Raven

Recommended age: 6+

Circus has proven to be a favourite among our patrons and this performance will not disappoint.  still hungry is a contemporary all female circus collective from Berlin.  RAVEN, charmingly honest and highly entertaining, confronts the complex topic of motherhood.

Thanks to creative support from the renowned British director Bryony Kimmings, they stage a striking, authentic world filled with stunning acrobatics, beautiful imagery, and honest humour. Bird metaphors lie at the centre of RAVEN and illustrate the different challenges motherhood presents. One moment, the performers lovingly mother their children like hens and the rhythms of their daily movements turn into skillful satirical choreographies. In the next moment, the memories of their own strength as successful artists turn them into eagles, soaring strong and free through the air. With disarming directness and the unmistakable personality of the fearless circus moms, the performers bring a moving show to the stage, which challenges the status quo. 

Please click to enjoy a short preview of Raven by Still Hungry - 

 https://vimeo.com/330728128

We ask all guests to be mindful of their purchases. Refunds and exchanges are not permitted and all sales are final.
https://www.kingstongrand.ca/tickets/ticketing-policy

Join us for more! Join us in the Davies Lounge at 6:30 pm for a pre-show conversation with local dance artists Kay Kenney and Sasha Jimenez French as they unpack the topic of motherhood as artists. Seating for the pre-show conversation is limited and available on a first come, first served basis. Doors will open for the pre-show conversation shortly before 6:30 pm.

Kay Kenney is a professional contemporary dance artist from Kingston, ON, where she began her journey in 1994 at the Kingston School of Dance, studying Cecchetti Ballet. In 2009 she decided to pursue dance as a career and was accepted to the Professional Contemporary Dance Program at The School of Dance in Ottawa, where she was trained by many great national and international dance artists. Kay's professional dance career has led her to work, teach, create, and perform across Ontario, Quebec, and Europe, working with youth, pre-professional, emerging and professional artists. A company dancer of Ottawa Dance Directive since 2013, collaborating with artists like Tedd Robinson, Chick Snipper, Andrew Turner, Mélanie Dermers, Harold Rhéaume, Jocelyn Todd, Jesse Stewart, and artistic director Yvonne Coutts. Kay is also a company dancer for Social Growl Dance (Toronto) and is the rehearsal director for the company.  

Kay moved back to Kingston permanently, where she stands as the only Fletcher Pilates instructor. In 2016 she founded Movement Market Collective, a group of pre-professional and professional artists that come together to support and celebrate local, professional dance in Kingston. Through the collective, Kenney has choreographed and presented three evenings of professional local dance works, numerous pops up events, and opened her own studio space in YGK.  

In 2019 she was selected as a Youth Arts Ambassador representing Ontario Culture Days and was a recipient of the 2020 Kingston Mayor's Arts Award. Most recently, was awarded for Best Dance Film in the Shortwave Film Festival in Munich, Germany for a film project created in collaboration with Josh Lyon & Rachel Shaen. Kenney has collaborated with amazing local festivals, such as The Skeleton Park Arts Festival, The Reel Out Queer Film Festival, The Juvenis Festival, The Kick & Push Festival, AnArch Theatre, The Cellar Door Project, Calliope Collective, and many other talented independent artists in YGK.  

Kay is Artistic Director at Kingston School of Dance. She was a Kingston Grand Theatre Local Artist-in-Residence in 2021. 

Sasha Jimenez French is a Cuban American artist making work throughout Canada. Creating oversaturated portraits, memories of landscapes, and physically demanding movement work, layered with personal narratives. She is currently a Resident Artist at the Tett Centre in Kingston and a teaching artist at the Kingston School of Dance. Sasha’s visual practice is informed by themes of identity, displacement, and her exhaustive movement work. Through her series “Plants you can’t Kill,” she searches for the resiliency of the body in a fragile stem ecosystem. Investigating themes on what it means to have and to be a body in the current landscape. 

An international move brought her to Ontario in 2014, where she worked as a teaching artist and in dance therapy for long term care. In 2015, after the birth of her first child, her daily practice shifted. Creating in all the stolen moments of motherhood, furthering her visual art and movement practice alongside caring for an infant, and continuing to fight for space of self. 

She is currently a Resident Artist at the Tett Centre for Creativity and Learning in Kingston, Ontario. She also teaches and performs with Movement Market Collective and Kingston School of Dance. Visit Birdgirl Arts to learn more about Sasha.