Arash Khakpour
I am a dancer and choreographer from Tehran and based in Vancouver. I am privileged to be a dance artist who has immigrated to the unceded Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh territories. In my work, I tend to invest in the nuances of prejudices in the body as a way of inviting the unconscious to the conscious, and as a doorway to confront unknown emotions. I see dance as a process of emotional and spiritual discovery and a mode of transformation. I co-founded The Biting School in 2013, which was the company-in-residence at PuSh Festival and The Dance Centre 2018-2020. I was the 2016 recipient of Dance Victoria’s Chrystal Dance Prize with Emmalena Fredriksson for the creation of You Touch Me.
bitingschool.com 

Emmalena Fredriksson is a contemporary dance artist living and working in Vancouver, as a guest on the ancestral unceded lands of the Coast Salish peoples. Her practice is defined by choreography as a relational practice in the expanded fields of dance, often collaborating with artists of other disciplines, creating choreographic experiences and dance for social events, film, galleries and performance. Born in Sweden, she received her training at Balettakademien in Umeå and at SEAD in Austria. Emmalena has presented choreographic work, performed and taught internationally with Daghdha Dance Company (IE), Canaldanse (FR), Malta University (MT), Pact Zollverein (DE), and Falmouth University (UK) among others and have been based in Vancouver since 2013. Emmalena holds an MFA degree from Simon Fraser University and is currently a term lecturer on the SCA dance and theatre programs. www.emmalenafredriksson.com