Action at a Distance is composed of small team of people who create, produce and share performative works.

Artistic Director

Vanessa Goodman respectfully acknowledges that she lives, works and creates on the ancestral and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples, including the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō, Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations. She holds a BFA from Simon Fraser University and is the artistic director of Action at a Distance Dance Society. Vanessa is attracted to art that has a weight and meaning beyond the purely aesthetic and uses her choreography as an opportunity to explore the human condition. Her choreographic practice is driven by weaving generative movement and audio into performative environments. Her work creates a sense of intimacy between our surroundings and the body. She has received several awards and honours, including The Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award (2013); The Yulanda M. Faris Scholarship (2017/18); The Chrystal Dance Prize (2019); The Schultz Endowment from Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (2019); and the "Space to Fail" program (2019/20) in New Zealand, Australia and Vancouver. Her work has toured Canada, The United States, Europe and South America. Recent collaborations include Graveyards and Gardens with Caroline Shaw and BLOT with Simona Deaconsecu.

Artistic Producer (in association with New Works) 

Hilary Maxwell holds a BA and MFA in Dance from the University of Calgary. She is a Vancouver-based arts administrator and dancer with 20 years’ experience working in the dance milieu, and is passionate about supporting people and their creative ambitions. She was the Member Services Coordinator at The Dance Centre from 2011-2020, engaging dance professionals, students, and seniors through networking opportunities, outreach, and programming initiatives. Hilary represented The Dance Centre on international research projects and conferences, and acted as Presenter Liaison to over 60 international delegates for the organization’s biennial Dance In Vancouver. Prior to this, Hilary was the Artistic Associate at Dancers’ Studio West in Calgary for five seasons, where she collaborated with the Artistic Director on creative planning and programming of the presentation season, and coordinated all stakeholders involved in productions. As a dance artist, Hilary has worked with notable artists and companies such as Danse Carpe Diem / Emmanuel Jouthe, Les Productions Figlio, Company 605, W&M Physical Theatre, and German Jauregui. She was a board member of the Training Society of Vancouver for eight seasons and, currently, sits on the board of mixed-ability dance company All Bodies Dance Project. 

The company believes in collaboration and creates each performative work with an incredible team of artists that share their practices and perspectives.

Shion Skye Carter (she/they) is a dance artist originally from Tajimi, Japan, who lives and dedicates time to her artistic practice in Vancouver, Canada as a guest on the unceded, ancestral lands of the Coast Salish peoples. Through choreography hybridized with heritage artforms that interact with digital and sculptural objects, Shion’s work looks inward to the facets of her intersectional identity as a lens to process the world around her. As co-founder of olive theory, an interdisciplinary duo with musician Stefan Nazarevich, she collaborates to experiment at the intersection between embodied performance, sculptural installation, and live sound. Shion has performed her work across Canada, including presentations at The Dance Centre (Vancouver), Tangente (Montréal), Kinetic Studio (Halifax), and Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto). As a performer, she has interpreted the works of artists such as Vanessa Goodman (Action at a Distance), Wen Wei Dance, and Ziyian Kwan (Dumb Instrument Dance). She holds a BFA from Simon Fraser University, and is grateful to be the recipient of the Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award (2021) and the Chrystal Dance Prize (2022).

Ileanna Sophia Cheladyn is a Canadian dance artist and scholar currently based on Patwin lands (Davis, California) to pursue her PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology at UC Davis, and on Coast Salish lands (Vancouver, BC, Canada).

Her work is critical of prescriptive mind/body dualisms and hegemonic approaches to kinesthetic experience. She makes movement, textile, and text-based art in quiet, devoted, clumsy, and rigorous ways to bring creative and infrastructural change to her communities. Ileanna works really hard to take care of the knowledge she and her collaborators engage with and generate.

Currently, Ileanna is working s l o o o o  o  o  o   o   o   o    o    o    o   w l y with slowness. Slowness for Ileanna is a practice of being present to the multipilicity of temporalities and tempos experienced in a moment, a practice, a relationship. It looks like moving slowly. It looks like taking time to be thorough, to not miss a step. It looks like patience and rest. It looks like resisting demands of productivity and consumption. Slowness is a political, contemplative, and somatic practice.

