MAINSTAGE 2026-27
A Crazy Kind of Hope
A Crazy Kind of Hope is an intimate solo performance combining beautifully articulate, hypnotic movement patterns with stories of hope and heartbreak. The piece is made in the unique dance-storytelling form of choreographer Sarah Chase who devises movement patterns to provoke private memories and personal stories from the exquisite and eloquent dancer, co-creator/performer, Andrea Nann.
In the piece, Nann introduces a few simple numbered patterns of movement gestures. These patterns begin to intersect and harmonize, creating a heightened poetic landscape, where Andrea’s own spoken stories unfold into realms of water, flowers, surf, loss, and love.
Dreamwalker Dance Company
Image of Andrea Nann by Adina Herling
TRAILER
ARTIST BIO
Dreamwalker Dance Company (DDC) is a Tkarónto based charitable non-profit arts organization that creates, produces, and shares dance-based interdisciplinary art exploring the human experience, fostering connection, awakening, and empowerment. Our mandate emphasizes strengthening relationships between culturally diverse and multigenerational artists and audiences. Through artistic excellence, inclusivity, and social engagement, DDC bridges how we live with how we feel. We are recognized for our leadership as mentors, collaborators, and advocates for social justice, while supporting the growth of Canadian dance artists and the vitality of local arts ecologies.
Over a 38-year career in contemporary and modern dance, DDC founder and Artistic Director Andrea Nann has earned an international reputation for creative excellence, collaboration, and innovation. She has directed, choreographed, and produced works for stage, film, digital platforms, and site-specific environments, while contributing to more than 70 dance and theatre creations across Turtle Island. Her work has been recognized with awards for choreography, performance, community engagement, and contributions to the performing arts. Highlights include Ontario Contact's Artist of the Year Award (2016), a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Performance by an Individual in Dance (2019), and 2026 Outstanding Performance Dora nominations for both Andrea Nann and Firehorse and Shadow collaborator Annie Katsura Rollins.
DDC has cultivated enduring partnerships across British Columbia with artists, presenters, donors, and communities, while continuing to expand its international network. Andrea Nann is a participating artist with the Canadian Association for the Performing Arts (CAPACOA) and a founding member of International Choreographic Interlink Toronto–Vancouver–Taipei.
Performance History & Upcoming Performances
Kindai University, Osaka, Japan (2026)
Kamloops Art Gallery, Kamloops, B.C. (2026)
Far Far Away Festival, Launcher Lab, Hengchun, Taiwan (2025)
Dreamwalker Dance, Grace Centre for the Arts, Toronto (2019)
Burlington Performing Arts Centre, Burlington, ON (2018)
Festival of New Dance, St. John's (2017)
Guelph Dance Festival - River Run Centre (2017)
Ontario Scene, Canada National Arts Centre, Ottawa (2015)
Registry Theatre, Kitchener, Ontario (2015)
Dancing on the Edge, Firehall Theatre, Vancouver (2014)
Premiere: Dance In Vancouver, Scotiabank Dance Centre, Vancouver (2013)
Project Created by: Conceived / directed / choreographed by: Sarah Chase
In creation with performer: Andrea Nann
Key Artistic Collaborators: Performer: Andrea Nann
Lighting designer: James Proudfoot
Sound designer: Sarah Chase
Drone: Antoine Bedard
Guitar: Justin Rutledge
Performance type: THIS WORK IS BUILT FOR THEATRE
How do you define this work: dance-storytelling
Length of performance: 23 minutes
Audience type: General Audience
Number of Performers on tour (including choreographer): 1
Number of Support Staff on Tour: 1 choreographer + 1 stage manager/technical director
Availabilities: 2027 Spring Season (Mar - June),2027/28 Season,2028/29 Season
Project Details
General Technical Requirements: This performance is designed to be presented in a theatre setting.
Ideal dimensions of the playing area are: 30’ (9 m) wide (measured between the onstage edges of the stage right and stage left legs), 20’ (6 m) deep Smaller or larger venues and alternate set ups can be accommodated with approval.
