The Paradise

Hailing from Bulgaria, Maria Kefirova settled in Montréal in 1992. While simultaneously working as a performer, she has developed her own distinct choreographic practice that merges dance, theatre, performance, and video. She is fascinated by with the correlation between internal and external realities, as well as the body’s role as an interface between the two, which is at the heart of many of her works (The Nutcracker – 2014, Why are dogs successful on stage? – 2011, Corps. Relations – 2010, Gold Meat – 2010, Manufacturing Tears – 2009). From 2009 to 2012, Maria trained at DasArts, a residential laboratory for performing arts research and innovation located in Amsterdam. Recently she was invited as a visiting artist to the dance department at Concordia University. She has a particular passion for blind spots and Russian dolls.

Hanako Hoshimi-Caines is a dancer and choreographer based in Montreal. As a choreographer, and parallel to her career as a dancer, she began making work in 2005 with Little Bang Theory, an interdsiciplinary collaboration combining live music, visual art and performance. In 2010, she left Montreal to danced with the Cullberg Ballet in Stockholm for two years. It is in her adopted Nordic home of Stockholm where she encountered the expanded field of choreography – a significant encounter that has greatly influenced her interests and hopes for dance. She is currently pursuing studies in philosophy at Concordia University. Her choreographic work has been performed in Montreal and Stockholm.

Caroline Desilets is a Montreal-based visual artist and photographer. She is currently completing a major in photography at Concordia University where she touches various medium such as video and sculpture. She is one of Montreal go‐to photographers for musicians and bands and has worked with the likes of Timber Timbre, Plants and Animals, Thus: Owls, Basia Bulat, Laurence Helie, Katie Moore, Lil’Andy Barr Brothers. She regularly collaborates with various publicists and record labels. For three consecutive years she has created events for la Nuit blanche in Montréal. Her work has been featured in local galleries, festivals, several magazines and newspapers.

The Paradise is a dance duet and book where, together, we investigate concepts of difference and similarity through our respective relation to what paradise is.

We are fascinated by the possibility of complexity and the production of multiplicity through unassuming and simple assignments. We are accumulating, describing, giving to the other, pictures of paradise.

Departing from our concrete differences, and the notion of paradise, emerges a broader reflection: What are the conditions for a non-homogeneous environment? What is the value of the opposite as a condition for a richer dialogue?

A book will be integral to the performance and will use it to give different paths of access to the performance. We are excited to experiment with the many forms this book can take. We are using the term “book” in an expanded and experimental sense.