Eric Chad is an interactive projection artist and show control/integration specialist based in Vancouver, B.C. Eric’s work blends interactive elements, generative design, and live tracking into his love for natural forms. Eric is one of the founding members, and the current Technical Director of Lobe Studio in Vancouver BC, the first permanent 4DSound venue in North America.  Eric’s recent credits include works with Out Innerspace Dance Theatre, Crystal Pite, Action at a Distance, Joe Ink, Plastic Orchid Factory, Shay Kubler Radical System Art, Kidd Pivot, and Chuthis. Eric was also a primary designer on Sanctuary: The Dakota Bear Ancient Forest Experience, and The Canadian Pavilion at the Dubai Expo. Eric received his Master of Fine Arts from the University of British Columbia, and a Bachelor of Science from McGill University.

For the past two years Adrian de Leeuw has been living and working in Edmonton, AB as a company member of Ballet Edmonton under the artistic leadership of Wen Wei Wang. Adrian is a dancer, choreographer and dance-for-film creator. Born in NSW Australia, Adrian began his training there before moving to Canada at 16. He trained at the Victoria Academy of Ballet and then Alonzo King LINES Ballet Training Program before moving to Vancouver BC. Adrian participated in Lesley Telford’s PreP program before beginning work as a freelance artist. After joining Ballet Edmonton in 2021, Adrian participated in creations with Andrea Pena, Diego Ramalho, Shay Keubler and Wen Wei Wang. Ballet Edmonton’s 2022-23 season includes creations by Ihsan Rustem, Dorotea Saykaly and a collaboration with Ian Cusson and the Victoria Symphony orchestra. In his freelance work, Adrian has performed with Vanessa Goodman’s Action at a Distance, Gioconda Barbuto and Ballet BC as a guest artist in Medhi Walerski’s Romeo and Juliet. As a choreographer and dance-for-film maker, Adrian collaborated with Mika Manning and Madeleine Gilbert to create ‘i know you know’, a live-streamed dance-for-film presented through VIDF in 2022 and ‘STALEMATE’, a dance-for-film for the Dance Centre’s Digital Dance: Micro-commissions.

SIMONA DEACONESCU is a Romanian choreographer and filmmaker working across genres and formats. She examines social constructs, at the border of fiction and objective reality, sometimes with irony and black humor. Her works were selected and presented in festivals and conventional stages, unconventional spaces, cinemas, galleries and museums, architectural sites, and family houses, reaching audiences from Europe and beyond. She holds a BA and a MA at the choreography department of the National University of Theatre and Film in Bucharest. She received the danceWEB scholarship in Vienna (2014), the National Centre for Dance in Bucharest Award (2016), was an Aerowaves Twenty18 Artist, and a Springboard Danse Montréal Emerging Choreographer in 2019. In the past two years, she has been an artist in residence with the European Projects Moving Digits and Biofriction. In 2022 she will be a Forecast Mentee, under Mathilde Monnier’s guidance and an Associated Artist with The National Centre for Dance in Bucharest, while her latest stage piece — “Choreomaniacs” — brought her a second nomination as an Aerowaves Artist.  Simona Deaconescu developed her style in dance film by placing the body in unwelcome natural places and creating long-shot cinematic compositions. Her films were selected and awarded by the most well-known dance film festivals in the world, in 2018 receiving the LOIKKA Award for “Sonder.” In 2019, Simona Deaconescu was one of the Romanian artists who exhibited video works at the New York Foundation for The Arts (USA), within the collective exhibition Principle of Migration, curated by Olivia Nițiș. Simona is currently preparing for her third short film, produced by Tangaj Productions and funded by the National Film Centre in Romania, recently selected at the Brussels Co-production Forum 2021. In 2014, she founded her own project-based company — Tangaj Collective. Since 2015 she has been the co-founder and artistic director of the Bucharest International Dance Film Festival. 