The production can be staged in many different room configurations, including bare walls, or with light coloured masking. Ideally the performing area should be a sprung floor. Wood over steel beams, covered with a linoleum (dance) floor is an acceptable alternative. Wood on concrete is not an acceptable dance surface.
Scenic Elements:
• One piano bench, with a seat that opens to 90 degrees and is able to
remain open on its own, preferably black (provided by presenter)
Props
• 2 flowers (provided by artist)
Electrics:
• Standard dance plot (backs, tips, shins, area washes etc), plus 5 – 7
additional fixtures for specials
Sound:
• Two (2) shotgun mics or PZMs to be placed down stage left and
downstage centre (provided by presenter)
• Company will provide sound playback via Qlab 5.
Required amount of time for tech set up: It is understood that this schedule requires that the lighting plot is pre-hung, circuited and patched, and all masking hung in advance of the COMPANY’s arrival at the theatre.
The PRESENTER agrees to make the theatre available to the technical personnel for a technical set-up period of eight (8) working hours over one (1) day (including meal breaks) preceding the performance for the purpose of: installing dance floor; gelling and focusing lighting equipment; installing sound equipment as necessary; setting lighting and sound cues; and technical rehearsal.
Community Engagement
Community Engagement Activity – Storytelling Through Movement
As part of the presentation of A Crazy Kind of Hope, Andrea Nann and Sarah Chase propose a five-day storytelling and movement residency created in collaboration with local community members. This engagement invites participants to explore the connections between lived experience, memory, gesture, and embodied storytelling through a process of listening, sharing, and creative exchange.
Over five days, artists and community participants will gather to build relationships, share personal stories, and discover how individual experiences can be translated into movement. Through accessible movement practices, guided improvisation, conversation, and reflective exercises, participants will explore how gestures carry meaning and how the body can become a vessel for memory, identity, and connection.
Drawing from Sarah Chase’s dance-story practice and Andrea Nann’s Conscious Bodies Methodology, the process honours each participant’s unique ways of knowing and expressing. Rather than teaching predetermined choreography, the artists facilitate a collaborative environment where participants’ voices, stories, and movement languages inform the creative exploration.
The residency may culminate in a sharing, conversation, or informal gathering with the broader community, offering participants an opportunity to celebrate the stories and connections developed through the process. The format can be adapted to work with specific communities, including intergenerational groups, cultural communities, seniors, youth, newcomers, or local arts organizations.
This five-day engagement requires additional preparation, relationship-building, facilitation, and reflection time, with fees adjusted according to the scope of participation, number of community partners, and desired outcomes.
Outreach Activities
As an accompaniment to A Crazy Kind of Hope, dancer/choreographers Sarah Chase and Andrea Nann offer a range of outreach activities that invite audiences and communities into the creative processes behind the work. Offerings may include a 90-minute embodied movement workshop and an experiential artist talk that combines conversation, movement exploration, and creative inquiry.
The movement workshop invites participants of all ages and movement abilities—including community members, dance students, artists, educators, and arts audiences—to explore the relationship between gesture, memory, storytelling, and personal expression. Beginning with gently guided exercises that cultivate awareness of the senses, body, breath, and imagination, participants discover how movement patterns can carry emotion, memory, and personal stories.
The experiential artist talk offers participants an opportunity to enter the world of A Crazy Kind of Hope through shared reflection, storytelling, and embodied exploration. Chase and Nann introduce their collaborative process, including Sarah Chase’s dance-story practice rooted in biography and memoir, and Andrea Nann’s Conscious Bodies Methodology developed through Dreamwalker Dance Company. Through guided movement prompts and conversation, participants experience how gestures, lived experiences, and embodied awareness become sources for artistic expression.
Outreach activities can be adapted for galleries, festivals, universities, schools, and community organizations. Fees vary depending on format, length of engagement, participant numbers, preparation time, and additional facilitation or community partnership requirements.