A dance artist for the past 21 years, I create, perform and produce for the stage, club, gallery and DIY spaces. A digital designer since 2013, I also create for the web and print. I reside on ancestral and unceded xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh and səlil̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ territories (Vancouver).
Please see below my projects, which are mostly dance and most often created in collaboration with others.
This site is built and designed by me, DP, including all graphics and photos, unless otherwise noted in the image title (when you hold the cursor over an image). Please see portfolio for my design work.
Credited artists/companies are so-called Vancouver-based unless otherwise noted.
I'm teaching a House Dance + Itcush Method combo class at Working Class this Apr 22, 24 + 26. I'm probably the only person in the world who practices both of these movement forms. If I'm wrong, and there is someone else out there, and you happen to be reading this, please reach out :>
aka's hosting a dance party social with DJs The Stunt Man and Scott G Apr 20, 10pm–late/early @ Gold Saucer. Join us to support us and our ongoing activities, as we embark on our effective collective. Entry by PWYC donation: RSVP
While in Edmonton this March, I'm teaching a workshop combining concepts + exercises from the Itcush Method with steps + approaches from House Dance. It turns out that Amelia Itcush, who devised the Itcush Method, loved club dances because of their use of rebound and rippling movement into and out of the floor. At Mile Zero Dance, Mar 10, 1–3pm: REGISTER
Check out aka residency recipes for some of what aka cooked and ate while living, dancing, writing and talking together during a 7-day [snowed-in] residence at LEÑA this past January.
During the first six months of 2024, I'm mentor with/for two wonderful dance artists as a part of the DTRC's Evolve program.
This January, I'm back creating The Enormous Room, a new duet for Savage & Samuelle that will be presented as a part of GRAND SAUT May 9–11.
Jan 21, 1–3pm, aka presents a movement workshop as a part of Slumber/, an ambient sleepover concert presented by Active/Passive at the South Galiano Community Hall on what's now known as Galiano Island, BC. Learn some Métis jigging, somatic House grooves + Hustle partner dance before we snuggle in for the night.
aka's in-residence at LEÑA on Galiano Island this January :) We're grateful to Dayna for this generous invitation to live and work together for 7 days. We're dedicating this time to our ongoing research into artist-to-artist support models. Watch for updates in our moving manifesto.
Jan 3, 7–9pm @ Gold Saucer, I'm hosting a FREE House Dance Session with DJ Scott G. Open to all levels of experience.
And, announcing, aka, our collective... No, we don't necessarily create work together, but our collective supports what we create individually. Our sector's in crisis. aka's a response.
I'm co-curator and co-producer of interplay_2023, festival of live online performance Sep 14+15. Featuring live online artworx by Margaret Dragu + Brady Marks (choreography-by-chance, social architecture, video, sound, inner landscapes), Kevin Jesuino (theatre, dance, video, community-engaged art), erψn temp3st (dance, live video mixing), Miguel Maravilla (spoken word, sound collage, multi-media video), Jasmine Liaw + Caroline McCaull (movement, new media, AI, dreamstates, queerness).
This June, I'm joining an ensemble of artists as a dancer in Jeanette Kotowich's creative research BOLT.
While Sekou's in Vancouver, we'll continue our one-on-one mentorship sessions. Then this April, I'm off to NYC for the first time, WOOT! This ongoing professional development project is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.
Join us for the 2023 CADA/West members unconference Mar 23-30: Movement tasters (☞^o^) ☞ DOUBLE DUTCH POW WOW TOP ROCK ANIMATION CONTEMPORARY LOCKING DANCE HALL (~‾▿‾)~ “Let’s talk about” salons ┌|o^▽^o|┘♪ SOCIALS GROUP MEALS SHOWS HYBRID EVENTS (☞^o^) ☞ Full schedule and registration ☞ All events are FREE!
This Jan–Jul, I'm working as mentor on erψn temp3st's (Edmonton) interactive website project exploring touch and movement.
I'm back in the studio this Dec–Jan with Ziyian Kwan, "teaching" as a part of her professional development project.
This fall, I'm performing in the capture of plastic orchid's Ghost [Digital Folk VR edition], which will be shared as a virtual reality installation in 2023.
I'm producer of interplay_2022, festival of live online performance Sep 15+16. Featuring live online artworx by Ghinwa Yassine (gesture, protest, anti-disciplinary); Luciana Freire D'Anunciação + Brandon Schwinn (dance, video-projection, poetry, sound); Ivetta Sunyoung Kang (instructions, somatics, ASMR indexing, anecdotal sculpture); and Shereen Ramprashad + Derek Brueckner (projection, gestural painting, spoken word).
I'm mentor and outside eye for Savage & Samuelle, as they share a new work-in-progress duet u go, i go Jul 17 @ Morrow and online.
