Outreach

We assess the impact of our programming through the feedback on our many interactive and creative exchanges with the community at home and on tour -youth, adult, seniors, professionals and general public during presentations, special projects, dialogue sessions and workshops. The building of alliances with loyal individuals that follow our artistic aspirations create closer ties to engage capacity through attendance, education, feedback and moral support. By supporting developing partnership with artists, institutions and other communities, we learn to access more opportunities for audience development, understanding and locating different populations and weight the pros and cons of harnessing the changing and growing audiences.

Is an artist exchange supporting the local dance community in its pursuit of artistic excellence and creation by engaging with other Canadian or international dance artists outside of Vancouver that are contributing to the milieu. In the development of Exchanges over several years, we are able to bring artists whose professional practice are shared in Vancouver through public talks and their body of artistic works to exchanges and presentation in the community at large.
Professional and non-professional engages: Dance scholarships is also available to participants. To date the following professional dance artists have facilitated, engaged and participated in the EXchanges series:

2008 – Andrea Nann, Peter Chin, Lydia Wagerer

2009 – Martin Inthamousu – Uruguay

2011 – Risa Steinbergh – USA , Sarah Chase

2012 – Jane Osbourne, Meghan Goodman, Russ Ligtas, Rafaele Giovanola- Germany

2013 – Peggy Baker

2014 -Didik Nini Thowork – Indonesia, Pichet Klunchun – Thailand

2016 – Hiroaki Umeda – Japan

2018 – Gabriel Dharmoo – Montreal

2019 – Hari Krishnan – Toronto

2020 – Mamerto Lagitan Tindongan – Philippines

2021 – Session 1 – Alvin Collantes, Berlin

Session 2 – Zab Maboungou, Montreal

Session 3 – TBD

“We value and support the work of independent artists and other professionals from diverse and interdisciplinary practices to participate in Studio Salon Series. These individuals are the wellspring and sources of an inspired creative richness that continue to move and shift cultural activities and artistic innovation in our midst. Processes is an integral part of our development beyond the honing of a completed final product or a piece. Process keeps us moving and alive in our relation to creativity. The studio salon series is a space and platform to reveal these processes, creativity and ideas – where we unite and celebrate our many independent artists in Vancouver and beyond.”

• Alvin Erasga Tolentino

Our Studio Salon Series is a recurring series featuring local artists sharing works-in-progress with the community in an informal setting.

These events are free to the public in an effort to create more communication between artists and the community while their works are still in development. After short excerpts are shown, the featured artists engage in conversation with the audience around the topics presented in the work, creation, and development.

Past Studio Salon Artists:

October 2018
Dennis D. Gupa

April 2019
Kayla De Vos
Starr Muranko
Joshua Ongcol

July 2019
Lynn Farrales, MD

September 2019
Marissa Wong
Olivia Shaffer
Alvin Erasga Tolentino

September 2020 *livestreamed
Shion Skye Carter
Marc Arboleda
Tasha Faye Evans
Jane Gabriels

April 2021 *livestreamed
Tin Gamboa
Salome Nieto
Jeanette Kotowich
Sammy Chien

StudioProcess is an interactive community dialogue about dance and its processes between Co.ERASGA, our artists and our audiences. Often held in informal and studio settings, it provides the public with an opportunity to talk to performers in person, to study the workings of a dance company up close, and to view work in research and development both at home and international occasion.

InterProcess supports the training and development within the professional and non-professional dance community with activities that include discourse, building dance project creatively, mentoring and hiring apprentice dancers. This provided free access to the discourse of art topics, physical dance work to non-dancers, youth and seniors to promote a wider scope of public participation.

Our Youth & Senior Outreach, a series of free dance classes for youth and seniors, offered regularly at home in our yearly programming through our partnership with other organizations and schools- this initiative is also extended while on tour especially to developing countries in South Asian. Co.ERASGA reserved special seats showing for youth 18 and under for the price of $5 in our many self produce productions; An advocacy for the development of youth audiences to be exposed to contemporary dance.

Co.ERASGA’s ongoing community outreach project MigARTion is a collaborative artistic undertaking between the company and MIGRANTE BC, a grassroots organization for newcomer Filipino migrant workers and immigrants. Through workshops with professional artists in voice (Jeremiah Carag), theatre (Dennis Gupa), dance (Alvin Erasga Tolentino), and visual art (Bert Monterona), a committed group of migrant workers have come together to participate in up to 14 sessions of artistic creation to express their personal stories of migration through the fine and performing arts.

This process gives critical agency among the participants, allowing their distinct voices to emerge within a space and atmosphere of free will, joyous participation and critical public engagement. In this initiative, the artists and the migrant participants work together in exploring artistic practices and integrates critical and empathic discussions on settler colonialism, history of migration, arts and the migrant and indigenous ways of knowing and being.

We have been able to offer the program twice over the past 2 years:

Our pilot session saw us hold workshops from October to December 2018 and culminated with two days of events on December 18th and 19th — the opening night included the unveiling of an art exhibition featuring works created by the participants, various presentations, performance sharing, community dialogue, a reception, and a proclamation by the Mayor of Vancouver declaring December 18, 2018 as “International Migrants Day” in Vancouver.

A second round of  workshops took place from November to December 2019.

MigARTion program

compiled by Lara Maestro, Master of Archival Studies
December 2018