is interested in pushing the body through physicality and softness—creating something that speaks not only to beauty, but anger and strength of humanity and femininity. Anya is grateful to have danced with Vanessa Goodman / Action at a Distance on various projects over the last 10 years, which has shaped her as a dancer and as a maker and choreographer. In her own choreographic practice, she has created works for Springboard Danse, Ballet Edmonton, ArtsUmbrella, LamonDance, Simon Fraser University, and Coastal City Ballet. Anya’s work has been presented throughout Canada (in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver) and recently in the USA.
Born and raised in Semiahmoo territory (South Surrey), Hayley Gawthrop is a Vancouver-based independent dance artist, performer, and teacher living on the ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Singing and dancing have been part of their life since the beginning. They are a resident company member of EDAM Dance, have collaborated with Action at a Distance since 2022, and work extensively as a freelance dancer, vocalist, and contact improvisation practitioner in Canada and internationally. Their practice is grounded in improvisation, collaboration, gentleness, bodily autonomy, and attentive listening.
Allison Lang is a dance artist creating and interpreting work as a settler on the unceded, ancestral, and occupied territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. Her professional experience includes contracts with Action at a Distance (2025–2026), Ballet Vancouver (2025-2026), Kokoro Dance (2023–2024), Ballet Edmonton (2019–2022), Ballet Kelowna (2017–2019), and The National Ballet of Canada (2016). As a performer, she has interpreted the works of internationally recognized choreographers including Andrea Peña, William Forsythe, John Alleyne, and Wen Wei Wang. As a choreographer, Allison seeks to cultivate spaces of transformation, absurdity, and ways of opening toward the imagination of new systems. Her first independent choreographic venture, supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, was performed in Oaxaca, Mexico, in 2024. Together with performance artist and writer Emma Lang, Allison co-directs studio lang, a collaborative practice initiated in 2023 that creates performance, movement, and prose-based works. Their debut project, Survival-Length, premiered in Berlin in 2023. Their current work, Silk Oil, is a performance-installation developed during a residency at Odd Meridian Arts, supported in its initial research and creation phase by the Canada Council for the Arts.
Ry Jackson (he/they) is an emerging artist based on unceded, ancestral, and occupied xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ lands, otherwise known as Vancouver, Canada. Their practice involves the coalescence of dance, theatre, and song. Ry is excited about movement as an embodied vessel for worldmaking, finding joy in encountering the many characters and selves that arise through dancing. They have had the pleasure of performing in works by Action at a Distance (Vanessa Goodman), Rob Kitsos, Alexis Fletcher, dani Mackenzie Long, and Kaya Tsurumi. Recently graduated from Modus Operandi Contemporary Dance Program (under the direction of Tiffany Tregarthen, David Raymond, Kate Franklin, and Maiko Miyauchi), they have also performed works by Ella Rothschild, Yi-Chun Liu, Zahra Shahab, Kate Franklin, Mariko Kakizaki, Spenser Theberge, Brandon Alley, and b solomon, among others. They were a member of Ballet BC Annex in 2025. As an emerging choreographer his work has been presented in Edmonton, Vancouver, and Oxford – at Nextfest, What Lab, Boombox, and DANSOX, respectively.