Coastal Currents 2025-26
Photo Credit: Steven Wilson
Atlantic Dance Creators
“We celebrate and amplify dance and movement artists from across Mi’kma’ki and the Atlantic region through this important platform. It brings us fulfillment knowing this platform exists for artists to grow, develop and showcase their work.” Kay Macdonald, Co-Artistic Director, Kinetic
Credits
COASTAL CURENTS
Atlantic Canada - Inuit, Innu, Mi'kmaq, Wolastoqiyik, and Peskotomuhkati Territories
ATLANTIC DANCE CREATORS
May 15th and 16th, 2026, 7:30 PM
Sir James Dunn Theatre
Please choose the pricing that best suits your lifestyle!
General Seating – Adults/General $45.00; $35.00 Seniors; $20.00 Students / Arts Worker; $65.00 Dance Advocate ($20 Donation Receipt) ; Group Discounts Available
Run Time – 100 Minutes including Intermission
Content Warning: Strong language, loud noises, violence, and mature sexual themes.
We’re back with another edition of “Coastal Currents”! Each year Live Art Dance and Kinetic celebrate Atlantic dance creators through the sharing of a mixed billed of dynamic dance works. This year’s show ranges from athletic to quietly retrospective, and from grounded to gravity-defying – it’s an eclectic programme with something for everyone!.
Coastal Currents 2026 features works by:
Dawn Shepherd & Ryan Gray (NS)
Hiroto Yamaguchi (NB)
Jalianne Li Cooper & Harriet Gratian (NB)
Meredith Kalaman (NS)
Sara Coffin (NS)
FEATURED WORKS
ARCHIVE OF LONELINESS
CHOREOGRAPHER – Sara Coffin
Archive of Loneliness brings light to the isolation of seniors and how the end of life deserves our attention just as much as the beginning. Drawing from first person audio recordings of a family member living isolated in long-term care, Archive of Loneliness embodies the spatial and corporeal tones of loneliness. The sound score and audio story arranged by Jackson Fairfax-Perry dances throughout the space alongside two performers to create a deep thoughtful swim into the waiting and in-between spaces of loneliness, amplifying the sub-linguistic states of despair and the desire to connect.
PHYSICAL INSANITY
CHOREOGRAPHER – Hiroto Yamaguchi
Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to evolve at a remarkable speed, offering humanity hope and wonder while also provoking deep fear that highly advanced AI may surpass human intelligence and become a threat in the near future. From defeating professional chess players to engaging in everyday conversations, AI has increasingly taken on human-like roles. In this contemporary world, countless images, music, and videos generated by AI circulate online, and many are already being embraced. Soon, AI may exceed human creativity and logic. In this context, how should humanity exist? This work explores the hypothesis that the final distinction between humans and AI lies in the human physical body, seeking to visualize that boundary.
EXODUS: MIGRATION PSALM
CHOREOGRAPHERS – Harriet Gratian and Jalianne Li
A harp stands alone, a ship in a vast ocean of darkness. Amongst the swells of the waves, the figurehead at its bow slowly awakens. Exodus is a story as old as human civilization. People leaving their country looking for safety in a promised land, escaping war, famine, prejudice and now climate change. Facing treacherous seas and torturous journeys, they arrive looking for a better future and are faced with barriers of overwhelming magnitude. Human optimism keeps us looking and searching for our heaven on earth.
Exodus also explores a unique dancer-harpist relationship; how one could dance and play the harp in symbiosis.
SILHOUSONIQUES D’EUX
CHOREOGRAPHERS – Dawn Shepherd and Ryan Gray
Silhousoniques D’eux is a duet of shadows and sound. In darkness, we hear the unknown calling to us, we find inspiration for creation, and we find comfort in our tethers. Via the discipline of aerial straps, Silhousoniques D’eux seeks to give voice to movement that we may not comprehend, and encourages us to find familiarity in form. This piece works with movement controlled sound design and backlighting to create an in-the-moment interpretation of the ups and downs of relationships in all their complexity. Silhousoniques D’eux debuted at FODAR 2021 in Annapolis Royal, NS, originally titled Silhousoniques.
THE BONES WE LIVE IN
CHOREOGRAPHER – Meredith Kalaman
Through animated physical characters shaped as cartoon remnants from deep within the choreographer’s mind, The Bones We Live In explores our capacity to feel and live a wide palette of emotions as humans. This dynamic, theatrical and character driven contemporary dance trio was created to celebrate the existence of life in the one thing we all share, a set of bones that one day returns to the earth.