IBPOC Artists’ Network Tour in Montreal

The Centre Création Danse Nyata Nyata presents an evening of captivating contemporary dance performances as part of the IBPOC Artists’ Network Tour: From Words to Action 2025/26 in Montreal, in collaboration with Wind in the Leaves Collective.

FEBRUARY 6TH PROGRAM:

• Grandmother’s Drum by Sashar Zarif Dance Theatre enters that territory — a quiet ritual of movement and voice. In the style of the Dance of Mugham, and carried by Zarif’s Living Stories practice, the work follows the body as it listens — to memory, to vibration, to the unseen companions that move beside us. Here, dance and voice fold into each other, becoming a single river of presence. Drawing from nomadic roots and the quiet transformations of Sufi and Shamanic traditions, the piece belongs to any place where a story is lived before it is spoken. Within its silence and its pulse, the past leans forward; the present opens; the body remembers what the mind forgets.

For nearly four decades, Sashar Zarif Dance Theatre has carried its work across more than forty countries, moving with the people, places, and stories that shape its journey. The company engages diverse publics through research, residencies, collaborations, creation, and performance.

Artist: Sashar Zarif with live percussion

• Umsamo: Journey to the Heart of Inner Peace by Mafa Dance Village, is a deeply personal and philosophical choreographic offering that explores grief, memory, and transformation. Rooted in the Zulu concept of a sacred ancestral space, this inaugural performance invites audiences into a ritual of return—a process of reconnecting with the self, with community, and with the spirit world.

Mafa Dance Village operates within a diasporic framework, rooted in South African cultural heritage and grounded in the artistic ecology of Toronto. The work draws from African spiritual traditions and contemporary dance practices, resonating with African, Afro-Caribbean, an Indigenous communities through themes of healing, ancestry, and embodied knowledge.

Artists: Mafa Dance Village with Mafa Makhubalo, Aisha Nicholson, Pulga Muchochoma, and Michael Mortly

Don’t miss out!

Doors open: 7 P.M.

Accessibility:
Physically accessible venue. Contact organizer for accessibility requests.