MOI–Momentum of Isolation takes a multimedia look at our wired existence, at the Firehall Arts Centre March 6 to 9

Fully realized production integrates powerhouse group numbers and solos, projections, and even puppets to capture digital disconnection

By Janet Smith

Shay Kuebler’s Every Man in MOI-Momentum of Isolation. Photo by Emilie Bland

MOI–Momentum of Isolation. Photo by Emilie Bland

Firehall Arts Centre presents MOI—Momentum of Isolation from March 6 to 9

SINCE THE PANDEMIC, technology has taken an ever larger role in our lives, both connecting and disconnecting us.

Vancouver dance artist Shay Kuebler captures a lot of that feeling of digitally-driven alienation and loneliness in MOI-Momentum of Isolation, at the Firehall Arts Centre this week.

The artist started creating it during the lockdown, but the seed for it goes back to 2018, when he heard that isolation was so prevalent that the U.K. had named a Minister of Loneliness in 2018.

The work has evolved since 2020 from a series of solo vignettes created via Zoom with his dancers into a live production that’s much more multilayered, multimedia, and complex, complete with projection screens, interactive video and sound, and even puppetry. It touches on the way our digital existence can divide us, and on the ways we long to connect, playing back and forth between group numbers and one character (Kuebler’s Every Man) whose only interactions are with objects—even a threatening chest of drawers.

The shows at the Firehall are a chance to revisit this fully realized work, with Kuebler’s distinctive explosive movement that fuses everything from contemporary and street dance with martial arts. It comes on the heels of a busy year for the artist, who debuted his first, 20-dancer commission for Ballet BC last year, and, in the fall, was bestowed with the Barney Commissioning Prize from Portland's White Bird.

The show is also an opportunity to check out a crack team of powerhouse dancers—besides Kuebler, Keiran Bohay, Aiden Cass, Jade Chong, Sarah Hutton, Nicole Pavia, Katherine Semchuk, and Calder White. In other words, it's definitely worth pulling yourself away from the screen for.  

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