FACILITATION
As part of their practice, CONJAH intentionally refine and create approaches and meaningful exchanges for workshop participants through the medium of dance, poetry/writing, performance and youth work. CONJAH have experience facilitating open movement spaces for general community, advanced physical training for dance artists, building-techniques for tertiary dance students and non-dance students, kindergarten-age children, young people of recently-migrated backgrounds and communities of disabled and mixed-abilities.
Some of the spaces CONJAH (Jahra Wasasala and ooshcon) have collectively and individually facilitated at are:
Moving Tāne, XIII WRLD, MIXIT Refugee Arts, Action Education, Rising Voices Poetry, Pacific Tongues Poetry Festival, NZ School of Dance, Unitec Performing Arts, Chunky Move Choreolab, Touch Compass, Ta’alili Company, Footnote Dance Choreolab, M3Mindfulness, Vou Dance Company and Vou Conservatorium of Dance and various dance studios across Aotearoa, Australia and abroad.
Filmed and edited by Chan Darius
CHOREOLAB 2023: Δ (CHANGE FROM AOTEAROA)
Choreolab 2023: Δ (Change from Aotearoa) features three of Aotearoa’s (New Zealand) leading dance innovators grounded in Vogue, Waving, Creature Movement work and World-Building: Jahra Wasasala, Ooshcon and Jaycee Iman. Each artist will share their practice and spectrum of techniques rooted in various Street Dance techniques and Ballroom Dance foundations to develop Creature Movement studies and build choreographic worlds.
Chunky Move Company’s 2023 edition of Choreolab was held during 22–24 March as part of FRAME: A Biennial of Dance, and is presented as part of Δ (Change From Aotearoa), a bilateral project curated by Jonathan Homsey and Efren Pamilacan that centres Street Dance.
Through Te Moana Nui a Kiwa (Pacific) modes of storytelling and talanoa (exchange), Jahra, Ooshcon and Jaycee anchor a web of physical connections, empowering a diverse ecology of aesthetics, and expanding movement potentials.
Participants in Choreolab 2023: Δ (Change from Aotearoa) were invited to perform on Saturday 25 March at Dancehouse as part of Δ (Change from Aotearoa): Archipelago, a durational performance to the sounds of acclaimed music artists live from Basement Theatre in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland).
XIII WRLD FACULTY
CONJAH (ooshcon and Jahra Wasasala) are proud members of XIII WRLD’s Faculty, which creates spaces for ooshcon and Jahra to share their facilitation approaches, dance methodologies and gafa (geneaologies), as artists who are connected to different cultures of dance.
ooshcon is an ambassador of Waving Dance culture and shares his philosophical approaches to Waving Dance in group work-shops, technique classes and one-on-one trainings. ooshcon shared his methods as a part of XIII WRLD’s development programme in-take auditions in this video.
Video filmed by Ken Vaega
VOU DANCE WORKSHOPS
In January 2023 Jahra and ooshcon were invited to lead dance workshops with VOU Dance Company and VOU Conservatorium of Dance, based in Nadi, Fiji.
The workshops consisted of strength conditioning, Cypher methods, Creature conditioning, Waving technique and methodology, Krump basics and floor-work techniques.
VOU Dance Company are the most internationally toured Contemporary and Traditional Dance company in Moana Nui a Kiwa (The Pacific). The VOU Conservatorium of Dance is a diploma-based tertiary dance programme in Nadi, Fiji.
