FEELING, SEEING AND ADJUSTING: USING MEMORY AS A TOOL FOR COMPOSITION - James Gnam

The workshop uses directed improvisations to explore feeling and memory. Solo work considers embodiment—how we reach, fall, and play with gravity. With partners, we practice seeing and being seen, shaping choices as we compose from desire. We'll listen softly and loudly, tell stories, do nothing, and assemble from found things.
James Gnam (he/him) is a Vancouver-based dancer and choreographer whose work investigates the reciprocal tensions between embodiment, technology and social exchange. A graduate of Canada’s National Ballet School, he has interpreted repertoire for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Ballet BC, EDAM Dance and 10 Gates Dancing, performing landmark creations by Crystal Pite, Twyla Tharp, Jiří Kylián, Mark Morris, Kurt Jooss, Peter Bingham and Tedd Robinson. Gnam is the Artistic Director of Plastic Orchid Factory, a founding member of Left of Main, and an associate artist with Mélanie Demers’ MAYDAY and Jacques Poulin-Denis’ Grand Poney. James’ choreography positions the body as both subject and analytic instrument, extending dance into gaming environments, gallery contexts and civic spaces. Over more than twenty works with Plastic Orchid Factory, Gnam has cultivated a practice that oscillates between meticulous introspection and architecturally scaled spectacle.