Syd Campbell and Elena Eli Belyea in Gender? I Hardly Know Them, Tiny Bear Jaws. Photo by Nico Humby

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

The 10-day movement arts festival that returns Thursday for an 19th annual edition starts with the body in motion. All bodies in motion. And then it expands.

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That’s Expanse, the nimble, elasticized (and well-named) festival of physical performance curated and presented by Azimuth Theatre. And the theme is a declaration attached to an open-ended question: “The Future Is Ours … What Are We Going To Do With It?” .

Sue Goberdhan and Morgan Yamada, co-artistic directors of Azimuth Theatre, at the season launch. Photo supplied.

Collaboration,” declares Morgan Yamada, Azimuth’s co-artistic producer (with Sue Goberdhan), of the flag under which the company flies. Experienced and emerging artists, and underrepresented  communities, “working together to achieve a common goal….” The quintessential Expanse production, she says, is “something that explores the margins, stretches expectations, celebrates new work, or work in a new phase of development.” 

Increasingly, Expanse has generated buzz amongst indie theatre creators, reports Yamada. Witness the sheer number and variety in style and voice of submissions (“we were overwhelmed by the response”) — sketch comedy to wordless puppetry,  performance theatre to aerial arts to dance.  

Opening night on the mainstage, for example, features the latest from Tiny Bear Jaws’ Gender? I Hardly Know Them, a re-vamped edition of the politically savvy, theatrically inventive, very funny queer sketch comedy duo Elena Eli Belyea and Syd Campbell. “We get to be their Edmonton stop,” says Yamada of a tour that’s just finished a run in Calgary. “We need to laugh, to be to find some joy in activism.” 

Dot by The OKO, Expanse Festival 2023. Photo supplied.

Also on the MainStage is DOT, the work of the Calgary puppetry collective The OKO (produced in collaboration with Calgary’s Festival of Animated Objects). As Yamada describes, the imaginative text-less piece “uses water, projections, reflections, geometric shapes … even wind, to tell the story of a dot, a spec on a surrealist adventure, a journey from the molecular to the galactic. It’s so wonderful.”

Azimuth’s Works in Process series is launched with two productions, each with three performances at Expanse. “We’re seeing a need for indie projects as a testing ground,” says Yamada. “So we provide the MainStage resources for artists to bring a draft to fruition.”

Creature of Habit, Sophie May Healey, Expanse Festival 2023. Photo supplied.

Creature of Habit created and performed by Sophie May Healey (currently appearing in Karen Hines’ All The Little Animals I Have Eaten at Shadow Theatre), is one. As billed it’s “a solo piece that is part clown, dark comedy, satire, and cabaret.” I

It’s “inspired by the feminine masks of Noh, Franz Kafka, and people who write articles about their internet addictions,” as the author says in their notes, it follows the fortunes of a young woman isolated in her apartment, struggling with loneliness. 

Mohamed Ahmed’s Who Shouldn’t I Be, produced by Jstbyourself, follows an oil painter who moves to a new city. Inspired by the song What Shouldn’t I Be by the English singer-songwriter Sampha, Ahmed, a musician themself, is joined by a three-person ensemble (David Meadow, Jaylin January, Joeseph Dancey onstage. “Music, a DJ onstage, very cool,” says Yamada.

“We still highlight dance and movement,” says Yamada of Expanse in its incarnations since she and Goberdhan arrived at Azimuth in 2020. “We’re trying to stretch expectations of that.” 

Fragmented Journeys by Fragmented Journey Collective/ Sandra Olarte, at Expanse Festival 2023. Photo supplied.

Molly McDermott (with guidance from Good Women Dance) has curated a trio of high-contrast dance offerings under the banner Interchange. Fragmented Journeys, interdisciplinary in inspiration, combines aerial circus arts, contemporary dance, and theatre. It was born in aerial arts, and grew, as fashioned by Philip Hackborn (writer), Deviani Andrea (dance dramaturgy) and Sandra Olarte Mendoza (director/producer). And the eight-member performance ensemble embraces Hackborn and seven aerial artists.

Where The Tide Meets The Stream is produced by Christine Ullmark in collaboration with Tia Ashley Kushniruk, who performs it. The third Interchange show fulfills the tradition that the winner of Good Women Dance’s new work award one year premieres a piece at Expanse the following year. The multi-faceted Cree dancer/ actor/ performer/ choreographer Skye Demas is that artist. That’s why we get to see ᑲᓇᒋᒋᑫᐃᐧᐣ  Kanacicikewin – Cleanse. After the Sunday March 26 performance, the audience is invited to a free improvised movement workshop onstage. “See dance and experience it!” says Yamada. 

As always the Expanse lineup includes workshops, all given by festival artists. This year the subjects treated include movement and expression through aerial arts (Sandra Olarte Mendoza), floor work basics (Tia Ashley Kushniruk), interactive Interchange (improvisation with Molly McDermott), accessibility in the arts (a panel that includes both Yamada and Goberdhan as well as Carly Neis and Bret Jacobs.

“And the Lobbyists are back!” says Yamada. They’re the ensemble of movement artists whose inspirations in the Westbury Theatre lobby happen before and after the shows, the sinews that tie an evening at Expanse together … “and celebrate what it’s like to be nimble!” 

Expanse 2023 runs Thursday through April 2 at the ATB Financial Arts Barn (10330 84 Ave.). Tickets and full schedule: azimuththeatre.com. All tickets are pay-what-you-will, at fringetheatre.ca.