Photos: Emile Bland
*These classes will be 1.75hrs (10am-11:45am)
Class Description:
Partnering Pathways & Practice with generous mess
In this class we will share some of the partnering tools, ideas, and curiosities we use in our company’s creative practice and partnering repertoire. We will start the class with a series of exercises and games to warm up our sensation, listening, weight sharing, and backspace. We will then share some partnering pathways and explore the range of possibilities in each movement by switching both roles and partners.
Lastly, we will link together a few of the things we practiced in class. For the sake of the time, we will pick one “role” to learn. If time allows we will try the role with multiple partners and use the phrase of movement as a container for you to explore your own curiosities inside the partnering technique.
Born in North Vancouver BC, Aiden Cass began his training with North Shore Academy of Dance, and after graduation joined Modus Operandi (MO) in 2015. Since his time training with MO, Aiden has worked with David Raymond, Tiffany Tregarthen, Shay Kuebler, Idan Cohen, Paras Terezakis, Mandy Moore, and Emmalena Fredriksson; as well as many other artists in the Vancouver community. Aiden has had the opportunity to perform and tour internationally and throughout Canada with Radical System Art and Out Innerspace Dance Theatre.
Sarah Hutton is a dancer, actor, choreographer, teacher, and rehearsal director. She was raised in Hanna, Alberta. She moved to Vancouver in 2013 and has since trained with the Source Dance Company, EDAM, Modus Operandi, and Peggy Baker’s Emerging Artists Program. She has had the pleasure to collaborate with Paras Terezakis, Rachel Helten, Isak Enquist, Shay Kuebler, Constance Cooke, and Anya & Sophia Saugstad. Touring with Radical System Art has brought Sarah to perform in France, Austria, the United States and across Canada.
Formed and led by Sarah Hutton and Aiden Cass, generous mess is an emerging contemporary dance company based in Vancouver on the unceded, stolen territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Their Vancouver debut, by means of each other, was a duet commissioned and presented at Dancing On the Edge Festival in July 2021. by means of each other - pt. 2 recently premiered at Left of Push in January 2023 in Vancouver, BC. Their first ensemble work, heirloom, premiered at the EDAM Spring Choreographic Series in March 2022 in Vancouver, BC. This fall generous mess will be Artists in Residence at Decidedly Jazz Dance in Calgary, AB to continue their creation of heirloom.
Sarah and Aiden have had the pleasure to share their repertoire and creative practice through classes and workshops at Modus Operandi Link Program, Coastal City Ballet, Vanleena Dance Academy, and Caulfield School of Dance, among others.