The Zero Lab | Ainsley Hillyard | CAPABLE

The Zero Labs

Please note, tickets are sold out for Zero Lab #1. We invite you to get tickets and attend Zero Lab #2 and #3 happening this Season (May 2025)!

This new curatorial initiative by Mile Zero Dance features three local artists/groups who receive production residency support in our Warehouse venue, and present their new work in process.

We invite you to share the excitement of these new works in progress. Get an all access pass ($50) to attend all 3 Zero Labs featuring artists Ainsley Hillyard, Marynia Fekecz-Mangan and Tia Kushniruk.

Tickets | $25/$20 MZD Members or all 3 Zero Labs for $50
Times: 7:30 PM
MZD is located at 9931 78 Ave NW, Edmonton

Zero Lab #1: Ainsley Hillyard | CAPABLE
MARCH 28+ MARCH 29

CAPABLE aims to tease out the complexities of #girlboss, celebrating and denouncing the roles and expectations placed on ambitious women and the persisting gender inequality around emotional, invisible and unpaid labour. 

Artist Talkback
There will be an artist talkback following the performance on Friday March 28! Facilitated by Kristi Hansen and Thurga Kanagasekarampillai.

TEAM
Ainsley Hillyard (creator and performer)
Connor Yuzwenko-Martin (integrated Deaf performer/collaborator)
Alida Kendell (dramaturg/collaborator)
Kristi Hansen (dramaturg/collaborator)
Thurga Kanagasekarampillai (Deaf consultant/collaborator)
Whittyn Jason (scenographer/collaborator)
Kena Leon (sound designer)

This piece was supported by Edmonton Arts Council, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Canada Council for the Arts and the Good Women Dance Collective Space Share program.

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UP NEXT!

Zero Lab #2: Marynia Fekecz-Mangan | COME HELL OR HIGH WATER
May 9+ 10
Choreographer | Penelope Morout | CROSS IMPACT Co.
Zero Lab producer/dancer | Marynia Fekecz-Mangan (MfMdanceArtist)

Marynia Fekecz-Mangan (MfMdanceArtist) is the producer of this Zero Lab. Marynia is commissioning interdisciplinary choreographer Penelope Mourot and 5 local dancers to focus on the power of verbal and physical communication as a means for solidarity, particularly in today’s society of digital media.

COME HELL OR HIGH WATER is a tribute to freedom in its pure essence. Inspired by the poems of Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese” as well as of Maya Angelou’s “Caged Bird”, our heroes co-exist within the premises of a cabin in the woods, perpetually trying to protect their crop and send the birds away. Oscillating between reality and fiction, the dream and the nightmare, they confide personal stories and test the boundaries between society’s rigid expectations and their own free will. 

Using the figure of a scarecrow as a metaphor, in order to “exorcise” ideas and standards that keep them caged within specific roles, our characters have to eventually face their own fears and self-restrictions· flocking, twirling, falling but always together, daring to claim the sky*. 

* Quote from Maya Angelou’s “Caged Bird”.

Zero Lab #3: Tia Kushniruk | FEED
May 30+ 31

An ensemble work using a variety of characters to live out various Sisyphian nightmares, “FEED” is a bold rehashing of traditional theatrical staging and dance rhythms, that culminate in joyous reverie for the little things in life. 

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Ticket Refund Policy
Please note, MZD’s refund policy is extended at this time. If you’re not feeling well and unable to attend the show, please contact us for refund or to change your ticket to another date.

Featuring

Ainsley Hillyard

Ainsley Hillyard is an Amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton)-based artist of settler descent. She is a choreographer and performer who works in contemporary dance and theatre. Her work is immersed in the curiosities and connections between these two forms. Ainsley was a co-founder, and a co-artistic director/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. Select choreography credits include; Frozen the Musical (Citadel Theatre/the Grand Theatre) The Sound of Music (Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre/Citadel Theatre/The Grand Theatre) Deafy by Chris Dodd (Citadel Theatre), and Mermaid Legs by Beth Graham (Skirts A Fire). Ainsley also runs her own dog care business, Bumblebear Doggy Care, and serves on the board of the Edmonton Arts Council and the Common Ground Arts Society. Ainsley was recently awarded the Edmonton Artist Trust Fund award and is committed to supporting the Edmonton arts community with her full self.

Image Description for Ainsley Hillyard
Ainsley’s headshot from mid-chest up. She is white woman, with long brown wavy hair and bangs. She looks directly at the camera, at a 3/4 angle. She has light blue paint brushed onto one side of her face, chin, neck and bare chest. It is also brushed sparingly in her hair and brings out her natural grey. She has green/blue eyes and is wearing long false eyelashes.

