Fluid Fest Cabaret

Conversations | Logan Shaffner

Conversations began as a concept developed during Logan's time in the Professional Training Program at Decidedly Jazz Danceworks. The piece explores the idea of the dancer as a musician — specifically, what happens when tap leads the music rather than follows it. she was fascinated by the relationship between tap dance and percussion and began by studying improvised drum solos, memorizing rhythmic patterns, and translating them into tap vocabulary.

To bring the idea fully to life, she collaborated with two fellow DJD artists: Chantel Broderick (percussion) and M’kayla Kongnetiman (tap). They worked in reverse, using tap-generated rhythms as the foundation and layering improvised drum accompaniment overtop. Throughout, they aimed to maintain a deep respect for tap’s jazz roots, incorporating elements like trades, stop time, solos, and walking the drums — a nod to walking the bass.

The result premiered at DJD’s 2024 FootPrints show and was later remounted for the Black and White Ball Fundraiser at the Fairmont Hotel. Conversations was a deeply collaborative and fulfilling process that challenged them all to grow as both dancers and musicians.

Credits:
Performers: Logan Shaffner, M'kayla Kongnetiman, and Chantel Broderick
Music: Logan Shaffner and Chantel Broderick
Choreographer: Logan Shaffner

SHIFT | Darya Ivanova

Speaking another language changes my body. The shift of oneself, processes and interactions, the transition from one state to another, the emergence of new qualities and functions. I watch myself from the side.

This solo traces the shifts of migration—body, language, identity—while finding grounding in the simple things that carry me back to a sense of home.

Credits:

• Choreographer/Performer: Darya Ivanova
• Music by Vyacheslav Ambrosevich

Birds Must Eat – Oiseaux Carcasse | Sierra Oszust

Birds Must Eat – Oiseaux Carcasse is a contemporary solo work created and performed by Sierra Oszust. Drawing from body horror and grotesque physicality, the piece explores the fragile boundary between beauty and monstrosity, human and nonhuman, flight and decay.

The work imagines a body under siege: gnawed from within, eroded by unseen forces, and remade through its own undoing. Birds—normally symbols of freedom and grace—become relentless agents of hunger and inevitability. The performer’s body mutates before the audience, shifting between recognizable human form and something alien, fragile, and grotesque.

Through a fusion of contemporary dance and physical theatre, the work stages a visceral metamorphosis. Movement stretches to extremes: twisted limbs, fractured rhythms, and convulsive stillness evoke the grotesque as both terrifying and strangely tender. The solo searches for the liminal point where revulsion becomes fascination, and horror uncovers unexpected beauty.

With stark imagery and a body pushed toward its breaking point, Birds Must Eat – Oiseaux Carcasse confronts questions of survival, gnawing, and the uncanny instability of flesh. In this world, the body is no longer sanctuary—it is spectacle, battleground, and the site of its own devouring.

Credits:

• Choreographer/Dancer: Sierra Oszust
• Sound: “Shrine Hold” Forest Swords

Reclaiming Space | Scotty Dont

"Reclaiming Space" is a melinated odyssey. The piece is inspired by "The Hidden Figures" (Black women who were literal human computers), and acts as a love-letter to the contributions BIPOC people have made to Science Fiction.

A traveler adrift, stranded in the cosmos clapsback through contemporary dance and circus against the long history of anti-black gatekeeping in the stem fields and in Sci-Fi. It's important to take space, but it was never not ours, so let's Reclaim it, fam.

Credits:

• Lead Artist: Scotty Dont
• Costume Design: Corey Millar

Shachiku | Lavender Wong

Shachiku, a Japanese portmanteau of “company/corporation” and “livestock,” is a self-deprecating term for salarymen who prioritize work above all else, often at the expense of their personal lives. As they are lost in the repetitive work culture where days blur into one another without distinction, an implicit question arises: “work or resist?” Submerging in long working hours and the deeply implanted societal expectations, corporate workers often find themselves trapped in routines with limited room for agency and autonomy, living in an endless and unchanging game. Yet, there is a desire to rebel subconsciously.

“Work or resist?”

Credits:

• Choreographer/Performer: Lavender Wong

Vibrations on the Afro Body | Sebastian Serna

Vibrations on the Afro Body is a solo performance that reimagines Afrobeats through emotion, flow, and sensation. Rather than relying on sharp impact or explosive hits, the movement channels rhythm as vibration—turning the body into a wave of feeling. The piece explores how Afro dance can be both powerful and fluid, rooted and ethereal, grounded in tradition yet open to reinterpretation.

Through tropical influences, expressive gestures, breath, and groove, the body becomes an instrument of energy—elevating the spirit and inviting the audience into a higher vibration. This work celebrates the creators, movers, and followers of dance who are driven by emotion and connection. It is not just movement to rhythm, but rhythm embodied through emotion, intention, and presence.