My name is Sophia Mai Wolfe (she/her/hers), I am a queer, Japanese-Canadian independent artist whose practice is ever-changing. My practice moves and connects me to live performance, video documentation, curation, festival programming, editing, filmmaking, directing and choreographing. I am a grateful guest of what is colonially know as Vancouver on the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish),and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. My dance practice has led me to performing and touring internationally with companies and independent choreographers such as Company 605, Co-Erasga, Chick Snipper, Cindy Mochizuki, Lisa Mariko Gelley, Kelly McInnes, Antonio Somera, Zahra Shahab, The Only Animal and New World Theatre.

I hold an MA in Screendance with Distinction (2022) from the London Contemporary Dance School, and am the founder and Artistic Director of F-O-R-M (Festival Of Recorded Movement). Through completing my MA, I became interested in making work that challenges and slows our attention. I use film and dance to invite connection and empathy towards the bodies we witness on screen, as well as invite sensation within the bodies of those witnessing. I work independently and collaboratively with artists and communities to engage audiences in work that moves them through embodied and imaginative experiences.

I am also involved with videocan as a video archivist and on the research team which is an online archive of Canadian performance directed by Patrick Blenkarn and Milton Lim. I have also curated screenings for New Blue Dance Festival (Toronto), Vancouver Art Gallery, DOTE (Vancouver) and Body+Camera (Chicago).

Photo by Flory Huang

Tamar Zehava Tabori (she/her) is an emerging dance and video artist, currently residing on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples; the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations.

Tamar maintains an active engagement with the dance community, locally, nationally, and internationally, using digital platforms as sites of creative exchange and connectivity. She has been involved in various interdisciplinary dance productions across Canada, performing on stage and on screen, and has received commissions for both production and instruction roles. Her experimental short films weave together contemporary dance and video manipulation, and have screened at over 15 festivals worldwide. She is interested in the documentation of movement, and explores methods of digital intervention that actively destabilize the outdated protocols of a homogenized dance world.

She is currently the Associate Artist for Company 605, and Associate Artistic Director at F-O-R-M.

Photo by Flory Huang

Erin Lum (she/her) is an emerging dance artist, writer, and filmmaker based on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples (Vancouver, BC). As F-O-R-M’s youngest staff member, she is passionate about fostering youth-engaged spaces in the arts.

Erin’s instinctual love for movement is a vessel to explore other creative practices. She previously published 25 interviews with Canadian dance artists as the blog writer of Story Bloom. In 2020, Erin was a F-O-R-M Commissioned Artist with her collaborator Corinne Langmuir. Her first dance film Zì Jǐ premiered at F-O-R-M’s 5th festival and has since screened at over 11 film festivals, including a weeklong projection onto the National Arts Centre building in Ottawa. Her second short, Something To Forget Me By, premiered in 2022. Erin is pursuing her undergrad degree in Communications and Sociology at Simon Fraser University. Most recently, Erin showcased a multi-media project Just By Existing in a group exhibition at the Art Gallery at Evergreen. She is deeply honoured and excited to grow alongside F-O-R-M.

Photo by Flory Huang

Flory (she/they) is a multidisciplinary visual art x design creator oriented in meaningful connection and collaboration in all processes. As a first generation settler of Taiwanese and Dutch ancestry born on unceded, ancestral and traditional Tongva Territory, she is also an uninvited guest continually learning on Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) lands on the Pacific Northwest Coast.

Following 10+ years of in-house and independent strategy and production work throughout a range of startup to corporate organizations, Flory has the honor and joy of creative brand direction for the 6th year with F-O-R-M. In addition to branding, studio offerings include illustration, photography, special projects and tattooing. Her ink illustrations and film photography works have been shown internationally in multiple independent and group art exhibitions in addition to digital and print publications since 2014. Current focuses and learnings include digital drawing and calligraffiti. She is also the Founder of @the.rested.revolution, a multi-modality community and platform for integrating and normalizing embodied rest for collective wellbeing, healing and holistic health through the tending of unrest and restlessness in skin and spirit.

Photo by Sophia Wolfe

Jingyi Liu (she/they) is an emerging multidisciplinary designer who is devoted to use visual languages to tell good stories. She is currently pursuing undergraduate degree in Communication Design at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Born and raised in Tianjin, China, based in the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and Tseil-waututh peoples, her inspirations of creation come from the culture clash, people’s emotion connections, and her homesickness. She hopes to gain more experiences by trying everything possible and to feel a deeper connection with the world.

Alger Ji-Liang 梁家傑 (he/him) is an emerging interdisciplinary artist based in Vancouver, BC on the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Alger's lens-based works are primarily researched through lived experiences of the body to express individual and communal experiences of navigating identity, grief, and space. He is currently working on community-engaged art and film projects, and a body of movement-based photographic work. Alger thinks a lot about kin and (re)orientations.

