Photo: Wendy D
Brimming
Brimming is a solo investigating the body as a container: a rigid frame holding in and concealing its stored inner contents. The piece imagines the body as a hollow interior space continuously shaped and reshaped, filled and emptied, and inhabited through different states. A performer trapped inside his own form, the dance is a meeting of both the seen and unseen – the invisible contents that slosh up against the sides, pushing against the outer surface from beneath, and occasionally leaking under its pressure. Brimming explores this shape we are in, how it holds us, and what might eventually spill out when the walls begin to bend. Brimming’s next iteration imagines a live hybrid performance that utilizes live-feed cameras in tandem with a live in-situ performance, allowing viewers to physically attend and approach the scene while additional camera angles are projected live on screens seen on the outer edge of the space.
Company 605
Photo: David Cooper
Project Created by: Created by Artistic Co-Director Josh Martin
Key Artistic Collaborators:
Creation and Performance: Josh Martin; Creative Collaborators: Justine A. Chambers, Lisa Mariko Gelley & Maiko Yamamoto; Music: Ian William Craig & Matthew Tomkinson; Sound Design: Matthew Tomkinson; Lighting Design: James Proudfoot; Scenic Design: Josh Martin
Set Construction Coordination and Build: Paula Viitanen Aldazosa & Juan Carlos Aldazosa Bazúa; Video Direction / Stage Management: Jessica Han; Company 605 Managing Producer: Francesca Piscopo (Eponymous); Camera Operators: Daniel Loan, Yasuhiro Okada & Gabriel Raminhos
Performance type: This work is built for a theatre, this work is adaptable to theatre or outdoors or alternative spaces, Full Length Work. This work is a Hybrid Presentation (online & live).
How do you define this work: Contemporary Dance
Length of performance: 55 minutes
Audience type: General Audience
General Technical Requirements:
STAGE REQUIREMENTS: Brimming is a solo dance work with the performance contained entirely within the confines of a collapsible set piece that travels with the company. The set is a rectangular frame assembled with aluminum pipe and Kee Clamp connectors, with the container structure measuring a total of 8’ wide x 12’ deep x 8’ tall. The required performance space therefore must allow for these dimensions with some additional space to maneuver and set-up outside of the main interior space. The frame rests on top of a 8’ x12’ rug as the floor surface. The set also involves a wooden chair, an Ikea standing lamp, plywood and plexiglass materials, either traveling with the company or sourced locally in the host city.
LIGHTING AND VIDEO: The lighting design for this piece is primarily battery powered wireless-DMX controlled LED tubes (Astera AX-1s) and Bulbs that are all situated within the structure itself. All lighting therefore is mainly self-contained, and needing no cabling into the structure itself. Because of this, with very minimal power to the technical operating position, the work is able to be installed and presented in unconventional areas or spaces. If the performance is to involve a live-stream or projected video capture component, additional requirements for camera/video equipment and appropriate operators must be mutually determined and agreed upon with the artist.
SOUND: Show requires a basic professional quality stereo sound system in good working order, providing clear, undistorted, evenly distributed sound proportionate to hall capacity, and on-stage monitors. Sound source is a single file with stereo output from the company’s computer.
Does the work require tech residency: No
Number of Performers on tour (including choreographer): 1
Number of Support Staff on Tour: ~5 (Stage Manager & A/V Technical Support)
Availabilities: 2024/25 season, & 2025/26 season
Led by artistic co-directors Lisa Gelley and Josh Martin, Company 605 is an arts organization based in Vancouver, on the unceded Indigenous territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. Producing various dance projects and performances through shared creative process, the artists place emphasis on movement invention and physically demanding works, juxtaposing raw with precision, and highlighting effort, risk and interconnection. 605 is an ongoing exchange between separate people, bodies and ideas, recognizing and celebrating the unique possibilities created in their attempt to co-exist. Valuing collaboration as an essential tool for new directions in dance, Company 605 continues to awaken a fresh and ever-evolving aesthetic, together building a highly athletic art form derived from the human experience.
Performance History & Upcoming Performances
Premiered as an online livestream for-camera presentation at Vancouver International Dance Festival April 2021, followed by a hybrid livestream and in-person presentation at VIDF March 2022 (Orpheum Annex), utilizing an integrated live cinematic capture of the performance projected alongside the performance.
Project Details
Community Engagement
PROCESS SHARING & AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT: Rather than design separate community engagement activities, we take our existing artistic activity and ensure there are opportunities for different communities to interact with it. Often this takes the shape of multiple performances and showings of work-in-progress and open rehearsals, where the process is described and viewers can engage in dialogue with us. Partnerships with many organizations locally and on tour has allowed the company to create performances specifically for young audiences and high schools. WORKSHOPS & PARTNERSHIPS: 605 works to connect the pre-professional and professional dance community. We’ve strengthened our partnership with Simon Fraser University, playing a larger role to this end. For example, we’ve brought fourth year students as apprentices in our research processes, hosted work/study students for SFU’s Internships In Contemporary Arts Program (credited), mentored at SFU’s LAUNCH! Festival, and taught workshops for the University’s dance theatre/dance majors. We have similar relationships with Modus Operandi Training Program, and Arts Umbrella. These workshops also take place independent of these partnerships while on tour.
Contact information
Francesca Piscopo, francesca@company605.ca
Website: https://company605.ca/
Facebook: facebook.com/company605
Instagram: instagram.com/company605