Guelph Dance and International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI) co-present a spectacular dance show in Guelph for one-night-only, featuring Sashar Zarif Dance Theatre and Coco Collective.
Thursday March 26, 2026 | 7:30 PM
ImprovLab (University of Guelph)
87 Trent Lane, MacKinnon Building, Room 108
Tickets: $25 or $15.
Photo of Sashar Zarif by Manuel Garcia
Grandmother’s Drum
by Sashar Zarif Dance Theatre
“There are songs I do not hear through the ear, but through the bones. There are memories that return not as images, but as breath.”
Grandmother’s Drum enters that territory — a quiet ritual of movement and voice. In the style of the Dance of Mugham, and carried by Zarif’s Living Stories practice, the work follows the body as it listens — to memory, to vibration, to the unseen companions that move beside us. Here, dance and voice fold into each other, becoming a single river of presence.
“My grandmother’s drum first opened that doorway for me — a doorway of listening rather than telling, of being rather than showing. This work extends that ritual of listening into the present.”
Drawing from nomadic roots and the quiet transformations of Sufi and Shamanic traditions, the piece belongs to any place where a story is lived before it is spoken. Within its silence and its pulse, the past leans forward; the present opens; the body remembers what the mind forgets.
And as the drum calls, the meaning of us widens —
not only those we have known,
but the light, the breath, the rhythms,
and the ancestral warmth that stands with us,
unseen yet unwavering.
Choreographer & Performer: Sashar Zarif
Composition and Arrangements (Music): Sashar Zarif
Creative Facilitator: Katherine Duncanson
Lighting Design: Arun Srinivasan
Costume Design: Sashar Zarif
Calabash
by Coco Collective
A choreographed dance and live percussion journey exploring how African-diasporic communities cultivate everyday social bonds through a symbolic vessel: the calabash. Drawing inspiration from its transatlantic legacy, the calabash embodies the power to gather, hold, nourish, transport, and uplift the cultural and communal needs of African and Caribbean peoples. This light-hearted narrative follows a woman’s labor of love in local food sovereignty and nurturing community connections.
Choreographer & Performer: Collette ‘Coco’ Murray
Visual/Videography: Collette Murray and S-Quire Media
Elder/Griot: Kwanza Msingwana
Voiceover: Naki Osutei
Musical Composition and Performance: Sherwin Charles, Kimberley Charles-Pearson, Kobèna Acquaa-Harrison, Christian Powlette, [Whitney Charles, Nicole Powlette – in absentia]
About the Artists
For nearly four decades, Sashar Zarif Dance Theatre has carried its work across more than forty countries, moving with the people, places, and stories that shape its journey. The company engages diverse publics through research, residencies, collaborations, creation, and performance. Guided by Zarif’s Embodied Initiatives, it integrates movement, music, and narrative through a holistic approach encompassing education, mentorship, and artistic development. Its interdisciplinary projects weave choreography, music, oral tradition, and ethnographic inquiry into a single embodied practice. Grounded in Living Stories — Zarif’s own methodology — the company nurtures cultural memory while opening contemporary spaces for dialogue across disciplines, generations, and geographies.
Over the years, the company has cultivated a wide network of partnerships with artists, scholars, and institutions across Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Zarif’s practice spans major international festivals, university residencies, intercultural collaborations, and long-term community-based research. Its work supports artists, students, and communities in cultivating embodied awareness, cultural resilience, and creative agency. The company’s projects range from large-scale choreographies and interdisciplinary creations to international mentorship programs and collaborative research labs, where movement and meaning evolve together.
Rooted in ancestral traditions yet committed to innovation, Sashar Zarif Dance Theatre continues to explore how embodied knowledge deepens our understanding of fluid identity, dynamic memory, and the many forms of belonging — and how, beneath it all, shared rhythms remind us of the quiet ties that hold us together.
Coco Collective is a vibrant, multidisciplinary arts ensemble with a decade-long legacy of intergenerational collaboration. Rooted in African and Caribbean traditions, the group delivers culturally responsive performances and community-driven art projects that resonate deeply with diverse audiences.
Led by dance artist-scholar Collette ‘Coco’ Murray, the ensemble blends African-indigenous percussion, West African and Caribbean folk dance, and storytelling to create immersive experiences. With over 20 years of collective experience, its members bring neotraditional music-dance systems into classrooms, residencies, research initiatives and non-proscenium spaces. Projects range with school boards, arts organizations, Toronto Dance Theatre, Afrofest, the National Ballet of Canada, the Canadian Opera Company, universities, and museums. Coco Collective’s programming is widely recognized in both educational and artistic circles, with its impact documented in academic publications focused on culturally relevant pedagogy in arts education.
Venue Information
Request for socks or indoor shoes – outdoor footwear will not be permitted in the Lab to protect the floors as much as possible. Please bring indoor shoes or slippers if you are not comfortable in socks for the performance.
ImprovLab is located at:
MacKinnon Building, Room 108 – Arts Research Centre (ARC) wing
University of Guelph
87 Trent Lane
Guelph, Ontario
N1G 1Y4
ImprovLab is a reasonable walk (35 minutes) or bicycle ride (10 minutes) from downtown Guelph. There are also several bus routes (through Guelph Transit, GO, and Megabus) that can help get you to ImprovLab. If you are planning to drive, you can find information about visitor parking at the University of Guelph on the University’s Parking Website. Recommended parking lot: P44 off Winegard Walk.
MacKinnon Building has physically accessible entrances and washrooms.
The precise location of the Arts Research Centre wing is here: 1Y4 Alumni Walk, Guelph Ontario, https://maps.app.goo.gl/VaeQaSzqoAJu8buh8
This presentation is courtesy of IBPOC ARTISTS’ NETWORK TOUR 2025-26: FROM WORDS TO ACTION, initiated by wind in the leaves collective.