The Zero Lab #3 | Tia Kushniruk | FEED
This new curatorial initiative by Mile Zero Dance features local artists/groups who receive production residency support in our Warehouse venue, and present their new work in process. Join us for the final Zero Lab production of the current season!
MAY 30 + MAY 31
Tickets | $25/$20 MZD Members
7:30 PM
MZD is located at 9931 78 Ave NW, Edmonton
Zero Lab #3: Tia Kushniruk | FEED
May 30+ 31
FEED is an ensemble work of Sisyphian nightmares around being Albertan, culminating in joyous reverie for the little things in life. HYPER/improvisational/
ZERO LAB #3 | FEED | TEAM
Tia Ashley Kushniruk 亚 女弟 (Choreographer/Director)
Pigeon Breeders/ Myles Bartel & Will Scott (Composers)
Morris Ngyuen (Sound Design & DJ)
Ainsley Hillyard (Producer/Rehearsal Director)
Erin Pettifor (Performer)
Jocelyn Mah (Performer)
Michael Watt (Performer)
Philip Hackborn (Performer)
Dayna Lea Hoffmann (Performer)
Trent Crosby (Lighting Designer)
Featuring
Tia Ashley Kushniruk 亚 女弟
Tia Ashley Kushniruk 亚 女弟
creates performative fantasies grounded in theories of interculturalism, new-materialism, digital futures and individual myths. She integrates these themes by weaving dance, performance art, physical theatre, and text with collaborative engagements based in devised methodologies. She is proud to hail from Edmonton Treaty 6 and her life and upbringing there often make its way into her work.
Pigeon Breeders/ Myles Bartel & Will Scott
Pigeon Breeders are an experimental improvisation music group founded in 2011 by Will Scott and Myles Bartel. Their work has been described as “gently unsettling washes of sound” and “intelligent, beautiful sonic art” (Oliver Arditi), blending ambient, electroacoustic, free improvisation, noise, and psychedelic elements. Originally a trio with Tyler Harland, who departed in 2016, the group has frequently welcomed guest musicians including Scott Smallwood, Smokey, and Ghost Cars. In 2013, Pigeon Breeders supported Jung People’s Gold Bristle tour and built a tradition of collaborating at every performance together since. Other collaborators have included Nate Wooley, Chris Dadge, Bitter Fictions, Nate Waters, filmmaker Lindsay McIntyre, and dancers Gerry Morita, Jeannie Vandekerkhove, Tony Olivares, Max Hanic, Tia Ashley Kushniruk, and more. The group has performed at a range of festivals and concert series, including Sled Island, Bug Incision, and Innovāre Accord in Calgary; Now Hear This, Ramshackle Day Parade, Mile Zero Dance’s SubArctic, NextFest, Noisecafe, Bermuda, and Endless Bummer in Edmonton; as well as Casse-Tête in Prince George. Discography highlights include Stasis (2022) with Ghost Cars on Pseudo Laboratories, Familiar Traces (2019, self-released), Concrescence (2015, Shaking Box Music), and Oblique Temperatures (2013, Ramshackle Day Parade). Both Stasis and Oblique Temperatures are part of the Edmonton Public Library’s Capital City Records collection. Their forthcoming album, Springtime As Violence, will be released in 2025.
Morris Ngyuen
Morris Nguyen (MORRISMORRIS) is a Hanoi-born, Edmonton-based artist with a forward-looking approach to music and visual art. They have extensive musical experience as a drummer in noise pop and shoegaze bands as well as a synth player in an alternative rock group. Furthermore, MORRISMORRIS is a recognized DJ and produces their own strain of dark electronic music.
Before moving to Edmonton and building their name as an emerging artist, Morris frequented metal, indie rock, and electronic shows in their home city in Vietnam. Coupled with a parent who would play classical orchestra and soul records at home, Morris had plenty of musical exposure during their developmental years. After saving up for a secondhand iPad and field recorder, they began experimenting and creating music with minimal equipment. Their love for rave cultures and different music fuels a mission to represent the continuation of the genres they hold close.
MORRISMORRIS has released 2 EPs, 14 singles, 2 double singles, and several remixes. They released their debut album in February 2025, marking a major milestone in their pursuit.
Ainsley Hillyard
Ainsley Hillyard is a choreographer, performer, administrator and producer who works in amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton). Ainsley was a co-founder, co-artistic director and general manager for the Good Women Dance Collective from its inception in 2009 to 2023. She has worked as a choreographer and performer for various theatre and dance companies in amiskwacîwâskahikan and received numerous Sterling nominations and awards for her performances and choreographies. Ainsley aims to uplift and support Edmonton arts and artists, volunteering on the boards of the Edmonton Arts Council and the Common Ground Arts Society. She also runs her own dog care business, Bumblebear Doggy Care, when she's not making art.
Erin Pettifor
Erin Pettifor is an interdisciplinary queer theatre artist based in Treaty 6 / Edmonton. In the 2023 Edmonton Fringe she premiered her show Stigma, Pistil and Style, directed by Jacqueline Russell with Wee Witches which was nominated for three Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Awards: Outstanding Fringe Production, Outstanding Direction of the Fringe Play, and awarded the third for Outstanding Solo Fringe Performance. Erin performed in Larrikin Entertainment's new musical, WYRD, a thrilling musical with themes on patriarchy and the cycle of abuse that toured through beautiful Yukon and Victoria, BC in 2023. They have co-created and performed multiple physical theatre pieces often inspired by feminism and absurdity. Erin has several performance credits from the Edmonton Fringe Festival, independent local productions, workshop readings, and theatre for young audiences. She celebrates art in its many forms for its ability to honor the human experience. She is currently working on the development of her next solo show featuring her drag king character Earl Grey. As well, she is a performer in “The World of Away” a theatrical installation taking place at Silver Skate Festival in the 2025 Folk Trail programming. Erin recently made their debut at the Citadel Theatre in Jenna Rodgers’ production of Little Women in the role of Beth March. She is thrilled to be taking part in the FEED lab, an opportunity any clown would be sad to miss.
