ARTISTS
Lisa Mariko Gelley
photo by David Cooper
Lisa Mariko Gelley
Canada／artist, choreographer
Of Japanese and European descent, Lisa Mariko Gelley is a mixed race settler, artist, and mother living and working on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Coast Salish Peoples, including the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Lisa is growing an intergenerational practice surrounding speculative dance futures informed by ancestral memory. In conversation with artists and makers in her community, she works within themes of lineage, loss, and repair. Recent works include Midori (EDAM Choreographic Series and The Polygon Gallery); Furusato, a film featuring a duet with her grandmother, Lily Yuriko Tamoto; and Paueru Mashup, a community-engaged work calling on traditional Japanese Folk dance and renowned exercise routines, commissioned by the Powell Street Festival.
Lisa is Artistic Co-Director of Company 605, an arts organization devising, producing, and presenting new dance projects, and centering collaborative processes rooted in community. Together with Artistic Co-Director Josh Martin, she has co-created many works including Inheritor Recordings, Future Futures, Vital Few, Anthem, After We Glow, Looping, and lossy. Lisa is the recipient of the 2015 Vancouver International Dance Festival Choreographic Award and the co-recipient of the 2024 Lola Award.
Lisa is Artistic Co-Director of Company 605, an arts organization devising, producing, and presenting new dance projects, and centering collaborative processes rooted in community. Together with Artistic Co-Director Josh Martin, she has co-created many works including Inheritor Recordings, Future Futures, Vital Few, Anthem, After We Glow, Looping, and lossy. Lisa is the recipient of the 2015 Vancouver International Dance Festival Choreographic Award and the co-recipient of the 2024 Lola Award.
2026 project
Oceans（仮）
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Illustration by Moeno Otsu
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photo collage by Lisa Mariko Gelley. Original photo by Lisa Mariko Gelley, collaged with a video still from Nikkei National Museum Archive selected by Lisa
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Memories, inherited from her grandmother, of ancestors who crossed the ocean—
A Canadian choreographer with roots in Japan presents a research project on Obon rituals. See you at Bon dance festivals across Toyooka City!
An intergenerational research project led by Lisa Mariko Gelley, a choreographer of Japanese and European heritage, based on Canada’s Northwest Coast.
Her residency project focuses on Japanese Obon rituals through visiting Bon dances and ceremonies in Toyooka City together with artists based in Canada. Interviews, conversations, and workshops facilitate a dance performance in which embodied memories are shared with participants. By honoring plural pasts, loss, and disrupted cultural inheritance, the project explores personal and collective stories while imagining future rituals.
A Canadian choreographer with roots in Japan presents a research project on Obon rituals. See you at Bon dance festivals across Toyooka City!
An intergenerational research project led by Lisa Mariko Gelley, a choreographer of Japanese and European heritage, based on Canada’s Northwest Coast.
Her residency project focuses on Japanese Obon rituals through visiting Bon dances and ceremonies in Toyooka City together with artists based in Canada. Interviews, conversations, and workshops facilitate a dance performance in which embodied memories are shared with participants. By honoring plural pasts, loss, and disrupted cultural inheritance, the project explores personal and collective stories while imagining future rituals.
