MAINSTAGE 2025-2026
Soft Currents
Action at a Distance
Photo: David Cooper
Soft Currents
“Soft Currents” is inspired by Murmurations, which are enormous groups of starlings that twist and swirl across the sky in shape-shifting clouds. This inspiring idea of collective responsibility is an underlying value of Action at a Distance, directly leading to this new tour-ready work. "Soft Currents" is a task-based composition with original sound created to a highly structured co-authored score designed for a large group of dance artists. Ultimately, about social responsibility, the movement score works with text surrounding sensory proprioception in the body and asks the performers to find a collective sense of time while reacting to their environment. Working with headphones, the dance artists respond to a text composed by Goodman and the group that only they can hear. The audience witnesses a work of spontaneous eruptions, compositions and delights, alternating between collective unison and individual focus. The result is highly collaborative and creates a sense of anticipation from moment to moment. "Soft Currents" employs slow touring as a model for creation and dissemination, collaborating with a local group of artists and organizations in each location to create and perform the work. Each iteration is completed in approximately seven days and can be performed for a live audience in a traditional venue or at a site-specific location (inside or outside).
Action at a Distance Dance Society
Action at a Distance Dance Society is a contemporary dance company located on ancestral and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples, including the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō, səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations. The Company is directed by choreographer Vanessa Goodman, a woman and mother who shares her experiences through physical, visual and sonic practices. Focusing on creating experiential generative systems to build immersive environments. The Company's work is driven by questions surrounding intimacy through performance-based practices. Since Goodman became Artistic Director in 2015, the Company's work has been presented locally, nationally and internationally in Canada, The USA, Europe, the UK and South America.
The Company is inspired by artistic collaboration across multiple disciplines, with a mission to create environments and facilitate engrossing experiences for those who engage with the work. An inclusive dialogue is fostered with the community as part of each project through open studio showings, workshops, and discussions surrounding the work. Performance is made possible by those who witness it, and the Company views the audience as the final collaborator in each project.
Collaboration is a critical core value and creative tool. Incorporating an array of voices within each project illuminates different perspectives. The Company deeply values community and views dance as a way to build relationships and strengthen human connections. Action at a Distance strives to create welcoming, performative environments, inviting audiences and participants to have unique, nuanced experiences, whether responding purely to the aesthetics or parsing deeper underlying themes.
Goodman has received several awards and honours, including The Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award (2013), The Yulanda M. Faris Scholarship (2017/18), The Chrystal Dance Prize (2019/2025), The Schultz Endowment from Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (2019); the "Space to Fail" program (2019/20) in New Zealand, Australia and Vancouver; and the Isadora Award (2025).
Action at a Distance's work has been presented in Vancouver by PuSH Performing Arts Festival, DanceHouse, SFU Woodwards, Music on Main, The Firehall Arts Centre, The Dance Centre, The Chutzpah! Festival and The Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. Presentations further afield include the Crimson Coast (Nanamio), Arts Spring (Salt Spring Island), The Living Things Festival (Kelowna), Fluid Festival (Calgary), The Brian Webb Dance Company (Edmonton), La Rotonde (Quebec City), The Mai (Montreal), CINARS official programming (Montreal), Kinetic Studio (Halifax), The Dance Made in Canada Festival (Toronto), On the Boards (Seattle), The Seattle Symphony, Risk/Reward Festival (Portland), Third Angle (Portland), Offset Dance Fest (Brooklyn), Estrogenius Festival (New York), Switch Lab (Bucharest), L1 Festival (Budapest), Estorgenuis (New York), BioFriction/ FACTT (Lisbon), Tanz Bremen (Germany), Tanzmesse (Germany), Spellbound Orbita (Italy), The National Centre of Dance (Bucharest), The Tranzit House (Cluj-Napoca), EDN Showcase (Timișoara European Capital of Culture in Romania), Vitlycke Centre for the Performing Arts (Sweden), Antistatic International Festival for Contemporary Dance and Performance (Bulgaria), The International Contemporary Dance Festival FIDCDMX (Mexico City) and The Bienal Internacional de Dança Do Ceará (Brazil).
