Beginning with a gentle warm up that carries us closer to our body's presence - through breathwork, visualization and relaxation - we will tap into deeper layers of our body and internal landscapes. Later, we will explore rituals that lead us to places of free movement and exploration, connected to the images, thoughts and sensations that have emerged during our warm-up. These exercises encourage us to activate an innate freedom and creative flow while offering enough structure to provide security. We will close with therapeutic movements that will support a deepening of our dance practice, no matter what level your practice of movement is currently.
Open to all levels of movers. This workshop is particularly suited to those with a willingness to let go and use the imagination, slow practices, and/ or who are familiar with visualization, meditation, free movement and listening.
Content Notes: The workshop will involve minimal contact (contact may occur infrequently, but is not a base within the work). Movement is deep and can become intense, physically, but at the discretion of each participant.
Please bring layers of clothing as we will be lying down for long durations, and a notebook/pen for note-taking and drawing
About Daina Ashbee
Recognized as one of the most prolific choreographers of her generation, since 2015 her work has been presented over one-hundred times in 20 countries abroad. Her work has been presented in some of the most prestigious festivals (The Venice Biennale, Oktoberdans, the Munich Dance Biennale, Montpellier Danse) and on the stages of the world.
After residing for 8 years in Montréal, in 2020 she relocated to Gabriola-Island, where she re-sources her creative and energetic practices on the west coast of Canada while she is not touring or creating abroad. Her work, firmly established in somatic and energetic practices, reinvestigates and transforms trauma and violence. Her repertoire has been recognized internationally for being unafraid, bold and brutally honest. She has created a unique artistic signature, and won numerous awards, including a 2019 New York City Bessie. www.dainaashbee.com
Artist statement: “My choreography is an investigation of the body in order to address the subconscious. The art of dance brings me closer to my own body and to the awareness of my own thoughts and processes. Articulating this awareness through choreography helps to uncover my connection to the environment, the earth and to my ancestors. In a society full of traps to confuse, numb and desensitize, my work uses and acknowledges the density and complexity of the human structure by exploring its innards, its thought processes, its energy and its capacity for life. By employing subtle energetic capacities of the body, I work with familiar states where humans can relate to a sense of being and of space and time. By tapping into the familiar energetic states, images and rituals, my choreography first unwinds, before it expands. I employ the extreme energetic capacities of the human where mind, body and voice transform through repetition and duration; insisting through time and therefore expanding our capacity to communicate through the language of movement. As an artist, I create art where living-body is what occupies and commands both space and attention. As a human-being, this work allows me to transform, exposing layers that couldn’t be expressed otherwise and doing so would have been dangerous in my previous life. Therefore I see my artistry as a gift and sharing my craft as both a privilege and an obligation.” -Daina Ashbee, Vancouver 2011
This workshop is on the occasion of Diana Ashbee's performance of Serpentine at Tramway 6 June, 2-4pm, co-curated in collaboration with Tramway as part of RISE 2026, Dance North's Festival of Contemporary Dance and Performance. From Sat 23 May to Sat 6 June, RISE will honour global Indigenous artists whose work connects land, story, and movement worldwide. Part of Glasgow International 2026.