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GEARSHIFTING
PERFORMANCE
WORKS

is dedicated to contemporary dance.

NEW CREATION/RESEARCH/PRESENTATION

The core activity each season is typically a new creation and/or full length production. The company engages in research, new creation, commissions, re-constructions, performances, site specific work, installation work, teaching, studio showings, talk back sessions, and working with guest artists.

HISTORY

Gearshifting Performance Works is a Winnipeg-based dance company founded by Artistic Director, Jolene Bailie. Originally founded to support the growth of Bailie’s successful career as a touring solo artist and as a structure to commission new creation, it now primarily creates and produces Bailie’s choreography. Jolene Bailie/Gearshifting Performance Works has operated for over two decades, earning a reputation for presenting quality work.

The company creates for theatre productions, tours, site specific projects, installation projects, video work, and collaborations. The company features the work of Jolene Bailie, Guest Artists, Collaborators and Dancers. Committed to public presentation, the company was initiated in 2000 and successfully programmed a full season of activity annually 2002-2019.  The core project each season is  often the creation and presentation of new work.

Artistic Director, Jolene Bailie, began her career with over a decade of touring solo work. During this time she worked with leaders in the field from across Canada and The United States, performing hundreds of full length solo shows as well as over a hundred performances within shared/mixed programs, six cross Canada tours, ten international engagements, several smaller tours, two projects of historical significance in New York City, re-mounted fourteen solo works by established choreographers, commissioned eight new solo works by senior guest choreographers, as well as developed and presented her own new creations, including full-length shows, numerous shorter works and works for bridging, emerging and pre-professional dancers, including the choreographic initiative she created for emerging dancers, Surge.

Bailie’s work has been both self-presented and produced as well as presented by nationally and internationally recognized companies, presenters, museums, festivals, and art galleries.

Jolene Bailie/Gearshifting Performance Works has presented shows annually in Winnipeg since 2000 and toured extensively. The work has been both self presented and produced on over 450 occasions as well as presented by nationally and internationally recognized companies, presenters, museums, festivals and art galleries including: dance: made in canada (2009, 2013, 2019), the Dancing on the Edge Festival in Vancouver (2002, 2004, 2005, 2013, 2019), The Stream of Dance Festival (2019), in/future (Art Spin, Toronto 2016), Today Art Museum (Beijing, 2015), The Xi’an Art Museum (China, 2014), The Canadian Museum for Human Rights’ RightsFest (2014), Adhere and Deny (2013), NAfro Dance Productions (2012, 2016), Savarsati Productions (2012), The American Dance Festival (Thesis Concert in conjunction with The American Dance Festival/Hollins MFA Program, 2012), The National Arts Centre (Prairie Scene, 2011), The National Gallery of Canada (in conjunction with Wanda Koop… On the Edge of Experience, 2011), The Winnipeg Art Gallery (in conjunction with Wanda Koop… On the Edge of Experience, 2010), Culture Days/The Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s Dance Downtown (2011), The Ignacy Jan Paderewski Polish Musical Society (2010), Bill Evans (2005-2009), Simon Fraser University (2008), the Inbound Festival at The Joyce SoHo in New York City (2008), The State University of New York at Brockport (2005, 2007), The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s New Music Festival (2007), Studio 303 in Montreal (2003, 2004, 2006, with the 2006 performance earning a “best of dance: 2006 year in review” top three listing in the Montreal Mirror Magazine), New Dance Alliance’s 20th Anniversary Performance Mix Festival at the Joyce SoHo in New York City (2006), Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers (full length solo show, 2006), Perimeters Performance Symposium in Regina (2005), the Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival (2005), The Limon Institute (2005), the 9th International Solo Dance-Theatre Festival in Stuttgart, Germany (2005), The Her-icane Festival of Women’s Art in Saskatoon (2004), The Stream of Dance Festival in Regina (2002), the Girls! Girls! Girls! annual fundraiser for The Gas Station Arts Centre (annually 2005-2015), Nuit Blanche at the Winnipeg Art Gallery (2010, 2011, 2013, 2015), The Winnipeg Art Gallery’s Gallery Ball (2010, 2015), Young Lungs Dance Exchange (New Creation for fundraiser, 2013), and at 216 fringe festival performances, earning numerous “best of fest” awards and performing to full houses, including performances in Montreal (2003), Toronto (2004, 2005, 2006), Winnipeg (2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2014, 2018, 2019), Saskatoon (2003, 2004, 2007), Calgary (2007), Edmonton (2004, 2006, 2007), Athabasca (2004), Victoria (2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007) and Vancouver (2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008). Jolene’s choreography and performance for video has been presented at The Canada Dance Festival (Guest Choreographer and Performer for Kaeja d’Dance), The Winnipeg Art Gallery (2010), The National Gallery of Canada (2011), Xi’an Art Museum (2014) and Today Art Museum (2015).

