MAINSTAGE 2026-27
Return
Taking inspiration from solarpunk aesthetics, "Return" looks into returning as an active, conscious, collective choice. "Return" explores our understanding and experience of returning: returning to something you used to enjoy doing, returning to community, returning to the natural world. Returning requires forgiveness, an expansion of a view, and a deeper understanding that simply would not have been possible if the time in-between hadn’t passed. "Return" allows the audience to witness the acts of returning that the performers actively choose to do, and the positive consequences that it creates.
photo Taha Saraei
Naz Özlü
TRAILER
ARTIST BIO
I am a dance artist that works with the human connection to the environment. I am interested in finding out new ways we are connected to the natural world, history, culture, community, belongings, one another, and beyond. I am constantly inspired and influenced by traditional Turkish rugs, my time on the ancestral lands of Quw’utsun and MÁLEXEȽ (Malahat) First Nations (Cowichan Valley), the natural world, solarpunk aesthetics, and my friends. The outcome I am getting from my moving and art-making process is the beautiful, therapeutic, rewarding sense of connection to community.
With this idea of connection, I am currently exploring my ways of connection to my Turkish ancestry and the lands I live in now. I am inspired by the ways my Turkish culture has weaved with my experience in Canada. This exploration brings up a lot of struggles and emotions. By welcoming them, I uncover suppressed parts of myself and take another step into authenticity. This “returned” version of me creates a lot of new possibilities in my artmaking that are even deeper connected to everything that is connected to me. This brings me a deep sense of satisfaction and joy, and all I want to do is spread it to those around me.
Performance History & Upcoming Performances
Premiere: April 2-5, 2026, presented by SFU Live Acts Festival, Fei & Milton Wong Experimental Theatre, SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts
Project Created by: Naz Özlü
Key Artistic Collaborators: Adelya Mullasheva - sound designer
Zoe Maschmann - lighting designer
Darwin Miller-Hogg - stage manager
Neve Fioravanti - performer
Madeleine Quennec - performer
Kaliyah States - performer
Claire Whitelaw - performer
Outside Eye / Mentor: Jennifer McLeish-Lewis, Rob Kitsos
Special Thanks: Samira Banihashemi
Performance type: THIS WORK IS ADAPTABLE TO THEATRE OR OUTDOORS OR ALTERNATE VENUES /SPACES
How do you define this work: Multidisciplinary, contemporary dance, some culturally specific elements, live performance
Length of performance: 13 minutes
Audience type: General Audience
Number of Performers on tour (including choreographer): 6
Number of Support Staff on Tour: 2
Availabilities: 2027 Spring Season (Mar - June),2027/28 Season,2028/29 Season
Project Details
Community Engagement
General Technical Requirements: projector, floor lights, basic festival lighting plot, marley floor venue, sound playback
Required amount of time for tech set up: 2 hours
Alternative Venues: It is possible to perform this work on any floor, excluding mud, water, concrete or other hard materials. This work can be adaptable to shown outdoors, blackout is not necessary. This work is also possible to be shown without a projector or other floor lights.
Minimum requirements for showing: sound playback, enough light for the performers to be visible, some supervision to make sure the props do not get touched/stolen during the performance, adequate time (minimum 2 hours) for the performers to get used to the space and warm up
I want to create a work-in-progress with local fiber artists, musicians, dancers, Indigenous knowledge holders and environmental scientists in which we experiment ways of weaving our practices together. With the main goal of collaboration and blurring the lines between each discipline, I hope that we can find new ways of working with one another, even if it seems as though the disciplines are wildly different from each other. We would do a few sessions together, then host an informal work-in-progress showing. This is for anyone with practice (intermediate & above) in above-mentioned fields who want to think outside the box and get involved in unconventional ways of collaboration and community-building.
Fee subject to session time, number of showings, and prep time.
Outreach Activities
I offer beginner/advanced beginner contemporary dance classes, suited for those who want to move! I take an inclusive approach where all movement qualities, abilities, and pathways are welcome. Open to ages 14+. Would include basic floorwork, rolling up/down the spine, some specific movement pathways and an improvisation score to finish.
I also regularly teach children 3-12 years old and can offer contemporary dance classes with an emphasis on environmentalism and the natural world. These would be separate classes for 3-5 years, 5-8 years, and 8 to 13 years old. Classes include introduction, environment-focused icebreaker games, fun warm-ups, teaching a few movement pathways low-medium-high levels, then some guided improvisation embodying different plants and animals to close it off.
All classes with accompaniment by Adelya Mullasheva
Fee subject to change based on class size, class length, prep time
We are also always open to doing artist talks, post-show talkbacks, etc.