A Story of Hope

Rose and Blue have always been together. Navigating their way through rocky waters, sandy shores, teetering on the edge, and holding on for dear life. A friendship carried over time by the strong bonds made through shared hardship and survival. Blue’s shadow is catching up to her and she can hear the Thunder Beings calling her back Home. The veil between the worlds thins. Where can we turn when the life we know shatters like a mirror falling to the ground? What do we leave behind for the ones who remain?

Created and Produced by O.Dela Arts

55min ~

Premiere: May 2017 Vancouver, BC, Canada, Cultch Vancity Culture Lab

Available for touring –  please inquire for details

---

Audience Engagement Tools:

Community Residency:

Multi-Day Collective Creation Workshop Series Home: Our Way 

Outreach:

Connecting with Local Community Members (Youth-Elders)

Moderated Circle Conversation hosted by Olivia

Professional Training:

Master Class – Contemporary Indigenous Dance with Olivia

Community Training:

Workshop – Intro to Contemporary Indigenous Dance with Olivia

Workshop – Bringing Out Our Stories with Rosemary and Olivia

Witnessing:

Audience member selected to remember/recount with their community

---

Press:

http://www.madeinbc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Olivia-Davies-CrowsNest-Press-Reviews-2016-2017.pdf

https://www.nativeearth.ca/w29-davies/

www.thenorthernview.com/

Here’s what audience members have to say:

• Thank you for embodying Blue’s spirit, her body, pain, struggle and resilience.  I feel you showed her soul. I hope to hold that and see it in all women, especially women like Blue that face the same challenges (Port Coquitlam resident)

• Extremely powerful story and dance. Pretty well the most engaging and riveting I have ever seen/experienced.  (Strathcona resident)

• There wasn’t very many people getting clean /sober in the 1970’s.  1^st Nations People didn’t advertise clean/sober.  There was little to none support for us then. It was always the assumption we wanted to stay alcoholics & addicts.  Powerful, expressive, a range of emotions conveyed.

• The BEST.  Amen, Jesus.  The show gets better each time I see it.

• Such lovely movement. I really find it evocative & telling. Thank you.

• Powerful, affecting, impressive. Beautiful, amazing. Love it! Beautiful transitions, body awakening – very inspiring movement.  Dance at its best – story-telling, engagement & beauty of release

• Instantly captivating, moving, interesting, funny, chilling, thought-provoking

• Both thrilling and chilling and utterly relevant

Presenter Info:

Technical Info –  info@oliviacdavies.ca for password to link

Available to tour. Email info@oliviacdavies.ca

Artistic Team:

Olivia C. Davies / choreographer, performer “Blue”

Olivia C. Davies is a dance artist, choreographer, community-arts facilitator and emerging curator of Anishinaabe, French-Canadian, Finnish and Welsh heritage whose works attempt to expand the emotional and political relationships between people and places. Her recent choreographic explorations are driven by a desire to explore neo-traditional aspects of her Indigeneity.

Rosemary Georgeson / storyteller, performer “Rose”

Rosemary has worked on community-engaged and community play projects as an associate artist with Vancouver Moving Theatre, as story contributor and community worker for “In the Heart of a City: The Downtown Eastside Community Play”, as co-writer and peer worker for “We’re All in this Together”, a giant screen shadow play on addiction and recovery; as co-writer and coordinator of “Storyweaving”, created in partnership with the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Center, and as co-facilitator with Olivia C. Davies for “Home: Our Way” women’s writing and movement workshops. Rose was the First Nations’ community liaison for Urban Ink / Twin Fish Collective collaborative communities’ play from an Aboriginal perspective, “A Community Remembers” in Williams Lake, BC. She received the 2015 Vancouver Mayor’s Award for Emerging Artist in Community Arts and held the title of Aboriginal Storyteller in Residence at the Vancouver Public Library that same year. This is her first collaboration with Olivia / Crow’s Nest Collective. www.rosemarygeorgeson.wordpress.com

Emily Long /  aerialist, performer “shiny thing”

Emily is an independent interdisciplinary artist, co-founder and co-artistic director of the Vancouver-based Subscura Performance Collective. Her passion for art and expression is a constant force in her life, taking priority and becoming her true focus. With several years of performance experience in dance, aerial hoop, and theatrics, she has committed to using the body to invent, infuse, inspire, re-wire, confuse, and create. Emily’s message is always thought provoking. Challenging the comfortable, questioning everything, shape-shifting and spirit lifting, she delivers a non-conforming experience. Emily has collaborated with Olivia since 2015 www.subscura.com

---

Key Collaborators:

Michael Red / original score,  Jonathan Kim / original lighting design, Jacob Oudshoorn / professional rigging, assistant stage manager, Emily Neumann OR Nicco DeCecco / technical stage manager, Starr Muranko / artistic mentor, Anne Riley / creative research for Dance Lab 2017, Alejandro Ronceria / dramaturge Weesageechak 28 & 29, Santee Smith / dramaturge Kaha:Wi Dance Theatre Creation Lab 2016, Aurélie Pédron / dramaturge Studio 303 REMIX 2017

Thank you to our generous funders — British Columbia Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, and the First Peoples Cultural Council.

Special thanks and ch’i miigwetch to support received from partners at Made in BC: Dance on Tour, New Works, Native Earth Performing Arts, Scotiabank Dance Centre, Studio 303, Kaha:Wi Dance Theatre The Firehall Arts Centre The Evergreen Cultural Centre, The Cultch, and the Lester Centre for the Arts.

Photos: Chris Randle/WendyD of R. Georgseon, O.Davies, E. Long