Residency
Sasha Kleinplatz – The Grandma Project
14 ⇾ Jul. 18 2025 (Monday – Friday)
Regular Residencies
© Manoushka Larouche
Biography
Sasha Kleinplatz is a dance artist based in Tio’tia:ke (Montreal). They are the co-founder (along with partner Andrew Tay) of Wants&Needs danse-a collective focused on creating non-traditional contexts for choreographers to make work, and for audiences to engage with a plurality of contemporary performance practices. Sasha is the co-creator of the curatorial initiatives Piss in the Pool, Short&Sweet, and Lots of Love.
Their work as a choreographer has toured throughout Canada, and has been supported by the Canada Council, and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec. They have presented their choreographies in the festival platforms OFF-TA, dance: made in Canada, and Neighbourhood Dance Works. In 2015 Sasha was awarded a scholarship from Life Long Burning to take part in DanceWEB at Impulstanz Festival in Vienna, Austria. In 2017 and 2018 Sasha worked as intern coordinator at the experimental festival American Realness in New York.
Sasha completed a Masters degree at the School for Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University, their thesis focused on consent in dance pedagogy, and practicing interspecies care through modes of scored, collaborative, performance. From 2020-2022 Sasha worked as an artist-in-residence at Concordia University, where they taught Creative Process and Choreography in the Contemporary Dance Department. Sasha’s new full-length works Miracle’ing, and We Move Together or Not at All premiered at Montreal, arts intercultural in Fall 2022. Sasha is currently in the early stages of a PhD in the Individualized Study program at Concordia University where they are focusing on the transmission of choreographic knowledge within communities of practice
Their work as a choreographer has toured throughout Canada, and has been supported by the Canada Council, and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec. They have presented their choreographies in the festival platforms OFF-TA, dance: made in Canada, and Neighbourhood Dance Works. In 2015 Sasha was awarded a scholarship from Life Long Burning to take part in DanceWEB at Impulstanz Festival in Vienna, Austria. In 2017 and 2018 Sasha worked as intern coordinator at the experimental festival American Realness in New York.
Sasha completed a Masters degree at the School for Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University, their thesis focused on consent in dance pedagogy, and practicing interspecies care through modes of scored, collaborative, performance. From 2020-2022 Sasha worked as an artist-in-residence at Concordia University, where they taught Creative Process and Choreography in the Contemporary Dance Department. Sasha’s new full-length works Miracle’ing, and We Move Together or Not at All premiered at Montreal, arts intercultural in Fall 2022. Sasha is currently in the early stages of a PhD in the Individualized Study program at Concordia University where they are focusing on the transmission of choreographic knowledge within communities of practice
Project Details
Water Drops / the grandma project is a new research collaboration between myself, Charlie Prince, Maxine Segalowitz, Olivia Tapiero, and Winnie Ho.
This research centres around a 3 minute Youtube video of my grandmother (Sarah Kleinplatz) detailing a small aspect of her experiences in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp as a Jewish-Polish Holocaust Survivor. In the video my grandmother describes catching water drops on her tongue, this visceral image is central to the exploration that will take place during the residency. How the body and mind process thirst, emptiness, rage, and loss are questions that will resource the development of Water Drops.
During this research process we will use the Youtube video of my grandmother as a source material for developing a work that moves between video, sound, and the body. We will experiment with slowing down, splicing, and remixing the video and text, while also thinking through how to deal with embodiment in relationship to trauma, tragedy, and resilience. As a team, we have discussed that we would like to find a way to deal with these sensitive materials in ways which are both respectful of, but not limited by, the content. Working alongside Theodore Adorno’s assertion that it is barbaric to write poetry after the Holocaust; we are thinking about how to be responsive in the face of barbarism; how does one move or find their way to dancing when the ground beneath us is riddled with bones?
This research centres around a 3 minute Youtube video of my grandmother (Sarah Kleinplatz) detailing a small aspect of her experiences in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp as a Jewish-Polish Holocaust Survivor. In the video my grandmother describes catching water drops on her tongue, this visceral image is central to the exploration that will take place during the residency. How the body and mind process thirst, emptiness, rage, and loss are questions that will resource the development of Water Drops.
During this research process we will use the Youtube video of my grandmother as a source material for developing a work that moves between video, sound, and the body. We will experiment with slowing down, splicing, and remixing the video and text, while also thinking through how to deal with embodiment in relationship to trauma, tragedy, and resilience. As a team, we have discussed that we would like to find a way to deal with these sensitive materials in ways which are both respectful of, but not limited by, the content. Working alongside Theodore Adorno’s assertion that it is barbaric to write poetry after the Holocaust; we are thinking about how to be responsive in the face of barbarism; how does one move or find their way to dancing when the ground beneath us is riddled with bones?
Visual Documentation
Photo de la grand-mère, Sarah Kleinplatz, photographe inconnu
© Talia Kleinplatz