I'm performing alongside some boss musicians, dancers and visual artists as a part of the Listen, Listen festival Jun 3 at the Roundhouse.
Dancers Playing Basketball: Nogojiwanong is presented May 5–8 as a part of Erring at Prince George, traditional Michi Saagiig and Chippewa Territories (Peterborough, ON). A performance installation exploring parallels between dance and sport, created and facilitated by Deanna Peters & Katie Lowen, with players Amelia Ehrhardt, Lia Grainger, Kerith Paul, Becca Partington, Oriah Wiersma, Abigail Parsons and Sam Wotten, the project's a community-building exercise for dancers to gather, play and learn together.
I really believe in intentional succession and that we need more of it in our dance communities... so grateful to CADA/West, where I've been Communications Director these past 10 years, for giving me the opportunity to flex my advocacy chops. As of Mar 31, it's Victor Tran's turn to represent ✌️
Hey DP, where'd you get that glow?! It's from House dance mentorship w/ Sekou Heru (NYC) =D everythINg’s changINg and I’m learnINg to brINg some water to my fire. So grateful 😊
Victor Tran/b.boy Savage Rock presents celestial beast, a solo choreography, supported by Samuelle Auclair and me, DP: Jan 26 @ Zoom RSVP
Please join us for When I look at the camera, I'm looking at you Jan 30 4pm PST. Created and performed by me, DP with music by Ahmed Khalil, #WILATCILAY is a live-online show broadcast via Zoom meeting that places sensation at the forefront of virtual exchange. It presents bodily understandings with no stable definitions and invites participants to add their experiences.
This December, I'm collaborating with musicians Meredith Bates and Feven Kidane on a multi-phase project, produced by Meredith, to focus on multidisciplinary improvisational processes.
interplay_2021... live online shows Sep 23+24.
Featuring multidisciplinary and/or collaborative approaches to performance by: Sidi Chen (ritual performance); Find Mutya (experimental video, music, movement, poetry, textiles); Brandy Leary (choreographic research, videography); Kıvanç Tatar w/ Tamar Tabori (creative artificial intelligence, dance); Raj Gill (multidisciplinary performance art); Stéphanie Cyr w/ Ted Littlemore (site-specific, drag, mockumentary)
Many thanks to co-curators Tasha Faye Evans, khattieQ and Sammy Chien,as well as Co.ERASGA via the City of Vancouver Cultural Services. Other funders are Moberly Arts & Cultural Centre, Vancouver Park Board and Mutable Subject via the BC Arts Council. This year I'm co-producing w/ Victor Tran!
With Emma-Kate Guimond (Tiohtià:ke), I'm creating and performing Charégraphie. We're in residence at Salon58 in Marsoui, QC this summer, with a show Jul 29 as a part of FURIES.
C'est une chorégraphie in situ réalisée avec des voitures, qui s’inspire des formes de divertissement populaires qui intègrent des véhicules tout en utilisant des bases chorégraphiques comme la formation spatiale, l’unisson et les «trucages».
I bought a van to drive to Gaspésie!!!
Mohkínstsis-based Pam Tzeng and I wrap 2 weeks of intimate-remote-research-spontaneous-exchange-live-writing-screen-recording-online-rich-text-sharing for REMIX, a generous and generative research period offered by the plastic orchid factory. We've compiled a Joint Playlist and Statement (where's the cannabis emoji?!) to attempt to share something of what we experienced during our time together. Thank you Pam for suggesting we eschew video communication 💪💕
It's been spirit-lifting to be back in the studio with Alvin Tolentino. We're revisiting bodyGLASS circa 2006 for a video project celebrating 20 years of Co. ERASGA!
We invite you to Orange, a new dance duet by Winnipeg-based b.boy Less San Miguel/LessIZM and experimental dance artist Deanna Peters/Mutable Subject: Apr 9, 7pm PST + Apr 10, 5pm PST, live online via Zoom
Combining our experiences in street, club and stage dance, we’re investigating what happens when we turn our gazes to each other, to dance with and for each other. Where do we begin and end? What's relayed energetically? Can we lessen the time between initiating and following? By responding in real-time, we invite you into our experience and ask you to consider your bodies and desires.
Orange will be broadcast live via Zoom. The performers operate two laptop cameras, with two views in the Zoom room which can be watched side-by-side or separately. Overt display offers something immediate, strange and open.
DJ Adam 2 live mixes music, James Proudfoot designs and performs the lighting and, for the costumes, Brooklyn-based visual and textile artist David B. Smith is altering clothes sent back and forth in the mail.