Jocelyn Mah
Jocelyn Mah is a contemporary dance artist currently based in Calgary, Canada (previously Toronto and London, UK), whose practice also includes puppetry, mask performance and interdisciplinary creation. Lively and collaborative, her work weaves exaggerated fictional characters, grotesque imagery, and (often live) music into eccentric feminist tapestries.
Jocelyn’s choreographic work has been presented across Canada as well as in the UK and Europe, at The SummerWorks Performance Festival, Dance Ontario’s Dance Weekend, Springboard’s Fluid Fest, Dance Made In Canada, EDge on Tour, The Alberta Ballet School, The Festival of Animated Objects, Calgary Folk Music Festival, and Kaeja’s Winddown Dance, among many others. As a performer and collaborator, her multi-disciplinary practice has led to professional creations and performances with independent artists and companies based in Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and London, UK, including with Tia Kushniruk, Laurence Siegel , Elaine Weryshko, Catherine Hayward, Michael Menegon and The Sound of Movement, Daniel Pelton, Long Grass Studio, Cloudsway Dance Theatre, Calgary Animated Objects Society, Ghost&John, kloetzel&co (Melanie Kloetzel) and more.
Jocelyn is a graduate of Dance Arts Institute (The School of Toronto Dance Theatre) and holds her Master of Arts in Contemporary Dance Performance from The London Contemporary Dance School (London, UK), with her Master’s thesis focusing on the relationship between music in dance in authentic and vernacular jazz dance choreography.
Michael Watt
Michael Watt is a multi-disciplinary artist based in amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton). They can often be found creating and indulging in music and theatre projects both independently and with frequent collaborator, Jacquelin Walters, with their company Walters & Watt Theatre Projects. As a creator their work frequently explores identity, absurdity, musicality, gender, and (mis)understanding. Community, joy, and laughter are major priorities in their artistic practice. They are incredibly passionate about the arts and how they enrich the world around us, and believe that sharing music and stories with one’s community is one of the most magical things we can do! Recent performance credits include: Pansies (Workshop West Playwright’s Theatre); Shrek the Musical (NUOVA); Bea (Shadow Theatre); Witch (Bleviss Lab Theatre); and Let’s Not Turn On Each Other (Walters & Watt). Michael can be seen next producing the premiere production of their new play “Reign Check” this summer!
Philip Hackborn
Philip Hackborn (they/them), is a performance artist, actor, and poet situated in amiskwaciwâskahikan, colonially known as Edmonton. They exist and make art at the intersections of race, gender identity, and madness. Over the years, they have assisted theatre productions in abandoned warehouses, improvised live with the players of escape rooms as voice-over animatronic characters, and performed in more Shakespeare than they thought they would have by this point in their life. Select performance credits: Hamlet in Isolation (Thou Art Here), Krampus: a Christmas Escape Adventure (Canscare), Devour Content Here (Cowgirl Opera), Love’s Labour’s Lost and Shoot Get Treasure Repeat (Augustana Drama Dept UofA). Select writing credits: Madness and other Ghost Stories (re:Create, Found Fest), The Shadow and the Fool (re:Create, Next Fest), Fragmented Journeys and Liminal (Skirtsafire, Expanse Festival, Alberta Circus Arts Festival). Through their emerging production company, re:Create, they blend together their passions for mythology, community, and exploration to build spaces and art that hold care in equal measures with creativity, with a current focus on mad-art creation.
Dayna Lea Hoffmann
Dayna (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist based in amiskwaciwâskahikan ᐊᒥᐢᑲᐧᒋᐋᐧᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ. As an actor, clown and circus artist, her practice is primarily based in Pochinko Clown and other various physical theatre styles. She is a graduate of the UofA’s BFA Acting Program, Douglas College’s Theatre Diploma Program, is a former performer and teacher of the Vancouver Circus School, and an alumnus of Canada’s National Voice Intensive. She tours and produces with her own company, Batrabbit Collective, where she performs as Fingers in Rat Academy, a nationally acclaimed, award-winning clown show. When she is not seen on local stages or dabbling in theatre design, Dayna works with Thou Art Here Theatre as their Artistic Leadership Mentee. Recent performance credits include: Jupiter (Theater Network), Stars on Her Shoulders (WWPT), Pillowman (Theatre Yes), Mermaid Legs (Skirts-a-Fire), A Hundred Words for Snow (Northern Light Theatre), All the Little Animals I Have Eaten (Shadow Theatre), Midsummer Night's Dream, Measure for Measure (Freewill Players). Dayna is excited to return to the stage with the Freewill Shakespeare Festival this summer. Big love to Ben and Sweetpeas.
Trent Crosby
Trent is an Edmonton based artist and arts enabler with a specialty in activating non-traditional performance spaces. A graduate of Grant MacEwan's Theatre Production program and The Banff Centre for the Arts, Trent has spent the last 15 years as a Lighting Designer, Production Manager, Technical Director, and Entertainment Programmer.