Kate De Lorme is a Sound Artist from the Okanagan - currently living on the traditional territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səlil̓wətaʔɬ peoples, aka Vancouver, BC. Kate’s work integrates immersive spatial sound landscapes, technology and sound healing. She graduated from the University of British Columbia in 2015 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, majoring in Theatre Design and Production and has a certification in Audio Engineering. Kate has been working in sound design since the age of 16, highly involved and interested in sound’s effect on an audience. As a professional sound designer, her work has been primarily in live performance with a large focus on contemporary dance and theatre. Kate’s designs are inclusive of high caliber recording and editing, composition, programming, live mixing and interactivity. In 2018, Kate was an Artist in Residence at The Spatial Sound Institute in Budapest, Hungary for two months, where she created her debut solo work Sta/g-mos. Sta/g-mos premiered at MONOM in Berlin, Germany, in September of 2019. Kate is the Co-founder of Lobe Spatial Sound Studio in Vancouver. katedelorme.comlobestudio.ca

Eowynn Enquist (she/her) is a dance maker/performer who lives and works on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Peoples. Eowynn’s work in dance involves many roles including; interpreter, collaborator, rehearsal director, teacher, choreographer and administrator. 
Eowynn has worked with established dance companies and independent choreographers in Canada such as; Action at a Distance, Wen Wei Dance, Anne Plamondon Productions (Montréal, QB), Anya Saugstad, Mascall Dance, Out Innerspace Dance Theatre, Vision Impure Compagnie, Kinesis Dance Somatheatro, Mahaila Paterson-O’Brien, Isak Enquist, Rachel Meyer, Heather Myers among others. Eowynn has participated in the Marie Chouinard Intensive 2019, Springboard Danse Montréal 2017 & 2019 working with; Stephen Laks - Goteborgoperans Danskompani and RUBBERBANDance, Simona Deaconescu and Guy Sharoni & Yaniv Abraham. 605 company intensives, Modus Operandi Intensives, and a scholarship student at The Arts Umbrella International Dance Intensives 2015, 2016, 2017. Eowynn seeks creation and performance opportunities that ask her to connect to her most courageous and vulnerable self.

Originally from White Rock, BC, HAYLEY GAWTHROP received their contemporary dance training through Modus Operandi in Vancouver BC. Since graduating in 2016, Hayley has had the pleasure of performing and interpreting works by Peter Bingham (EDAM DANCE), Emmalena Fredriksson, Arash Khakpour, Antonio Somera Jr, Fight With a Stick, Dumb Instrument Dance, Omer Keinan, Kelly Mc'Innes, The Response and MACHiNENOiSEY Dance Society, and has worked as a dramaturg/outside eye for Kelly McInnes and Marissa Wong. Since becoming a company member of EDAM Dance, they are deepening there practice into consent based partner work and the disruption of gender roles with in this practice. They are passionate about gentleness, bodily autonomy and deep somatic listening.

Ted Littlemore is a Musician, Dance Artist, and one of Vancouver’s most celebrated Drag Performers. After graduating from McGill University with a B.A. in Psychology, and a double minor in Music Theory and Economics, Ted shifted his studies to the field of dance, graduating from Modus Operandi Contemporary Dance Training Program in June 2018. Since graduating, Ted has collaborated and performed with Action at a Distance, Alexis Fletcher, Compagnie Vision Impure, FakeKnot, Joshua Beamish/MOVE THE COMPANY, Kate Franklin, Justine Chambers, Kinesis Dance Somatheatro, Ne.Sans Opera & Dance, Tara Cheyenne Performance, and the Vancouver Opera. This spring, Ted began working internationally with Finnish choreographer Tomi Paasonen in Berlin, Germany. Ted is also a founding member, choreographer, and dancer in the collective CAMP. In addition to his work with other companies, Ted also teaches and choreographs for a schools, studios, and professional training institutions across the Lower Mainland, often fusing contemporary dance with his accompanying career in drag. Ted started drag in 2013 to explore the intersection of his musical, theatrical, and dance backgrounds. Performing as Mila Dramatic, he (/she!) took the title of Vancouver’s Next Drag Superstar in 2016, and now performs frequently at local drag venues.