Also w/ Victor Tran moderating + managing promo, co-presenter plastic orchid factory @ Left of Main and Stefan Smulovitz providing webinar support. We're grateful to the Canada Council for the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council, Young Lungs Dance Exchange and What Lab for their support.
interplay_2021 call for live online performances
After having to cancel in 2020, we're excited that interplay_ is back with live online shows Sep 23–24.
interplay_ presents works that promote, challenge and experiment with collaborative and/or multidisciplinary performance. The call is open to independent artists residing in so-called Canada, from all disciplines, at any career stage, who are creating for a live online performance context. Deadline Apr 15, 11:59pm. Notifications May 2.
Co-curators Tasha Faye Evans, khattieQ, Sammy Chien and Deanna Peters will program 4–5 artists/groups. Guaranteed fee of $1,200. Produced by me, DP with Victor Tran. Supported by Moberly Arts & Cultural Centre, Vancouver Park Board, Mutable Subject and Co. ERASGA.
When I look at the camera, I'm looking at you is a live online show featuring a series of mostly pointless yet oddly satisfying explorations around dance for video conference. Ahmed Khalil provides the music. Positing that embodied knowledge can be transmitted via other media, the show brings forward bodily understandings with no stable definitions and invites participants to add their experiences. As meta-narrative feeds into moving images, and skin becomes pixels, our boundaries extend.
Encore presentation Dec 5, 4pm PST: email me for the link :)
WILATCILAY is part of Shooting Gallery Nov 27, 7pm PST. Tune in from wherever you are with a festival pass for $0–$40. You'll receive an email on the day of, with all of the details. Or, message me for whatever reason.
I'm grateful for funds from the Canada Council for the Arts.
Running Oct 20-29, Mon–Thur, 9:30–11:30am... Morrow Mornings, where I perform my personal movement practice behind the plate glass window at Morrow, a new dance space and shop created by Ziyian Kwan: 336 W Pender St, downtown so-called Vancouver. I've been wanting to do something like this for a long tiiiiiiime. A project that challenges my daily routines and assumptions; integrates performing with practice; emphasizes process over product; and reveals what so often happens behind closed doors. To be viewed (or not) in passing, from the street. All of a sudden I'm worried about my hair, hahahaha. Audience = unknown. Please come by for a distanced greeting... I miss you.
With support from the BC Arts Council, I'm back creating Orange with Less San Miguel. Initiated in Mar 2019, our project is all sweat, breath, proximity and contact. How do we keep doing this work during the pandemic? With shows of some sort scheduled for Apr 2021, presented with plastic orchid factory @ Left of Main, I'm grateful that Less is travelling from Treaty 1 to Coast Salish territory this October, to dive into these messy unknowns.
This September, I'm performing in an adaptation of Kokoro Dance's Reading the Bones for livestream. Shows are Sep 23–26.
I'm super-excited to perform Pocket, a 50-minute dance performance by me, DP, with music created and performed by Ahmed Khalil, live videography by Aya Garcia, technical support by Avi Bryant and sound by Amos Hertzman. We're presenting the work at the Yellowhouse Art Centre in Shxixnetun (Galiano Island, BC) Sep 5+6, 8pm, where we'll also be living and working in residence. Bringing out what's inside, Avi will be projecting what Ahmed, Aya and I are doing inside the house, onto the outside of the structure, and Amos will bring the sound out. So, offering COVID-safer outdoor viewing and listening. Many thanks to the BC Arts Council and Jeanette Kotowich for their support.
I have the immense honour and pleasure of working with Jeanette Kotowich in many forms. As well as building/designing her new website, this Jul–Aug we're travelling by land to our home province of Saskatchewan, where J'll be working on her solo Kisiskâciwan and I'll be collaborating as creative producer. Tune in to our social medias @movement_healing @mutable_subject for updates from our creative process adventures during a pandemic 💪💕
POSTPONED!!! Yes, mom. Yes, sex. Yes, not learning to do my hair. Yes, moving to the beat. This May I'm living and working in residence at Yellowhouse Art Centre in Shxixnetun (Galiano Island, BC) and will be performing a couple of shows May 30 w/ Ahmed Khalil who is creating sound :)))))))))))))))))
POSTPONED!!! This May, I'm continuing to work across territories and dance forms w/ Less San Miguel on Orange. Presentations coming in 2021!
POSTPONED!!! I'm teaching Working Class Apr 20, 22 + 24, 10–11:30am @ The Dance Centre
POSTPONED!!! Joining a multi-generational cast spanning over 40 years of age, I'm performing in Kokoro Dance's post-Butoh Reading the Bones Mar 27 + 28 @ the Vancouver Playhouse during the 2020 VIDF.
Supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, Rachel Maddock invited me to mentor them in developing their personal and improvisational movement practice.
Throughout the next year, I'm mentoring hustle and street dancers 
