Dancers Intensive: Colossus with Stephanie Lake Company

Overview  

Led by Stephanie Lake Company, this three-week intensive brings together a large ensemble of contemporary dancers to train, rehearse, and perform Colossus, Stephanie Lake’s internationally acclaimed work for 50+ dancers.

Colossus is a monumental work in which 50 dancers become a single, continually transforming organism. Moving between unison and disruption, control and unpredictability, the work examines how individuals negotiate agency, leadership, conformity, resistance, and connection within a group. Colossus premiered in Australia in 2018 and has since been performed in 17 countries worldwide by nearly 1000 dancers. For the first time, the Banff version of Colossus invites dancers from across the globe to learn and perform the show. 

Through the teaching and performance of this large-scale work, participants will engage with Lake’s choreographic language while developing precision, stamina, spatial awareness, responsiveness, and trust. The program combines rigorous professional training, fun and fast paced rehearsals, artistic development, and performance, offering firsthand experience of Stephanie Lake Company’s creative practice and strengthening the technical, interpretive, and collaborative skills required for contemporary dance.

Description

Over three weeks, participants will learn the work through an intensive process led by Stephanie Lake Company artists. The teaching of the choreography is not only preparation for performance: it is an opportunity to explore the creative process that makes large-scale dance performance possible. Program content includes:

• Embody the choreographic language of Colossus
  Learn and perform complex movement material shaped by precision, rhythm, task-based creation vocalization and structured improvisation.
• Develop ensemble intelligence
  Build the spatial awareness, timing, attention, and responsiveness required to navigate a large and continually shifting group.
• Explore individual agency and collective force
  Investigate how personal choices, leadership, adaptation, and resistance operate within tightly structured ensemble choreography.
• Strengthen stamina and performance presence
  Strengthen communication, adaptability, generosity, and trust through a rehearsal process in which every dancer is responsible for the integrity of the whole.
• Experience a professional performance process
  Move from studio rehearsal to technical integration of lighting, costume and staging, and two fully produced public performances.

The intensive culminates in two public performances of Colossus on June 25 and 26.

Requirements

This program is intended for emerging, early-career and contemporary dancers interested in rigorous physical practice, large-scale ensemble performance, and collaborative choreographic process. Applicants should demonstrate:

• Strong contemporary dance training or equivalent experience.
• Physical coordination, stamina, musicality, and spatial awareness.
• The ability to learn and retain complex movement material.
• A responsive and expressive performance presence.
• Openness to rigorous rehearsal, improvisation, and task-based choreographic processes.
• The ability to work generously and attentively within a large ensemble.
• Readiness to participate fully in an intensive three-week rehearsal and performance process.

No specific degree or formal credential is required. Dancers who have previously participated in a Colossus production are welcome to apply. 

This program and all correspondence are conducted in English. Basic English-language proficiency is required.

Participants must attend all elements of the program for its full duration; variable participation dates cannot be accommodated.

Eligibility

Applicants must be 18+ at the time of the program start date. 

Domestic and international applications are welcome.

Visa Eligibility Information: 

• Please note that Banff Centre programs do not meet the eligibility requirements for a Canadian Student Visa.
• If you are accepted into our program, you must obtain a Visitor Visa to enter Canada. Accepted participants are responsible for identifying and complying with the immigration requirements to enter Canada as a visitor from their country of origin. If you require a Visitor Visa please check the current expected processing times well in advance of applying.

Inclusivity Statement

We welcome applicants of all ages (18+), backgrounds, gender identities and expressions to apply. Artists from historically underrepresented and equity deserving groups are especially welcome.