Photo: Milo Carbol of L-R Rachel Iwaasa, Marisa Gold

Privilege At Home

A dancer and a concert pianist pull up to your front door and present you a five-minute dance, accompanied by Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata played live for you on the back of a pick-up truck. Visiting several places a night, with audiences of 3-95 people, it all takes place outdoors in the place of your choosing.


During this, our fourth successful season of Privilege at Home we’ve identified particularly strong elements for this performance. Best audience? Viewers new to dance. Best setting? Community gatherings, like a house that draws all their neighbours to the event; a birthday party bringing all building residents out to watch from their balconies; a housing co-op where all ages are drawn to the sight of our truck and music pulling up to the centre of the housing units. A grad residence - then out to dinner together with the viewers.

Mascall Dance

Photo: Milo Carbol of Marisa Gold

Project Created by: Jennifer Mascall

Key Artistic Collaborators: Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa, Ralph Escamillan, Alexa Mardon, Eowynn Enquist, Erika Mitsuhashi, Marisa Gold (performance); Daisy Thompson (rehearsal direction); Santi Ainslie, Tobias Macfarlane (production).

Performance type: This work is built for outdoor venues and alternative spaces, mixed-length work

How do you define this work: Contemporary Dance, Classical Music, community arts, any age, families.

Length of performance: 15-20 minutes from pulling up and 5-minute performance through leaving, we promise.

Audience type: General Audience

General Technical Requirements: A pickup truck and an upright piano are required.
No tech whatsoever needed, only a parking space and a spot to dance.

Does the work require tech residency: No

Number of Performers on tour (including choreographer): 3

Number of Support Staff on Tour: 2

Availabilities: 2024/25 season, 2025/26 season

Jennifer Mascall's perspective is driven by curiosity, which often leads to surprising places. After 50 years of creation, she feels she has only just begun her path as an artist. Recently, we have pivoted to focus on climate, and view the audience as collaborators. Our most influential teachers this year were dance artists, particle physicists, Indigenous Elders, Rabbis, and climate scientists. MascallDance is a creation, production, and education endeavour with 30+ seasons of works; many with extensive touring lives. “Our ability to survive for so long has come from our comfort with grassroots, low budget, guerrilla-style invention” -Jennifer Mascall, Artistic Director. Annually we offer residencies, intensives, and workshops based on where our own body of knowledge meets the interests of participants. MascallDance is looking to build relationships with presenters now for three projects, further touring of the international creation The Impossible has Already Happened, the premiere of Lurch, and our community builder, Privilege at Home.

Performance History & Upcoming Performances

3rd season: Presented with Dancing On The Edge Fest #35 in Metro Vancouver neighbourhoods
10-07-23 Mt Pleasant, UBC
11-07-23 West End, Hastings Sunrise, The Drive
12-07-23 Downtown Eastside

Project Details

Community Engagement

  • The performance itself IS the community outreach! Delivering the dance to people’s homes and social environments has shifted the audience relationship to watching. The premise itself brings a sense of delight and relaxed camaraderie to each encounter. People are drawn to the arrival of the truck. Curiosity and warmth infuse the interaction.

    "I was amazed at the ingenious idea of creating a highly mobile performing troupe by mounting a piano on a truck. It shows that creativity and artistic work can still thrive and be brought to people's doorsteps even amidst a global pandemic. I greatly enjoyed MascallDance's performance and look forward to another!"
    Edgar Liao

    “It surprised me. It was so unadorned. I appreciated its’ simplicity - I haven’t seen something like it before.”
    Sam Khoshnevis

    “We couldn’t get over how lit up we were by the experience, amid Covid isolation. It brimmed with beauty, good spirits, greenspace, and music, wonder on the neighbourhood kids’ faces, and big grins on ours.”
    Blake Johnson

    “Magic, magic. This is pure magic.”
    Aisha Varna

    MascallDance has yet to encounter a single unsuccessful performance of Privilege at Home.

Contact information

Agent/Manager: Bea Orbegoso, operations@mascalldance.ca

Website: https://www.mascalldance.ca/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MascallDance/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mascalldance