Photo: Michael Slobodian
New Skin
Inspired by autoeroticism, New Skin is a dark lullaby. This solo for one male performer is a roller coaster of song, dance, and theatre. Peek into the boudoir where you'll be serenaded by a crooner so seductive, he can't keep his hands off himself. Morphing between states of action and receptivity, our protagonist is both masculine and feminine. When consensus reality is called into question, the mind's fantasies are powerful enough to create inversion.
Photo: Michael Slobodian
Project Created by: Choreographer: Jennifer McLeish-Lewis
Performer/Collaborator: James-Amzin Nahirnick
Key Artistic Collaborators:
Lighting Designer: Alexandra Caprara
Performance type: This work is built for the theatre
How do you define this work: Dance, Dance/Theatre, Music, Song, Acting, Monologue, Contemporary Dance, Tap Dance, Physical Theatre, Multi-Disciplinary, Edgy, Gender, Queer, Vaudeville
Length of performance: 33 minutes - Mixed program - as the second work on a mixed bill (due to nudity at the very end)
Audience type: Mature Content (18+ includes nudity)
General Technical Requirements: Very low tech requirements, props are transportable; we have toured this work to Victoria and Salt Spring Island with no issues. Zero tech (studio showing) works for this piece quite well; festival lighting plot was how it premiered March 2024 at The Vancouver International Dance Festival.
Alternative Venues/Spaces/Outdoors: Studio Space / Rehearsal space
This piece has been performed many times in a studio setting to much success. The rawness and intimacy of a studio performance works well with this particular piece.
Required amount of time for tech set up: 4 hours max (festival tech), or no time at all if a studio showing without tech
Number of Performers on tour (including choreographer): 2 (performer and choreographer)
Number of Support Staff on Tour: 0-1 (lighting designer, if required, but the tech rider is simple and can be done by a technician
Availabilities: 2025 Spring Season (Mar - Jun), 2025/26 Season, 2026/27 Season
Jennifer McLeish-Lewis
I am currently fascinated by the impact of borders and limitations on thought and creativity, and how to demolish those false boundaries. My work straddles traditional/rigorous training and the ephemerality of improvisation. I am keen to destroy the artificial separations between dance and other forms of live performance. Cross-pollination and multidisciplinary collaboration between different media has always been crucial to my work. I was one of three artistic directors of The Tomorrow Collective; the inventors of the long celebrated showcase, Brief Encounters.
In my choreographic creation process, I listen to the unconscious score of a body, the systems that ground it, and I create the choreography in response. This way I aim to make the familiar strange and the strange familiar, allowing the body to get caught in a glitch - slower or faster than normal - or call attention by changing the sequence and scale.
The humour in my dance language often comes from surprise, allowing for awkwardness over perfection. People aren’t always graceful in real life and when imperfections are brought to the surface they can be beautiful. I am drawn to the near- misses.
Socially, my context revolves around my identity as an intersectional feminist, aiming to transform both the portrayal and the perception of women both inside and outside of the dance world. I believe that the more personal the work, the more universal its impact.
In its dependence on (structured) improvisation and in its fearless confrontation of discomfiting subject matter, my work doesn’t resemble that of my peers’ but instead has a provocative and arresting quality that is all my own.
Performance History & Upcoming Performances
Since 2002 I have been creating professional contemporary dance. In this regard, I consider myself a mid-career choreographer (past emerging, but not established).
Upcoming Engagements
I have been invited to present a new short work (8 minutes) titled, Lungs, at The Fluid Festival in Calgary, October 23, 24, 2024. After the shows, we will stay in Calgary for an invited creation residency at Decidedly Jazz Dance Works for two weeks of studio space, with an open studio showing on November 8, 2024 of the work that we have generated over the residency period.
November 23, 24 I will do a presenters' showing of New Skin in Vancouver, at the studio space that I use for creation (Studio 45 West). I plan to invite international presenters who are visiting for The Dance In Vancouver Festival to this showing.
Mid-November I will begin a new full length creation (50-60 minutes) titled, "Likewise", a duet for one male and one female dancer (James-Amzin and Samantha Krystal), that will be completed in a technical residency at The Scotia Bank Dance Centre Farris Theatre for four days December 19-22, culminating in a showing in the theatre at 2pm on Sunday December 22, with full tech. K.E. Lewis will be outside eye, The Dance Centre will provide the lighting designer (TBA).
I am currently in discussions with The Vancouver International Dance Festival, PUSH Festival, Hold On Let Go (PUSH OFF) and I have applied another completed work (a duet for James and I that we premiered last winter at the Dance Centre) to Dancing on the Edge 2025. Nothing in 2025/2026 is yet confirmed.
I would be over the moon to tour New Skin to the Dance West Network cities, as I feel this is the best piece that I have created to date. My heart and soul went into this work, and I believe this is why the Vancouver International Dance Festival decided to program it in their 2024 festival. It's an intimate work that James-Amzin executes with a depth of performance quality that is quite remarkable.
Project Details
Community Engagement
2SLGBTQIA+ Community - Sharing Circle
As a recent graduate of PRC (Professional Registered Counsellor) I am looking for opportunities to lead group sharing session (not counselling sessions, more art based transformational community coaching) for those folks who see the show and would like to engage with the creator, performer, and other audience members afterwards. One tasteful moment of nudity at the end of the work means that this piece and Sharing Circle are for folks 18+.
Outreach Activities
Contact Improvisation Masterclass - All Levels
Taught by Jennifer McLeish-Lewis
+ Deep Listening +
No prior dance experience is required, but a strong level of focus, concentration, physical rigour, and commitment to staying present are required. We will start on the floor with a gentle somatic based warm-up that will help the body to feel gravity. Growing from the floor to standing, we will practice smoothing out our transitions into upright dancing. The goal is an aware, alert, and embodied presence that uses the full capacity of the mover as a human being awake in the world. More sensitivity is reached through relaxing the nervous system. More alertness is reached through waking up the mind with moment-by-moment choice making. More embodiment is reached through a deep listening to the relationship to the earth, each other, and the space around us. All genders, abilities, and experience levels are welcome. This workshop is LGBTQ inclusive.
Teaching Bio
Jennifer McLeish-Lewis has been a teacher of Contact Improvisation since 2006. Since 2002 she has studied and has had an ongoing practice under master improviser and contact teacher Peter Bingham. She has also trained with international teachers such as Ray Chung, Andrew Harwood, Chris Aiken, Karl Frost, and Karen and Allen Kaeja. Jennifer was a performer from 2002- 2012 with the contact based company MACHiNENOiSY in Vancouver, directed by Delia Brett and Daelik, performing in works inspired and underpinned by Contact Dance. In 2005 Jennifer was a performer in Karl Frost's improvised participatory performance, Axolotl, a show that toured the west coast of Canada and the U.S.A. She taught at Leviathan Studio in 2012 and 2013, and was a guest teacher at the Elsewhere Canadian Improvisation Festival in 2013. Her unwavering commitment to Contact Improvisation has lead her to teach classes and workshops in Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, Kelowna, Nanaimo, Lasqueti Island, Cortes Island, and in Mexico. As a student of EDAM and Peter Bingham, Jennifer takes her place in the linage as second generation to the originators and innovators of this postmodern partnering form.
Other Outreach Activities
+ Audience Talk-Back / Feedback Session with the creator and performer.
+ James can teach beginners tap dance.
+ We can both teach contemporary floor work.
+ We can co-teach a class titled "Improvisation Scores for Performance Practice".