taqəš
Choreography: Cameron sinkʷə Fraser-Monroe
Music: Jeremy Dutcher

Cameron sinkʷə Fraser-Monroe brings his classical ballet training, knowledge of traditional Coast Salish, grass, and hoop dance, and experience as a contemporary dancer to taqəš [tawKESH], which means “to return something” in Ayajuthem, the language belonging to the Homalco, Klahoose, K’omoks, and Tla’amin Nations. Set to several songs by Polaris Prize-winning composer and singer Jeremy Dutcher, taqəš follows the traditional story “Raven Returns the Water,” centred around ῤoho (raven) and walθ (frog).

Schubert
Choreography: John Alleyne
Music: Franz Schubert, Piano Trio No. 2 in E-flat Major

Originally commissioned by Ballet BC in 2000, John Alleyne’s Schubert honours three pillars of a dancer’s experience: youth, beauty, and wisdom as it reflects on the central role women play in the evolution of the art form. Set to Franz Schubert’s luminous Piano Trio No. 2 in E-flat Major, the work brings an “inherent... sensuousness and sophistication,” (The Georgia Straight) to its rhythmic and emotionally resonant portrayal of the stages of a dancer’s career.

World Premiere
Threefold Beat
Choreography: Joanna Lige, Donaldo Nava, and Kurt Werner
Music: Sergei Rachmaninoff, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini

This work draws inspiration from the cardiovascular system – the body’s engine of motion and exchange. At its core is the heart: a relentless pump that governs rhythm, pace, and pressure, shaping how we move through space and life.

Created collaboratively by three choreographers – Joanna Lige, Donaldo Nava, and Kurt Werner – the piece mirrors the structure of the system it references. Each choreographer contributes a distinct movement language, functioning like interconnected chambers and pathways within a larger entity. Their individual perspectives circulate through the work, intersecting, diverging, and recombining, generating a dynamic network of motion that is greater than any single voice.

Throughout the piece, motion becomes circulation: an ongoing negotiation between effort and ease, control and surrender. The ensemble functions as a living system with each body both an independent force and a vital conduit within the whole.

What emerges is not an anatomical portrait, but a kinetic one: a portrait of life sustained by pulse, flow, and connection.