Cheer Social

Workshop by Ashley “Colours” Perez
Saturday, October 26th, 2019—2:30pm

Cheer: A shout of applause and encouragement or something that gladdens.
Social: An informal gathering; phenomena related to society, culture, collectivity, or public media

How does it feel to be celebrated? Do you like to offer or receive support? We can all be our own cheerleaders but what happens when there’s a room full of people energetically holding you up? Cheer Social stands in the belief that, as dancers and individuals, we need to see each other, be responsible to each other, and produce spaces of care and unbridled mutual support so to balance out the negativity bias from our training and the weight of history that holds us back.

In this workshop we will experience the art of giving and receiving pure joy and excitement through cheer, group games, variations on the Soul Train line and other social dances. A live musician will support us and we’ll use props and other found noise-making objects to further activate the gallery. Near the end we will open up this real-time space to the taking of photo, video, and text-based documentation.

People will be encouraged to post their experience to social media as a way to momentarily flood the digital sphere with our acts of co-created support and collective celebration.*

*Space and consideration will be made for participants who wish to not be documented.

For Ages 14 and up.

Don’t forget to tag @GalleryTPW and @colours_perez

There is a waitlist to attend this session. Please email school@gallerytpw.ca to have your name added to the waitlist.

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Biography

Ashley Perez also known as Colours is a dancer and choreographer making waves in the Canadian dance scene. Training in funk styles and hip-hop, she later specialized in voguing, waacking, and house with mentors Jose Xtravaganza (New York), Archie Burnett (New York), Caleaf Sellers (New York), Jojo Zolina (Vancouver), and Kaiti Dangerkat (Calgary/New York).

Ashley is co-artistic director or Mix Mix Dance Collective with whom she has co-created two full-length works and represented Canada at the 2017 Jeux de la Francophonie in Abidjan. Mix Mix has completed an artist residency at York Woods Library and presented new work at Fall for Dance North in 2017 and Contemporaneity 3.0 in 2019. Ashley was awarded the 2018 Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Performance, Ensemble in the Dance Division for Floor’d presented by Holla Jazz in 2018. Ashley was a resident choreographer and performer with the artist collective House of Dangerkat. Developing works that allowed her to travel and perform in places such as New York, London and Paris. Her most recent teaching enterprise has been Class with Colours, to share the essence of Whacking—the glam, sass, and punk—with people of all backgrounds.

These workshops have popped up at spaces such as Sketch Studio (Artscape Youngplace), Lululemon Attic, and Parks N’ Wreck 2016/17/18.