The Company has been artist-in-residence at Cutivamos Cultura/BioFriction (Portugal), The Dance Centre, Dance Victoria, Harbourfront Centre, The Shadbolt Centre and The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, where Vanessa was also on faculty. Vanessa also presented work and was a facilitator for Trinity Laban's 2020 Co-Lab Project (London). Commissions include "Tuning" for Alexis Fletcher, "Edictum" for Juan Villegas, "Strike Tone" for Votive Dance, the plastic orchid factory (remix project with Ame Henderson) and works for professional training programs such as Springboard Dansé Montréal, Lamon Dance, Modus Operandi and The SFU rep class.
This past season's collaborations include works with artists Scott Morgan (Loscil), Caroline Shaw (USA), and Simona Deaconescu (Romania). Recent touring includes "BLOT - Body Line of Thought," a collaboration with Simona Deaconescu at Tanzmesse NRW Mainstage Düsseldorf Germany and the following presenters with support from Perform Europe; Institution Students Cultural Centre in Novi Sad (SKCNS) Serbia, Museum of Contemporary Art North Macedonia, National Experimental Theatre "Black Box Hall" Albania, Hrvatski kulturni dom na Sušaku (HKD) Croatia, Španski Borci Main Hall Slovenia, Teatro Arena del Sole - Sala Salmon Bologna Italy, Architekturhaus Klagenfurt (or Burghof Klagenfurt) Austria, L1 Association Hungry, Stere Popescu Hall (CNDB) Romania. "Graveyards and Gardens," a collaboration with Caroline Shaw, presented by BC MOVEMENT ARTS in Port Alice, Sointula and Powell River in BC and in Boston U.S.A. presented by Celebrities Series. "SOFT CURRENTS" / "Tuning" presented by -Dance in Vancouver, through the Scotiabank Dance Centre in Vancouver, BC. And "Tuning" toured to Fabrik Postdam, Germany, for Tanztage.
Performance History & Upcoming Performances
Premiere date:
April 29 2024, International Dance Day presented by The Dance Centre, The Faris Theatre
Nov 22 2025, Dance in Vancouver presented by The Dance Centre, site-specific locations in the building and the Faris Theatre
Upcoming presentations:
Fluid Festival Calgary, Contemporary Calgary, Nov 6, 2025
Live Art, Halifax TBD location, March 2026
Project Created by: Soft Currents / Action at a Distance in collaboration with local community
Key Artistic Collaborators: Vanessa Goodman, director /choreographer
James Proudfoot, lighting designer
Brady Marks, composer
Performers are local artists/community members
Performance type: THIS WORK IS BUILT FOR OUT-OF-DOORS OR ALTERNATE VENUES/SPACES, THIS WORK IS BUILT FOR THEATRE, THIS WORK IS ADAPTABLE TO THEATRE OR OUTDOORS OR ALTERNATE VENUES /SPACES
How do you define this work: Sound work / Dance work / Integrated & DisabilityArts
Length of performance: 55mins
Audience type: General Audience, Children/Family
General Technical Requirements: It requires a sound system and one microphone, Lighting is adjustable for venue or site - ie: astera tubes or house lighting
Required amount of time for tech set up: 6-8 hours depending on wheather it is site-specific or in a venue
Alternative Venues: The performance is always built for the site and for the community of artists and audiences it engages, and the company collaborates with the organization to ensure accessibility to as many people as possible by building the work to meet the needs of audiences and artists. Having an accessible space is important for the work.
Number of Performers on tour (including choreographer): 1
Number of Support Staff on Tour: 1
Availabilities: 2026/27 Season
Project Details
Community Engagement
This whole project is community-engaged as it works with the local community to create and perform the work.
All artists must be paid $40 an hour for rehearsal, 18-20 hours of rehearsal, and $200 per-performance, so the fee reflects the number of artists engaged to make and perform the work.
Outreach Activities
Community-level workshops:
All ages
Vanessa loves to exchange with people through facilitating workshops and classes. She has taught professional, pre-professional and community classes locally, nationally and internationally. She has recently taught at Simon Fraser University, Modus Operandi, The Vancouver Training Society and Lamon Dance. She has also facilitated for the Roundhouse Community Dancers, Trinity Laban’s Co-Lab (UK) and been on faculty at The Banff Centre for the Arts (Alberta).
Workshop/class description:
Throwing Bones, Sheading Salt
Exploring what is real and imagined, my class plays with the possibility of the body's capacity. Working with generative systems, we will work through anatomical organisation and curiosity of state. This class begins with guided self-TLC to ground us before moving into folding, softening, sliding bones, expanding and compressing. Using scale and architecture to explore inner and outer landscapes, we will move through concave and convex systems to uncover different layers of ease and effort.