Join us for the final RMG Friday of the year! The evening will kick off with a performance by RBC Emerging Artist in Residence Vanessa Godden followed by the O’Neill CVI Dance and Movement Studies students. In the Lookout, DRIFF will be screening Common as Red Hair by Robbie Robertson.
Enjoy food from local restaurant, Gabe and Pancha’s.
Vanessa Godden, Transference (2024), performed at the 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art, October 13, 2024. Image by Henry Chan.
7-8PM Transference: A performance by Vanessa Godden
Transference is a performance by RBC Emerging Artist in Residence Vanessa Godden. Throughout the performance, Godden will submerge their body in containers of different sizes filled with salt water. The artist’s movement, and the resulting sounds, will interact with a sound composition produced in collaboration with Markham-based Visual and Sonic artist, James Knott. The composition includes audio collected by Godden during their residency at the RMG, field recordings from Trinidad and Tobago, experimental steel pan recordings, and a choir of sounds collected from Queer and Trans loved ones. The performance serves as a bridge between Godden’s Non-Binary Queer diasporic existence in the West and the lineages of movement instigated by colonization of South Asia and the Caribbean.
The RBC Emerging Artist Residency Program is generously sponsored by the RBC Foundation’s Emerging Artist Project.
The artist thanks the Canada Council for the Arts for their support of this work.
O’Neill CVI Dance and Movement Studies students perform, choreographed by Kiera Beaugh and Megan Nadain.
This piece dives into the language of anxious movements—the nervous ticks, repetitive gestures, and subconscious rhythms we turn to when unease sets in. Each motion draws from the tension between comfort and compulsion, exploring how, in moments of distress, we may find solace in patterns that are both familiar and self-destructive. This piece invites the audience to witness the complexity of self-soothing behaviors and the ways we navigate our inner landscapes in search of calm, even in places that may not offer it.
Kiera Breaugh is a dancer/choreographer whose style lives at the intersection of contemporary and hip hop. Kiera has a BA in Dance from LMU in Los Angeles. While in LA, she was a member of LA dance companies: the Young Lions, Immabeast, Immabreathe and MashUp Contemporary Dance Company.
Kiera has performed in Dance Matters, A Woman’s Work, the Toronto Fringe Festival, the Orlando Fringe Festival, the Vancouver Fringe Festival and Dusk Dances, Hamilton. She has choreographed for PRESENCE, a site specific series commissioned by Peggy Baker Dance Productions: ProArteDanza in their Choreolab and an original piece during the half-time of a Raptors Game. Kiera has completed the Hicks Choreography Fellows Program through Jacob’s Pillow and is in the middle of a two year residency at Assembly Hall in Etobicoke offered through Toes for Dance.
Kiera has worked with and danced for artists including Ian Eastwood, Brian Friedman, Janelle Ginestra, Kylie Thompson, Mary Ann Chavez and Monika Felice Smith. Her work often explores themes such as racial identity, female upward mobility, and other ideas that aim to empower the unheard.
Our Hearts as Planets” sets out to explore the deep comfort that can come from finding connectivity and community amidst a world that can often feel incredibly overwhelming. The weight of our struggles can cause us to feel isolated, alone or misunderstood, yet letting others in and finding common ground often leads to a lightening of our mental loads and we are often reminded that we are not alone. We explored gestures and movement phrases in isolation from one another eventually, slowly and sometimes sporadically finding their way into unison and harmony. Whatever is going on in our lives today, we strive to find gratitude to be where we are right now, with these people, dancing together, in this incredible space, for you. Welcome to our journey. I am grateful to dancers for their open hearts and minds, and for all of their beautiful contributions to the work.
Jessica Baker Photography
Megan Nadain (she/her) is a Toronto-based dancer, choreographer and dance educator originally from North Vancouver, BC. She is a graduate of The School of Toronto Dance Theatre and was the recipient of the The Hnatyshyn Foundation Developing Artist Grant. She was a company member with Dancetheatre David Earle and has worked independently with Darryl Tracy, Nicole Nigro, inDANCE, Toronto Heritage Dance and Miranda Abbott. She has the pleasure of being a faculty member at The School of Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre teaching Creative Movement and Modern and has directed CCDT’s Core Apprentice Program for the past 8 years; she is thrilled to take on the directorship of the Accelerated Training Program this year. Megan is also on faculty at Dance Arts Institute (formerly the School of Toronto Dance Theatre) teaching in The Professional Program and Adult Contemporary Dance. She has also worked as a dance educator at York University and The National Ballet of Canada’s In Studio program and facilitates the dance programs at several elementary and secondary schools in Toronto. Two projects that she has been involved with that she is exceptionally passionate about are Bridging Generations Through Dance with Dancing with Parkinson’s and Moving together: Choreographic mappings of children with diverse dis/abilities and their neurological responses to a dance-play event with Coralee McLaren.
DRIFF will be screening Common as Red Hair by Robbie Robertson.
About the film: The aftermath of an emotional funeral causes a grieving father and mother to reexamine their early life decision to have gender normalization surgery performed on their intersex infant.
Screening times: 8:00 and 8:45
An anchor of the cultural calendar in Durham Region, RMG Fridays are free community events that bring together various art forms. Designed for all ages they feature a variety of live music, performances, film screenings with DRIFF (Durham Region International Film Festival), exhibition tours, artist talks, and highlight community partners and local businesses.
The RMG reserves the right to cancel this event due to circumstances beyond RMG’s control or not reasonably anticipated, including but not limited, to weather, or inability of Facility to host Event.
