Touch Me Hold Me Let Me Go - A Lecture-Performance

In this solo work,

I discuss, teach, practice, perform and invite the audience into an experience of the algorithm, Touch Me Hold Me Let Me Go.

The work begins with a powerpoint presentation that tracks the development of the algorithm as a consequence of a dance with a mask carved by Wuikinuxw/Klahoose artist Bracken Hanuse Corlett. More of that story here. It then shifts and changes through a set of poems, read, embodied and activated into what is sometimes instruction, sometimes a dance, sometimes a song. Along the way, the audience is invited (but not coerced!) into participating in ways large and small. It culminates in a ritual of collective songmaking and dancing.

Here is a 5-minute version of this 90-minute work.

Here is an archive of the full-length work at Dance In Vancouver November 2024

While it currently exists as an in-person performance, between 2020-2022, it developed through performances on Zoom.

Here is the final performance of that era.

The core of this work is a piece of text and choreography, written and performed by me; accompanied by a suite of sound works composed by Jordyn McIntosh-Lee. This basic structure then can meet other collaborators in different locations. These collaborators are invited to engage with the material and to act as co-facilitators for the audience along my side

Collaborators who have contributed to the development of this work:

Syamsul Azhar, lighting and projection design, February 2023, March 2025, Five Arts Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Kent Lee, sound and music February 2023, March 2025, Five Arts Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

James Proudfoot, lighting design June 2023 Dance Centre, Vancouver, Canada

Andie Lloyd, lighting design November 2024 Dance Centre, Vancouver, Canada

Sasha J Langford, sound and music November 2024 Dance Centre, Vancouver, Canada