Works

2018-2019

• The Cardiac Shadow
  WINNER of the 2018/19 Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Awards for Outstanding Multi-Media Design (Katrina Beatty) and Outstanding Choreography (Good Women Dance Collective). Co-production with Northen Light Theatre Based on a true story – Four women are procured from the Ravensbruck concentration camp, hand-selected by SS Second Lieutenant Dr. Sigmund Rascher for a series of experiments specifically designed to ...
• The Signal
  Ainsley Hillyard explores fear as a method of control in The Signal, her first full-length multi-media work. Words can be weapons, thoughts can be cages and our peers can become targets. Created in a collaborative style, all of the performers have also been creators in their own right. Director: Ainsley Hillyard Performers and co-creators: Lady Vanessa Cardona, Alison ...

2017-2018

• damn+Good
  Created in collaboration with New Music Edmonton and damn magpies, damn+Good is an intimate, interactive, and improvised performance of dance, sound, and noise. Lead Artists: Alison Kause, Ian Crutchley, Allison Balcetis Performers: Ainsley Hillyard, Alison Kause, Kate Stashko, Katherine Semchuk, Krista Posyniak, Chenoa Anderson, Allison Balcetis, Ian Crutchley, Scott Smallwood, Mark Segger, and Jane Berry. Lighting Designer/Technical Director: ...
• how long can we do this for?
  how long can we do this for? uses humour and physical extremes to explore insatiability in a social context and within the realm of the body. Choreography by Kate Stashko, in collaboration with the performers: Alida Kendell and Katherine Semchuk Composer: Shawn Pinchbeck Outside eye: Lin Snelling Lighting Designer/Stage Manager: Beth Dart Photography/Videography: Epic Photography (Marc J. Chalifoux and Ian Peter ...

2016-2017

• Back Up Front
  Back Up Front proposes a new hierarchal structure and brings the movements of back up dancer/singer to the forefront. This work invites the viewer to gaze at both the conformity of rhythmic synchronization found through set movement phrases, and movement scores occurring in the present which prioritize the individual. Back Up Front works through the ...

2015-2016

• Love Fail
  Love Fail is a collaboration between GWDC and Pro Coro Canada. The score, created by Pulitzer-prize winning composer David Lang and directed by Pro Coro Canada’s Artistic Director Michael Zaugg, is a modern retelling of Tristan and Isolde which interweaves details of the timeless love story with contemporary sources. The score is performed live by ...
• We’ll be fine
  We’ll be Fine is a new work created by Mélanie Demers in collaboration with artists from Good Women Dance Collective (GWDC) and dance-theatre artist Richard Lee. The work premiered in November 2015, with three performances at L’Uni Théâtre in Edmonton, Alberta, presented by GWDC. As is typical of Ms. Demers’ work, the piece oscillates between ...

2014-2015

• Caveat
  Caveat blends striking theatrical images with physical risk-taking. Recapturing the Aesop fable: Avaricious and Envious, Caveat examines what happens to the characters after the end of the fable, picking up the story where Aesop left off. How will they deal with their new found realities, their guilt, and each other? The piece also explores female ...

2013-2014

• Withheld
  Withheld explores the body’s ability to withhold, confine, and distort emotions, impulses, and information. Withholding may be seen as due to a political, social, or psychological threat. Four dancers express the physical vocabulary and interpersonal dynamics that evolve out of this withholding or confinement of expression. How is our desire to reach out and connect ...
• Shatterstate
  A series of intersecting scenarios and moments of déjà vu create Shatterstate. Inspired by the idea of fractured narrative, the dancers live and re-live the same but slightly altered moments. The shards of a shattered story contribute to an infinite number of outcomes in this ‘choose your own adventure’ performance. It is honestly physical and ...
• One Foot
  Filmed in a single, continuous shot by Edmonton-based filmmaker, Dylan Rhys Howard, the music video incorporates the movement of GWDC with the music of Doug Hoyer. The song is off of the Alberta musician’s 2013 album, To Be A River. Choreography: Ainsley Hillyard, Alison Kause, Alida Kendell and Kate Stashko Performers: Ainsley Hillyard, Alison Kause, Alida Kendell and ...
• Common Cards
  A collaboration with Edmonton-based band, The Provincial Archive. The black and white footage captures the physicality of the four collective artists in the music video for the indie pop act’s Common Cards single. Choreography: Ainsley Hillyard, Alison Kause, Alida Kendell and Kate Stashko Performers: Ainsley Hillyard, Alison Kause, Alida Kendell and Kate Stashko Composer: The Provincial Archive Videography: Nathan ...

2012-2013

• (de)Compose
  A storytelling with no words, composer Kevin Green guides the GWDC through a visually interactive soundscape. From the bustling metropolis of our modern world to the calm hush of a natural setting, (de)Compose explores how we interact with and reject modernity, how we, at our basest, want only to get back to nature. The journey back, however, ...
• Counterpart
  The nature of an ever-shifting relationship captured in dance. At times a partnership, at other times the line between what is real and what’s not becomes blurred as one identity overtakes the other. Choreographer: Alida Kendell Performers: Ainsley Hillyard and Alida Kendell Composer: Alva Noto and David Kristian Lighting Design: Beth Dart Costume Design:Alida Kendell Stage Manager: Beth Dart Premiered: December 1, 2011 at GWDC’s ...
• Face Time
  Be two places at once! Or nowhere at all. Challenging physical contact in a world where connection between people is manipulated by technology, Face Time is a conversation exploring our constructed versions of reality, perception and connection. In a time when Facebook friends, twitter followers and virtual conversation are sometimes valued more than personal interaction, Face Time begs the ...
• Pod
  The combined artistic visions of electro-acoustic composer Poitr Grella-Mozejko and Good Women takes the audience on a journey of growth, separation, and isolation. Pod evokes images of an organism that grows and evolves into two separate entities who struggle to break free from the environment they were created in. Watch them gain freedom and transform with each ...