PRE-PROFESSIONAL | PROFESSIONAL
9:30 AM - 3:00 PM
A FULL-DAY INTENSIVE FOCUSED ON PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN CONTEMPORARY DANCE PRACTICE.
Featuring former Netherlands Dans Theater and inverso productions artistic director Lesley Telford and Contemporary Artist Simran Sachar.
ADULT OPEN | BEGINNER
An introductory intensive for adult beginners to MOVE AND BUILD CONFIDENCE IN CONTEMPORARY MOVEMENT.
FACILITATED BY SHAYLA DYBLE
5:00 - 6:00 PM
Lesley Telford
Lesley Telford is a choreographer, educator and the Artistic Director of Inverso Productions based in Vancouver on Coast Salish Territory. She began her career with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, worked with Nacho Duato at Compañia Nacional de Danza in Spain and spent over a decade dancing and creating at Nederlands Dans Theater 1 where she worked with choreographers such as Jiri Kylian, Paul Lightfoot and Sol Leon, William Forsythe, Ohad Naharin, Johan Inger, Crystal Pite and others. As a choreographer, she has created works for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Ballet BC, Netherlands Dans Theater 1, Zfin Malta, Hubbard Street Dance Company,Compañia Nacional de Danza, Ballet Vorpommern, Butler Ballet, International Project for Dance in Rome (DAF), University of Utah, Arts Umbrella Dance Company and most recently Ballett Bern. Through Inverso, she has choreographed and produced 4 full evening works which have been presented throughout Europe and Western Canada. In her work, Lesley explores the physicality and spatial structures of emotional states at the intersection of dance, the visual arts, text and film. She values intergenerational projects and highlights the experience of older movers. Her work has been described as having “a profound way of tapping into very deep recesses of our emotional and intellectual landscapes”. She has taught workshops and classes internationally in many companies and schools. Lesley has a long-standing commitment in support of emerging dance artists and has developed Performance Research Project to provide valuable opportunities and experience. She has a Master of Arts in Cultural Production from the University of Salzburg.
Simran Sachar
Simran Sachar is a Indo-Canadian dance artist, choreographer, teacher, writer, and actororiginally from Calgary, Alberta, but currently dedicates time to their artistic practice inVancouver, Canada on the unceded, ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, andTsleil-Waututh Nations.She is a captivating anomaly in this industry known for her work as a contemporary andstreet dance artist and choreographer. As a performer she’s contributed her skills in variousfilm, television, theatre productions, and Canadian dance companies, as well as the streetdance scene where she’s known for her exceptional abilities as a freestyle dancer, strongstorytelling skills and fluid precision.As a choreographer, Sachar’s work uncovers distorted memories and how they disfigure us,the duality of relief and grief, and all the baggage that eventually leads us to joy. Lately sheis inspired by the bugs within XR technology. Instead of trying to improve the technology,perhaps we can apply its flaws and allow them to deepen the world building andchoreography.Currently, Sachar is collaborating with Justine A. Chambers on a newly commissioneddance work which is set to premiere on July 5th, 2025 at Indian Summer Festival. Sachar’slatest live work, ‘ACT TWENTY FIVE’ premiered in front of two sold out audiences in June2024 at Vancouver’s Dancing On The Edge Festival and at Dance In Vancouver.