Max Hanic & Sascha O’Neill
xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Territories (Vancouver) / Amiskwaciwâskahikan, Treaty 6 (Edmonton)
Through imposing projection over live performance dancer Max Hanic and designer Sascha O’Neill research the uncanny and the odd through attention to and warping of vowel sounds and their corresponding visual script.
The mouth and the body that animates it, fuels it, breathes and resonates into it is symbolically described as a rubber and elastic cave that takes on and shapes sound and meaning. Through shaping space, sound and movement within film and live performance we observe communication breakdown and a forced visual perspective of the body and voice beyond meaning.
How can dancer squeeze into and stretch the gap between nothing and something, sound and language. The body seen from very far away (through film) and very up close allowing for context to be totally removed and transformed around recurring motifs of communication in gesture and sound.
Accesibility note: Projection, bright flashing lights, darkness (near pitch black)
Left of PuSh is Plastic Orchid Factory’s platform intended for dance makers working in the margins to share “experiments-in-process” with a public during the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. Since 2018, Left of PuSh offers a responsive and meaningful opportunity for dance artists to introduce their work and practice to peers and networks of curators, programmers and visitors to PuSh from around the globe in a non-transactional context.
Dates
January 20 + 21
4-6 PM
*Mixed bill with Meagan O’Shea and studio lang
Total performance running time: approx. 75 minutes, followed by a casual industry mixer
Venue
Left of Main
211 Keefer Street, 2nd floor, Historic Chinatown
map
Tickets
Ticketing note: One ticket, three works. Booking a ticket through any of the individual Left of PuSh pages gives you admission to the full program. Your ticket includes all three works.
January 20 + 21
4-6 PM
*Mixed bill with Meagan O’Shea and studio lang
Total performance running time: approx. 75 minutes, followed by a casual industry mixer
Left of Main
211 Keefer Street, 2nd floor, Historic Chinatown
map
Ticketing note: One ticket, three works. Booking a ticket through any of the individual Left of PuSh pages gives you admission to the full program. Your ticket includes all three works.
Get TicketsCredits
Performer & Choreographer
Max HanicFilmography, lighting & sound design
Sascha O’NeillBio
Max Hanic is a queer actor, dancer, singer and instructor who graduated with distinction from the University of Alberta Fine Arts Acting program and studied contemporary dance at La Faktoria in Pamplona, Spain for the 2021/2022 period and at Modus Operandi in Vancouver from 2024-2025. Max has been given training scholarships by EDAM (Vancouver), The Good Women Dance Collective (Edmonton) and Circuit-Est (Montréal) as well as trained at Tic Tac Art Centre (Brussels), Espacio Tiempo (Madrid) and at the One Body One Career Countertechnique intensive in Amsterdam. He has performed with the Edmonton Opera, Firefly Theatre and Circus, Amoris Projects, Catch the Keys Productions and in his own choreographies; as well as worked with choreographers Susanna Hood, Lin Snelling, Molly Mcdermott, Francesca Frewer, Minggao Zhang, Jennifer Mcleish-Lewis and more. He has been nominated for a Sterling award and is the recipient of the 2025 Gerda Hnatyshyn award for contemporary dance.
Sascha O’Neill is a sound and video artist whose work includes synthesized sounds, sample-based music and elements of Jazz Composition/arranging. Themes explored in her work include altered states, celebrity behaviour and glitches in communication.
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