The Connections//Collisions Cabaret at Mile Zero Dance took place on January 2nd and 3rd, 2026, was a great kick off to the year. The cabaret featured three groundbreaking duos supported by Postmarginal Edmonton Collective through the Cabaret Creation Grant, each receiving $1,000 to develop bold, innovative works for the stage. The performances explored memory, identity, culture, and the everyday in profoundly inventive ways, leaving the audience both challenged and inspired.
Performance duos to experiment with form and hybridity
Christian Milton Albarran Bernal and Emilia Fox Hillyer presented Folk Geographies — Archivos Perdidos, a multimedia piece tracing the legacies of two ancestors—an Indigenous Mexican grandfather and a Confederate veteran—through the objects they left behind. The performance blended live puppetry, livestreamed footage from Mexico City, and pre-recorded improvisations, examining how family archives shape identity across generations and borders. By manipulating, destroying, and reconfiguring these inherited objects, the artists confronted memory, trauma, and the tensions between past and present.
In The Foundation of Sand, Questions and Stories, Brooke Leifso and Mona Sahi explored intimacy, cultural negotiation, and interdependence through a mesmerizing interplay of language, sand, and storytelling. Sitting across from each other, they asked questions in Farsi and English, letting the sand fall between them as a metaphor for coexistence and the weight of shared experiences. Their performance highlighted the delicate textures of life in a colonized world, interweaving personal and political narratives with quiet, powerful gestures.
Sable B. Boltz and Gabi Stachniak contributed fold., a playful, intimate exploration of everyday clothing as a storytelling medium. With a simple stage and a pile of garments, the duo transformed clothes into characters, partners, and vessels of memory, performing gestures of folding, mending, and unraveling that revealed the deep connections between textiles and identity. Their inventive approach turned mundane rituals into something alive, humorous, and emotionally resonant.
An annual event for creation across performance cultures
The cabaret was co-curated by Postmarginal Edmonton members Josh Languedoc and Chris Dodd, contributing to a vibrant evening of experimentation, dialogue, and artistic community. The artists’ works demonstrated the power of performance to provoke thought, foster empathy, and create connections across time, space, and lived experience.
After the performances, the Postmarginal Edmonton social offered a warm space for audience members and artists to connect, exchange ideas, and celebrate the start of the new year together.
Mile Zero Dance and Postmarginal Edmonton’s collaboration continues to provide a platform for innovative performance, ensuring that Edmonton remains a hub for bold, boundary-pushing work. Audiences left inspired, reflecting on memory, identity, and the stories we carry with us—and looking forward to what these remarkable artists will create next.
For more about the cabaret and upcoming performances, visit: Mile Zero Dance Connections//Collisions
Photos by Mat Simpson