Jolene Bailie/Gearshifting Performance Works has a history of presenting

Jolene Bailie/Gearshifting Performance Works has a history of presenting works by Guest Artists. Guest Artists have included Marie-Josee Chartier, Bill Evans, Anna Sokolow (staging and direction by Jim May), Jose Limon (staging and direction by Nina Watt), Deborah Dunn, Joe Laughlin, Marc Boivin, Julia Sasso, Denise Clarke and Rachel Browne. Gearshifting Performance Works has also presented the performances of Guest Artists in Winnipeg including solo shows by Bill Evans (2009, 2010 and 2015) and Chartier Danse (2013). The company offers open company classes in conjunction with project work (2004- 2019) and on special occasions, presents workshops/masterclasses by Guest Artists for the Winnipeg community (2005-present). The Company was incorporated in 2005 and gained charitable status in 2009.

JOLENE BAILIE

Jolene Bailie is a dancer, choreographer, teacher and the Founding Artistic Director of Gearshifting Performance Works. Jolene’s career began with commissioning solo works and touring solo shows extensively. In 2005 she began touring her own self-created solos and her self-created solos, most notably Bell/Anti Bell and Switchback which toured for multiple years. Her evening-length works include: Everything’s Coming Up Roses, Inanimate Jungles Have Clocks, Sensory Life, Infinite World, Hybrid Human, Inspiro, Aspects of Alterity, Eat All You Want/The Top? and it’s further development into All You Can Eat/The Top?, Phase Wash, and Schemas 1-5. Additional selected works include: Being Outer, Inner Being, A Lemon For Your Thoughts, Set and Re-Set, Gloria’s Sensoria, A Conception of Mentality, A Theory of Machines, Give and Take in the Kingdom of Love, Hybrid Xi’an, Today Solo, Are You Having Any Fun? and Lost. Her outdoor durational works include Landscape Synergy (2011) and Mirage on the Muses Plateau (2015). Her work for bridging professionals/mentorship/professional training programs includes: Temporal Moments in Deep Time, Take Five, The Unsaid, The Bathing Ya-Ya, The Shadow Ya-Ya, Solitude, The Heart of Wisdom, Memory Forms, Crowding, Fencing, Stop Pause Go, Gearshifting, Yo Shakespeare and Hearing the Time.

While deeply connected to, and based in Winnipeg, Jolene’s perspective includes a cross-pollination of influences. Her collaboration with Visual Artist, Wanda Koop (2009-2015) as well as over twenty years (and a tally of over 450 performances) of collaborations with Hugh Conacher, have been critical components of her career. Additional collaborators include Susan Chafe (Sound 2009-present), Neda Vukas (Costumes 2012, 2015), Anne Armit (Costumes 2000-2010). From 2001-2010, she worked all over North America on new creations with numerous celebrated choreographers and directors. These include Marc Boivin, Marie-Josée Chartier, Denise Clarke, Deborah Dunn, Bill Evans, Don Halquist, Joe Laughlin, Jim May, Julia Sasso, and Nina Watt. Highlights of her solo performing career include full-length shows at The Joyce SoHo as well as studying, performing and touring historical works, including the suite of five solos, “Dances for Isadora”, by Jose Limon as well as “Escape” and “The End?” by Anna Sokolow. She worked with Rachel Browne on the solo, Freddy, which she performed in Winnipeg and and on tours. Early in her career, she also worked with Stephanie Ballard and Gaile Petursson-Hiley.

She seems to erase away irrelevance and is one of the few dancer/choreographers I’ve seen recently who presents an integrated, completed image of music, costume, lighting, and movement. I want to keep seeing Bailie’s work. She’s a great ambassador, for the north of the border contingent. – Marilyn Russo

Jolene received her early training, as well as gained a foundation for teaching, from Barbara Daurie at Focus Studio Dance. A graduate of The School of Contemporary Dancers, she has also trained extensively at institutions, intensives, schools and with Master Teachers all over North America, including twelve weeks at The Limon Institute, multiple weeks at The Cunningham Foundation, three summers at The American Dance Festival, annual intensives with Bill Evans (1996-2019, also serving as a demonstrator for The Bill Evans Teaching Certification Program/Summer Institutes, a teacher at the Bill Evans Summer Institute of Dance and as an Assistant and Co Choreographer for repertoire with Bill Evans’ teaching residency) plus workshops with many artists, completing professional development projects outside of Winnipeg annually from 1994-2019. Jolene holds a Master of Fine Arts in Dance through The American Dance Festival/Hollins University where she received a fellowship for her three years of movement research on the impact of technology on the soma self, or the feelings from within. She also holds a: a Teacher’s Certificate with Distinction from The Royal Academy of Dance, a B.A. Honors degree in Theatre (Dance Stream) and the Gold Medal Award for Academic Excellence from The University of Winnipeg.

While her work with Gearshifting Performance Works has been a hub of her career, Jolene also danced with Trip Dance Company, Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers, Ruth Cansfield Dance, Kaeja d’Dance, and with Bill Evans and The Bill Evans Dance Company. Jolene maintains a personal artistic practice in Winnipeg and is currently the Artistic Director of Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers (2019-present).

Committed to education, Jolene teaches professional level class. She was a faculty member at The School of Contemporary Dancers (1997-2019) and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Professional Division (2001-2002 and 2013-2019). Jolene teaches Professional Class for Gearshifting Performance Works, in conjunction with project work. Since 2019, Jolene has taught professional class for Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers.