Startle Reflex Residency
Original photo by Wendy D. Photography.
UPCOMING SESSION TBD
ABOUT THE RESIDENCY
Startle Reflex is a residency and mentorship program for women identifying and non-binary artists. The residency offers space at Progress Lab in East Vancouver to explore, create, and question with no expectation of a finished product. The space is paid for by Tara Cheyenne Performance and Tara offers mentorship or feedback when requested and offers to help find suitable mentors or outside eyes from the "web of matriarchs" in and around our community.
Acceptance is limited to two artists per session. The Startle Reflex residency offers two sessions per year. You do not have to be a contemporary dancer to apply. This application is open to all women and non-binary identifying artists exploring movement in any form or discipline. This application is open to emerging/established/senior artists.
Each Residency includes:
- Free rehearsal/creation space at Progress Lab in East Vancouver (approx. 25 hours)
- a $750 honorarium
-Childcare stipend if needed (up to $150/day)
-Mentorship by Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg or other mentor
-Option for sharing session if useful to the artist.
Meet our past participants
Emmalena Fredriksson
“In the mini residency with Tara Cheyenne Performance this February I had the opportunity to play, rest and explore ideas without pressure. My cyborg alter ego got to walk around the space for the first time, as well as dream and scheme for future performances. It was a breathing space from the high pace I usually work in and look forward to returning to the work and the space in a couple of months.”
Emmalena Fredriksson is a contemporary dance artist, living and working in Vancouver, as a guest on the ancestral unceded lands of the Coast Salish peoples. Her practice is defined by choreography as a relational practice in the expanded fields of dance, often collaborating with artists of other disciplines, creating choreographic experiences and dance for social events, film, galleries and performance. Born in Sweden, she received her training at Balettakademien in Umeå and at SEAD in Austria. Emmalena has presented choreographic work, performed and taught internationally with Daghdha Dance Company (IE), Canaldanse (FR), Malta University (MT), Pact Zollverein (DE), and Falmouth University (UK) among others. Based in Vancouver since 2013 her work has been presented in Dancing on the Edge,The Dance Centre's Discover Dance Series, Dance Days (Victoria) and at the Audain Gallery. Commissioned by the National Film Board in 2017, she co-created Tidal Traces - a VR 360 dance film together with Nancy Lee. Emmalena holds an MFA degree from Simon Fraser University and regularly teaches at Modus Operandi, Training Society of Vancouver, Harbour Dance Centre and Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.
www.emmalenafredriksson.com
Juolin Lee
Born in Changhua, Taiwan, Juolin Lee relocated to Langley, BC at age 13. Currently she is in her fourth and final year at Modus Operandi: Vancouver Contemporary Dance Program, under the direction of Tiffany Tregarthen, David Raymond and Kate Franklin. Through M.O. Juolin has worked with Shay Kuebler, Vanessa Goodman, Paras Terezakis, and Company 605, amongst others. Juolin feels grateful to live and play on the unceded Coast Salish territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. As a dancer she is fortunate to collaborate with and perform in work by Zahra Shahab, Emmalena Fredriksson and Arash Khakpour. Juolin is excited by the potential of dance as a tool to continuously unpack her idea of self, and to shine a light on what is hidden in the subconscious. She is on a quest to further deepen her understanding of her Taiwanese heritage, in part by reclaiming her Chinese Folk Dance background, and applying the coexistence of force, beauty and precision within the form to her contemporary movement practice.
Emily Long
Emily is committed to using the body to invent, infuse, inspire, re-wire, confuse, and create. As a founding member of Subscura collective, established in 2014, she leads as an artistic director, choreographer, and performer. In her solo work, Emily engages in themes of mental health and healing —challenging the comfortable, questioning everything, shape-shifting and spirit-lifting; she delivers a non-conforming experience