Photo Credit: Ciara Kosai

Hayden “Ragdoll” Pereira is an experimental street artist and has been cultivated towards movement as a form of expression. Hayden is from Surrey, British Columbia and they train in krump, hip hop and exploring street dance through a contemporary lens. They are affiliated with the Barangay project, a non-profit centred around teaching street dance to underprivileged youth. They are also connected to illest illusionz crew, a group that has been within Vancouver’s street dance community for 5 years. Hayden’s interest lies in researching art that explores the nuance of the mundane and work that enables one to question their perspective.

Treaty 1-born Sophie Dow is a multidisciplinary creative, inspired by dance, music, film, collaboration and Métis-Assiniboine + settler/stranger roots. An avid adventurer, Sophie exudes passions for busking, yoga and traveling on top of holding a degree in Dance Performance and Choreography from York University. Sophie presently fulfills roles as a joker (named Sneeky Doo), a dancer, choreographer, musician, writer, fire spinner, practitioner of traditional Thai Massage, enthusiastic student of breathwork (BreathWave) and a puddle jumper.

Photo Credit: James Deane

Volunteer Coordinator (2017)
Volunteer / Box Office Coordinator (2018)
Associate Producer (2019-2020)
Creative Producer (2022)

My F-O-R-M experience has been wide-ranging, moving from Volunteer Coordinator to Creative Producer over a 6 year period. The time in-between was infused with high-quality mentorship from Kristina Lemieux and loads of practical hands-on experience; these were opportunities to prove my own capability to myself, watching in real time as my skillset grew from timidity into the type of confidence that only comes through doing the thing. This year, I am grateful to Chiara for giving me the opportunity to step into a mentorship role as I passed on my knowledge, and feel that the future of the festival is in the innovative and capable hands of the next generation. My time at F-O-R-M introduced me to the radical possibilities within non-profit leadership structure and empowered me to find pathways to integrate my passion for numbers, data and bookkeeping within my artistic practice.

Kayla (she/they) is a human being made of approximately 7 octillion (7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) atoms. Kayla organizes her atoms to laugh, cry, drink coffee, rest, create dance, hike, and produce shows and festivals.

She is a second generation settler from the Menno Colony in Chaco, Paraguay via her maternal side. Born on the unceded, ancestral and traditional Stó:lō, Kwantlen, and Nuxwsa’7aq (Nooksack) territories (Abbotsford, B.C.), they now reside on the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) territories (Vancouver, B.C.).

I am currently working towards becoming a Holistic Bookkeeper specializing in arts/non profit/charity bookkeeping and financial education for artists from a trauma-informed and embodiment lens, and am in the research process for a new interdisciplinary movement score work.

Kaila Bhullar (she/they) is an interdisciplinary artist and experimental filmmaker based in the stolen traditional territories of three Local First Nations: the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) tribes.

Bhullar specializes in editing, photography, mixed media, and audiovisual works. With a particular interest in abstraction and digitally-based art forms, they use art-making as an introspective tool that explores various internal dispositions. These inquiries into the self often manifest as collages of varying forms and multimedia installations. Some of Bhullar’s recent projects include I Spy…2022 (A Disposable Camera Project), UNIT/PITT, 2022; Digital Interventions, Massy Arts Gallery, 2022; Everyone is Happening Always, Audain Gallery, 2022; and the Small File Media Festival, SFU, 2020. Bhullar is currently completing a BFA at SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts, and is grateful to be collaborating with F-O-R-M as their editor/videographer & technical support intern.

Photo credit: Marwah Jaffar

Kimberly Ho 何文蔚 (all pronouns) is excited to join the F-O-R-M team, as the new Communications Producer! They are an interdisciplinary artist and arts administrator based on the unceded ancestral lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and Tseil-waututh peoples, known as Vancouver. Growing up in a working class immigrant family, Kimberly’s work is nourished by collaborative processes and organically aims to be non-hiecharcial. In their artistic practice, they seek to explore their Hakka diaspora through the physical body and food culture, framing new media as a dimension of queer futurisms, and immersive art as a site of liberation.

Kimberly’s creative output spans across mediums, including theatre, photography, visual arts, new media, fashion styling and writing. Their work “tou saang zhu 土生豬” was presented as part of the group exhibition (Re)Visions at the Art Gallery at Evergreen, and Massy Art Gallery. They were also the recipient of Vancouver Asian Film Festival’s inaugural Richard K. Wong Film Fund and winner of the People’s Choice Award for Best Short Film for their participatory documentary “To Make Ends Meat 心頭肉”. Their acting credits included Theory at Rumble Theatre’s Tremors Festival, the world premiere of House and Home at Firehall Arts Centre, and “No More Parties”, featured in film festival platforms including Toronto International Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival and was one of seven films selected to represent Canada for Telefilm’s Not Short on Talent program at Clermont-Ferrand.

Photo by Flory Huang

Hân Phạm (she/her) is an emerging Vietnamese documentary/ experimental filmmaker and artist based in Vancouver. Experimenting with film form and its haptic time/space structure, she wishes to construct a collective healing space for minorities through her films - a healing space carried from the storytelling tradition of re-imagination, conversations, collaboration, and communal experience. Her works have exhibited at Vancouver International Film Festival, Vancouver Queer Film Festival, Reel Youth Film Festivals, and Vines Arts Festival. She is currently finishing her BFA in Film at Simon Fraser University.