LOSCIL - Scott Morgan - LOSCIL is the electronic music project of Vancouver-based composer and multimedia artist Scott Morgan. For over 20 years, Morgan has released dozens of recordings under the LOSCIL moniker including his latest - Equivalents - for the US label kranky. Morgan is a graduate of Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts where he studied with computer music pioneer Barry Truax. As LOSCIL, he has also produced numerous special projects, remixes and collaborations with other musicians including Ryuichi Sakamoto, Murcof/Vanessa Wagner, Sarah Neufeld, bvdub, Rachel Grimes, Christina Vantzou, Seabuckthorn, Lusine and Kelly Wyse. Morgan has composed for film and TV and licensed music to bold documentaries, including The Corporation, Scared Sacred, Damnation, Enlighten Us and The Marshall Projects’s award winning series We Are Witnesses. LOSCIL has contributed bespoke music and video for contemporary dance working with choreographers Damien Jalet from Belgium and Vanessa Goodman from Vancouver. He has been involved in creating music for interactive multimedia projects such as Hundreds, Osmos, Lifelike and his own generative music application ADRIFT. As a touring entity, Morgan has brought his live audio-visual performances to festivals worldwide including Mutek, Le Guess Who, LEV, Gamma Fest, Today’s Art, Open Frame and Big Ears. http://loscil.ca/  

Brady Marks is a digital media artist working primarily in audiovisual practices, new media and kinetic art. She has collaborated with Geoffrey Farmer on seven works, including “And Finally The Street Becomes The Main Character (Clock)” (2005–2008), a sculptural installation with computer-generated sound presented and acquired by the Art Gallery of Ontario; and “Let’s Make the Water Turn Black” (2013–15), a 24-hour computer-generated installation composed of 50 light fixtures, 26 audio speakers and 18 synchronized, animatronic sculptures presented at REDCAT (Los Angeles), Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst (Zurich), Nottingham Contemporary (UK), Kunstverein (Hamburg), Pérez Art Museum (Miami) and the Vancouver Art Gallery.

BOOKS PUBLISHED WITH FIGURE 1:

Wetland Project

James Proudfoot: Lighting Designer

From Edinburgh, Scotland, where he received his initial theatre training has been living in Vancouver since 1993. For 12 years he was Technical Director of the Firehall Arts Centre.  He eventually lit shows for the Firehall Theatre Company and has been Lighting Director for the annual Dancing on the Edge Festival for more than 20 years. He was Resident Lighting Designer / Lighting Director for Ballet British Columbia under the Artistic Director Emily Molnar from 2014 to 2021 designing 20+ pieces and touring nationally and internationally with the company.

Specialising in the realm of dance lighting, James has contributed designs for dance works to many companies, including: NDT 2, Lola Dance, Company 605, Sarah Chase, Co. Erasga, Wen Wei Dance, Joe Ink, EDAM, The Contingency Plan, battery opera, Kinesis Dance, Ballet BC, Move The Company, Restless Productions, Jeanette Kotowich, Dance Novella, Holy Body Tattoo, Dumb Instrument, MACHiNE NOiSY, Anatomica, Ingrid Vallus, Tara Cheyenne Performance, Les Productions Figlio, Karen Jamieson, Trial & Eros, Rachel Meyer, Action at a Distance, Out Innerspace Dance, Helen Walkley, Ballet Jazz Montréal, Justine A. Chambers, plastic orchid factory, Deanna Peters - Mutable Subject and Ouro Collective.

