Company 605
Looping
Photo: David Cooper
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.
Looping
‘Looping’ is a unique dance installation featuring highly-structured improvisation where dancers follow and re-adapt a movement score that evolves with each loop. What results is a collective movement that blooms and goes through a continual process of death and rebirth. Built on a foundation of connection, adaptation, and transformation—performers focus on solo and group loops—loops of specific size, scale, duration and proximity. There is no true start and no clear end. The work explores looping as a means to track change—with human error, imperfections and desires creating inconsistencies and cracks that allow for a constant emergence of something new. As new loops emerge, the performers must navigate complex, near-impossible feats as an ensemble that can bring either collapse or transformation in the work. Using a basic sound system and speakers, the accompanying Sound Artist generates an electronic soundscape (also an improvised looping structure), with support and input from the performers.
Performance History
‘Leftovers’ at M1 Contact Contemporary Dance Festival (July 2019 Singapore); ‘Leftovers’ at Dance: made in Canada Festival (D:mic) (August 2019 Toronto); ‘Leftovers’ at BODY.Radical Festival (September 2019 Budapest); ‘Leftovers’ at Kuandu Arts Festival (October 2019 Taiwan); ‘Looping’ at Dance in Vancouver Festival (November 2019 Vancouver); ‘Leftovers’ at Dance Exchange (January 2020 Hong Kong); ‘Brimming’ (film) streamed at Dancing on the Edge (online edition) July 2020; ‘Brimming’ (full-length performance) live-streamed at Vancouver International Dance Festival (April/May 2021); Company 605 & Paueru Mashup: Taiko/Dance Workshop with the Powell Street Festival Society (April/May 2021); ‘Albatross’ live-streamed at VIDF (Feb/March 2022); ‘Brimming’ performed live and live-streamed at VIDF (March 2022); ‘Albatross’ and ‘Leftovers’ BC Movement Arts Series Tour (Sointula, Port McNeil, and Alert Bay) (March 2022); ‘Looping’ at Tanzmesse (Sept 2022); ‘Brimming’ live-streamed for TANZAHOi (Sept. 2022); ‘Future Futures’ film series premiere (Fall 2022).
Project Details
Project created by: Created by Artistic Co-Directors Josh Martin & Lisa Gelley
Key Collaborators: Artistic Crew / Team:
CREATED BY Company 605 | DIRECTORS Lisa Mariko Gelley and Josh Martin | DEVELOPED W/ PERFORMERS Brandon Alley, Francesca Frewer, Kate Franklin, Lisa Mariko Gelley, Jeanette Kotowich, Josh Martin, Tamar Tabori, Avery Smith, Matthew Tomkinson, Jessica Wilkie, Sophia Wolfe | LIVE ORIGINAL SOUND DESIGN Matt Tomkinson | CREATIVE SUPPORT Maiko Yamamoto
Audience: General Audience
Length in minutes: The duration of each Looping session is typically 90 minutes, with multiple throughout the day, for multiple days if required. The company can adjust the duration for showing purposes.
Space required: The installation can exist in either indoor (studio/stage/gallery, etc) or outdoor settings, so long as there is a centralized performance area with even surface/flooring. This could take the shape of “in the round”, ¾, or stadium style with or without seating (seating is not required), with no need of well-defined separation of audience and performer areas, which may occasionally blur. ‘Looping’ is an ongoing improvised practice that expands and evolves differently each time, with changing combinations of performers, and therefore never the same twice: spectators, or bystander/witnesses can stay as long as they wish, can sit, stand, move around the space, and continuously change locations and perspectives.
Preparation required:
General technical requirements: LIGHTING AND VIDEO: There isn’t a specific lighting plot for ‘Looping’ due to the fact that the installation can inhabit a range of contexts, either indoor (studio/stage/gallery, etc) or outdoor settings. Though there is no standard space or lighting design required, the attached PDF is the most extreme version of what we have used. The installation can exist with far less, such as simply the lights in a room and a few reading lamps. The seating arrangement shown is not a requirement for ‘Looping.’
SOUND: Show requires a basic sound system and speakers.
Availability: During the 2022/23: March and April
During the 2023/24: January 2024 (general availability); May, June, July & August 2024 (currently available)
During the 2024/25: Available to tour
Number of performers on tour including choreographer: Shortened to 6-7 (including Sound Artist). Can house a rotating cast of over 15+ performers
Number of support staff on tour: 2
Community Engagement Activities
Our work is based on an ongoing exchange between seperate people, bodies and ideas. Upholding this ethos relies on creating opportunities for this exchange to take place, which can happen in a myriad of places — most obviously in the studio when creating a piece, but this exchange can happen when presenting work and connecting with audiences. Generating this feedback-loop when presenting our work is invaluable. Company 605’s work is meant to create new ways of seeing, expressing and understanding through movement; and we hope to inspire others through what we create. We’re also invested in supporting the development of the next generation of Canadian dancers. To this end, we hold an annual winter intensive dance program in collaboration with SFU, and also hold workshops throughout the year.
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: Company 605, Jonathan@company605.ca
Agent/Manager: Francesca Piscopo, francesca@company605.ca
Website: company605.ca
Facebook: company605
Instagram: company605
Photo: David Cooper