Paueru Mashup Dance

46th Annual Powell Street Festival

Join us this Summer 2022 for Paueru Mashup Dance Lessons, both online and in-person! The Paueru Mashup is a community dance that is accessible for all ages and abilities across the country. No dance experience necessary!

Starting in June 2022, online classes begin every Monday in June at 5-6PM PST. Registration require through Eventbrite.

Starting in July 2022, you can join us for in-person classes at Oppenheimer Park, every Monday at 3-4:30PM PST. Registration is recommended through Eventbrite.

&

in-person classes at Seymour Elementary School, every Monday & Wednesday at 7-8PM PST. Registration is recommended through Eventbrite.

We’ll have skilled dance instructors walking you through the movements. These are iterative lessons, so we encourage you come for all the lessons so you can learn a new portion of the dance each week.

These classes are free, but donations are gratefully accepted through Eventbrite or Canada Helps

Commissioned by the Powell Street Festival Society in 2020, the Paueru MashUp Dance is composed of music created by Onibana Taiko and movements by Company 605. This high-energy dance is accessible for all ages and abilities across the country. No dance experience is necessary!

Formed in 2016, Onibana Taiko are three veterans of Vancouver’s Taiko community, whose depth of performance and taiko experiences combine to over 100 years. The group is comprised of Eileen Kage, Noriko Kobayashi and Leslie Komori. Onibana Taiko’s performances and presentations draw on traditional Japanese folk rituals, such as minyo and matsuri, and combine them with its member’s unique and varied experiences as Nikkei settlers. With roots in radical feminist punk and political activism, Onibana Taiko aims to empower various communities, including QTIBIPOC, Nikkei and Asian Diaspora. They would like to acknowledge that they are settlers of Japanese ancestry who are privileged to live and work on the unceded territories Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) peoples. Through performance, Onibana Taiko seeks to re-examine and reinterpret musical and movement elements from Shinto and Buddhist ceremonies. Onibana Taiko allows audience members to commune with our ancestors via obon dance, song, sensu (fan) cheerleading, fue, shamisen and kick-ass taiko. 

Lisa Gelley is an artist living and working on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded Indigenous territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. She is the descendant of a Third Generation Japanese Canadian Mother and a French/Polish Father. She is Artistic Co-Director of Company 605, an arts organization in Vancouver,  producing various dance projects and performances through a shared creative process. The artists place emphasis on rigorous choreographic propositions and movement invention, building physically demanding work that juxtaposes raw with precision, and highlights effort, risk, and interconnection. 605 is an ongoing exchange between separate people, bodies, and ideas, recognizing and celebrating the unique possibilities created in their attempt to co-exist. Valuing collaboration as an essential tool for new directions in dance, Company 605 continues to awaken a fresh and ever-evolving aesthetic, together building a highly athletic art form derived from the human experience. With an expanding repertoire of diverse works, the company has performed from coast to coast in over 30 cities across Canada, as well as in the US, Central America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Their collaborations with filmmakers have allowed 605’s work to be shared globally, with short dance films shown at dance-on-screen festivals around the world. www.company605.ca 

Learn the Paueru MashUp Dance at Home

Choreographer Lisa Gelley presents the Paueru MashUp

45th Annual Powell Street Festival

The Paueru MashUp Canada Wide Performance 2021

44th Annual Powell Street Festival

The Paueru MashUp's 2020 debut performance online

LIVE at the Powell Street Festival Telethon 2020​