DANCEMAKERS ARTIST IN RESIDENCE AISHA SASHA JOHN - 2019/20
Things change! We’re now presenting “the aisha of is” in the 2020-21 Season.
Stay tuned for details.
Victoria Cheong & Amy Manusov | Music COLLABORATORS
Adam Kinner & Justine A. Chambers | Outside Eyes
Tina Fushell | Curatorial SUPPORT
Yehuda Fisher | Lighting Design
Aisha Sasha John begins her three-year residency with Dancemakers by remounting an entirely revised version of her first full-length solo performance “the aisha of is”—a show whose previous presentations include the Whitney Museum (2017), MAI (2018) and SummerWorks Festival (2018).
In this latest iteration of an essentially mutable work, live musical environments created by collaborators Victoria Cheong and Amy Manusov provide the atmosphere wherein Aisha Sasha John is both Wizard and Dorothy—here the wizardry is one of reception, and the home being sought is perpetually found: “the aisha of is” has and continues to be a laboratory for arrival. Welcome to is. Where arrival has a sensual imperative—rhythm.
“I was lucky to catch John’s the aisha of oz at the Whitney Museum, and I’m almost ashamed to say it was truly sublime… It was sunset – the performance timed perfectly – and as the sun swallowed the grey space, John became an astonishing silhouette. A radiant figure within the washed-out interior of the museum, reminding us of the many unexpected ways to be seen.
-David B. Hobbs, The Globe and Mail
Le film d’action d’Aisha Sasha John Power Reality se détache nettement de la pièce. En solo, l’artiste décrit ce qu’elle va faire, récitant un discours assez creux sur un ton neutre. Même routine, cette fois avec éclairage et musique. Elle apparaît dans des halos de lumière, portée par une musique iconique, déclame son texte d’une voix forte et autoritaire. Le résultat donne la chair de poule tant la scène parvient à manipuler nos sensations jusqu’à rendre le discours percutant.
-Mélanie Carpentier, Le Devoir
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about aisha sasha john
Aisha Sasha John is interested in choreographing performances that are the occasion for real and multitudinous actions of love. A choreographer, dancer, and poet, Aisha’s true medium is energy. Her first full-length solo work debuted as the aisha of oz at the Whitney Museum in 2017. In 2018, iterations of the aisha of is were presented at Montreal, arts interculturels (MAI) and Toronto’s SummerWorks Festival. Aisha performed HEAT, a work-in-progress, alongside musical collaborator New Chance, for Toronto’s 2019 Images Festival, receiving the festival’s ‘Overkill Award’ for her “willingness to redefine, to expand, and to provoke.”More recently, Aisha was a member of WXPT Toronto, the company formed as part of taisha paggett’s exhibit School for the Movement of the Technicolo(u)r People for which Gallery TPW was transformed into a Black dance school. From 2015-2017, Aisha choreographed, performed and curated as a member of the collective WIVES, presenting ACTION MOVIE at Montreal’s Théâtre La Chapelle (2017) and winning the 2016 Offta Festival ‘Audacity Prize’ for Feeled (2016). Aisha’s video work and text art have been exhibited in galleries (Doris McCarthy, Oakville Galleries) and was commissioned by Art Metropole as part of Let’s understand what it means to be here (together), a week-long public art residency during which Aisha and four collaborators made performances in Union Station’s west wing. A celebrated poet, Aisha is author of the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize nominated collection, I have to live. (McClelland & Stewart 2017), as well as THOU (Book*hug 2014), finalist for the Trillium and Relit Poetry Awards. She was the 2018 Writer-in-Residence at the University of Toronto (Scarborough) and served as guest faculty for the 2019 Writing Studio residency program at The Banff Centre. She was born in Montreal.
Upper Image Source: NASA/SDO, October 10, 2017
Lower Image: Aisha Sasha John by Yuula Benivolski