Sammy Chien (Chimerik) is a Taipei born, Vancouver based interdisciplinary media artist, director, performer, researcher and mentor who works with film, sound art, new media and dance/theatre performance. He has studied film (BFA Honours) at Simon Fraser University and developed an expertise in electroacoustic music and digital technology in performance environment. After learning real-time performance softwares from Troika Ranch (NYC/Berlin) he continues his deep interest in interdisciplinary collaborations and forges deep connections between image, sound, and movement. He has collaborated visually, aurally and conceptually in numerous multi-disciplinary projects which have exhibited across Canada, Western Europe, and Asia including Centre Pompidou(Paris), Museum of Contemporary Arts Taipei, National Centre for the Performing Arts(Beijing), Hellerau: European Centre for the Arts Dresden. His recent collaboration with Beijing Modern Dance Company includes working with artists such as Wong Kar Wai’s Cinematographer Christopher Doyle, the Father of Rock in China Cui Jian and having lunch with Ai Wei Wei. Sammy has also been involved in research or mentorship in projects that focus on the integration between art, science, technology and spirituality as well as engaging with various community groups such as social activists, low-income residents, mental health, spiritual healing, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ2+, indigenous, multicultural background and youths. Sammy is the Co- Founder/Artistic Director of Chimerik似不像 collective.

Annie (she/her) is an artist and producer primarily working in theatre. She is the General Manager of Groundling Theatre Co. and Communications Producer at Generator. Annie has been spending the pandemic cooking, reading, and escaping to nature as often as possible.⁠

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Annie is a third-generation settler by way of Ukraine on her maternal side, Scotland on her paternal side. She was born and raised in the unceded territories of the Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil- Waututh), and xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam) peoples. Annie is currently an uninvited guest on the ancestral territories of the Haudenosaunee, the Wendat, and the ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᐗᑭ (Anishinabewaki) in Tkarón:to (where the trees meet the water). ⁠

Alger Ji-Liang 梁家傑 (he/him) is an emerging interdisciplinary artist based in Vancouver, BC on the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Alger's lens-based works are primarily researched through lived experiences of the body to express individual and communal experiences of navigating identity, grief, and space. He is currently working on community-engaged art and film projects, and a body of movement-based photographic work. Alger thinks a lot about kin and (re)orientations.

Photo Credit: Ciara Kosai

Led by artistic co-directors Lisa Gelley and Josh Martin, Company 605 is an arts organization based in Vancouver, on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded Indigenous territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. The company is dedicated to producing new dance work through a shared creative process. Inspired by the merging of urban and contemporary forms, 605 places emphasis on movement invention and physically demanding works, valuing collaboration as an essential tool for new directions in dance. 605 is an ongoing exchange between separate people, bodies and ideas, recognizing and celebrating the unique possibilities created in their attempt to co-exist. Through constant collaboration with all involved artists and performers, Company 605 continues to push into new territory and awaken a fresh and ever-evolving aesthetic, together building a highly athletic art form derived from the human experience.

With an expanding repertoire of diverse work, 605 has toured from coast to coast in over 30 cities across Canada, as well as in the US, Central America, Europe and Australia, presented at such notable festivals and venues as: Usine-C (Montréal), Bumbershoot Festival (Seattle), La Rotonde (Québec City), DanceWorks (Toronto), Push International Performing Arts Festival (Vancouver), Live Art Dance (Halifax), The Cultch (Vancouver), The Banff Centre, On The Boards (Seattle), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), New York City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival, American Dance Festival (Durham, NC), Festival PRISMA (Panama), Tempel Kulturzentrum (Karlsruhe, Germany), and Sydney Festival (Australia). Additionally, 605’s short dance films have been shown at over 45 dance-on-screen festivals and events around the world. company605.ca

Photo by David Cooper

Kristina Lemieux (she/her) is an accomplished arts manager with more than 20 years of professional experience. She is also a contemporary dancer. Raised in Treaty 6 territory (rural Alberta), Kristina lived in Edmonton, attending the University of Alberta, for 10 years before heading to Vancouver where her passion for the arts has driven collaboration, creation, and innovation in the Vancouver arts scene for over a decade. After working with Generator in a freelance capacity for several years, Kristina made the move to Toronto in January 2017 to take on the role of Lead Producer of Generator. In Vancouver, Kristina is also the proud co-founder and Creative Producer of F-O-R-M, and continues her work with Dancers of Damelahamid (Coastal First Nations Dance Festival), and her project Scaffold, a coaching and skill development service designed to support performing artists and groups.

Kristina is passionate about generating dialogue in the arts and, to this end, earned a certificate in Dialogue and Civic Engagement from Simon Fraser University. In all that she does she works to support independent artists across performing disciplines in finding ways to make art outside of the currently prescribed modes.

Kristina is an eleventh generation settler on her paternal side, from France, and a first generation settler on her maternal side, from Netherlands.

Photo by Flory Huang