Caroline Shaw is a musician who moves among roles, genres, and mediums, trying to imagine a world of sound that has never been heard before but has always existed. She works often in collaboration with others, as producer, composer, violinist, and vocalist. Caroline is the recipient of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Music, several Grammy awards, an honorary doctorate from Yale, and a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. This year’s projects include the score to “Fleishman is in Trouble” (FX/Hulu), vocal work with Rosalía (MOTOMAMI), the score to Josephine Decker’s “The Sky Is Everywhere” (A24/Apple), music for the National Theatre’s production of “The Crucible” (dir. Lyndsey Turner), Justin Peck’s “Partita” with NY City Ballet, a new stage work “LIFE” (Gandini Juggling/Merce Cunningham Trust), the premiere of “Microfictions Vol. 3” for NY Philharmonic and Roomful of Teeth, a live orchestral score for Wu Tsang’s silent film “Moby Dick” co-composed with Andrew Yee, two albums on Nonesuch (“Evergreen” and “The Blue Hour”), the score for Helen Simoneau’s dance work “Delicate Power”, tours of Graveyards & Gardens (co-created immersive theatrical work with Vanessa Goodman), and tours with So Percussion featuring songs from “Let The Soil Play Its Simple Part” (Nonesuch), amid occasional chamber music appearances as violist (Chamber Music Society of Minnesota, La Jolla Music Society). Caroline has written over 100 works in the last decade, for Anne Sofie von Otter, Davóne Tines, Yo Yo Ma, Renée Fleming, Dawn Upshaw, LA Phil, Philharmonia Baroque, Seattle Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Aizuri Quartet, The Crossing, Dover Quartet, Calidore Quartet, Brooklyn Rider, Miro Quartet, I Giardini, Ars Nova Copenhagen, Ariadne Greif, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Britt Festival, and the Vail Dance Festival. She has contributed production to albums by Rosalía, Woodkid, and Nas. Her work as vocalist or composer has appeared in several films, tv series, and podcasts including The Humans, Bombshell, Yellowjackets, Maid, Dark, Beyonce’s Homecoming, Tár, Dolly Parton’s America, and More Perfect. Her favorite color is yellow, and her favorite smell is rosemary. (CS 10/252022)

Anya Saugstad is a dancer and choreographer based in Vancouver BC, living and working on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Sḵwx̱ wú7mesh' (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səlílwətaʔ/ Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xwməθkwəyə̓m (Musqueam) First Nations. Anya trained at ArtsUmbrella, and holds a BFA with honours in Dance from Simon Fraser University. In addition, she has trained with San Fransisco Conservatory of Dance, and with The Performance Research Project under the mentorship of Lesley Telford. Anya has danced for Vanessa Goodman, Lesley Telford, and Rob Kitsos, among others. Anya and her collaborators create live and digital performance works that foster space for women to tell their stories through movement. She has been able to grow her choreographic work through mentorships with the Performance Research Program, The San Fransisco Conservatory of Dance, and Made in BC Dance on Tour. Anya has choreographed works for Simon Fraser University, The Rotary Centre for the Arts, Vines Art Festival, SplitScreen (Boombox), F-O-R-M, and Mt Pleasant Collective, among others.

Alice Weber is a dance artist working with choreography, performance and writing. Her performances use and misuse her various training backgrounds across classical ballet, somatic practice and critical dance studies. Alice’s work considers contemporary embodiments and intimacies, with a particular interest in agency, desire and restraint.

Alice has presented nationally and internationally, as well as being hosted by a number of residencies worldwide. Her most recent work 'Dream Cellscapes' was presented at Cement Fondu, and a publication to accompany the work was presented by Critical Path in 2022, following a 2021 year-long funded Research Residency. Other recent presentations include TinyFest (NZ), Christchurch Arts Centre (NZ), and upcoming international residency with Action at a Distance Company (CA).

Alice frequently dances for and collaborates with other artists, recently: Angela Goh 'The Concert' for Sydney Opera House; Justene Williams 'she predicted the weather' for Carriageworks Sydney Contemporary; Rebecca Jensen, Arini Byng and Jess Gall 'Sinkhole'; Rochelle Haley 'Ever Sun' for City of Sydney.

Alice holds an MFA Choreography from Laban (UK) as a funded Leverhulme scholarship recipient. She is an academic tutor at Australian College of Physical Education; a remote sessional academic at Laban; and teaches at various private dance studios; alongside dance curriculum research and development projects.

Board of Directors