Connor Yuzwenko-Martin

Connor is the founder and artistic director of The Invisible Practice, a Deaf arts collective based in amiskwacîwâskahikan. He is a producer, performer, and playwright. His first two major original productions, After Faust and CARBON MOVEMENTS, both premiered in Edmonton in 2023 after several years of development, and a third show is in the works. He has nurtured a lifelong passion for theatre and accessibility, and relentlessly explores the relationships between Deaf/Disability experience, art, politics, therapy, and advocacy, with a constant eye toward the collective liberation of all intersectional human beings. Connor is a certified Access Activator through Tangled Art+Disability’s training program. While he also happens to hold degrees and diplomas from both University of Alberta and MacEwan University, these institutions have demonstrated complicity and aggression in colonial and genocidal projects. He no longer claims identity with these institutions until there is sufficient systemic change toward collective liberation.

Image Description for Connor Yuzwenko-Martin’s headshot:
Connor’s headshot from mid-chest up. He is white, male, with short-buzzed head, neatly trimmed beard, and black-framed glasses. He looks directly at the camera, head slightly tilted, with a cheery smile. His right hand is aloft in a “who knows?” pose.

Alida Kendell

Alida Kendell is a contemporary dance choreographer, performer and instructor in amiskwacîwâskahikan, Edmonton. She has trained in both ballet and contemporary dance, completing her BA at the School of Contemporary Dancers in Winnipeg, MB. Her artistry is fed by her work as a collective artist with the Good Women Dance Collective (GWDC), her independent projects, and caregiving. Career highlights so far include creating and performing alongside Alison Kause in the Sterling award nominated production, there we are. There, and in the Sterling award-winning productions BEARS (Pyretic Productions) and The Cardiac Shadow (Northern Light Theatre and GWDC). Recently Alida has returned to a solo practice that investigates durational improvisation as an escape from and return to self. Her participation in the Hack Lab (Theatre Direct) and Balancing Act Canada's Level UP! initiative has inspired her to work in ways that incorporate the experience of motherhood rather than working in spite of it.

Kristi Hansen

Kristi is a disabled theatre artist and the co-founder and co-Artistic Director of the Maggie Tree. She is the former co-Artistic Producer of Azimuth Theatre and the former Associate Artist at the Citadel Theatre. She is currently working as the Accessibility Coordinator at the Citadel Theatre for the 2024/25 Accessible Performance Series.
Directing credits include Cycle (ThouArtHere); Fake n’ Bake (Fringe tour); Confessions of a Sex Worker (Edmonton Fringe Festival); Shatter (The Maggie Tree, co-Director); and Work Plays (The Alberta Workers’ Health Centre).

Whittyn Jason

Whittyn Jason (they/them/theirs) is a queer, non-binary, mixed-race scenographer and award-winning lighting designer of South African and Ukrainian heritage primarily living and creating in amiskwacîwâskahikan (colonially known as Edmonton, Alberta), whose work has been featured across the country and as far as the Czech Republic. They have worked on over 50 productions for theatre, dance, and alternative performance in the role of designer with a focus on interactive, site-specific projects, and new work development.

They have designed for black boxes, tiny stages, big stages, real weddings and fake funerals, indie films, live events, beer gardens, concrete cubes, empty hockey arenas, parties, debauchery and mischief, immersive website experiences, shows that have to pack up into the back of a pickup, haunted barns, self-described ‘impossible projects’, abandoned buildings, dive bars, apartments, river valleys, warehouses, and more. whittyn.com. Whittyn is a member of the ADC, and holds a BFA in Theatre Design.

Thurga Kanagasekarampillai

Thurga Kanagasekarampillai (She/They) is Tamil Deaf Non-Binary Genderqueer artist. She has worked as Deaf Interpreter and ASL performer for "The Enchanted Loom" (2016); Red Dress Production for “Drift Seeds” (2017); Million Billion Pieces (YTP 2019); The Holy Gasp (July 2020); Speculation (2018, 2019, 2021); Ministry of Mundane Mysteries with Outside the March (2020, Sound Off Festival 2021, 2022); At This Hour (2021/2023). She is also an actress and was in ‘The Tempest’ at Citadel Theatre as Miranda in Edmonton in April - May 2019. She was the one of three founders of Deafies’ Unique Time with Ali Saeedi, and Ralitsa Rodriguez. Deafies’ Unique Time - ‘Eye So Twisted’ (Rhubarb Festival / Sound Off Festival 2019), Deafies Detective Agency (Sound Off Festival 2020.) She is a founder of Deaf Heart Theatre Collective, a new artistic collective in Edmonton, AB.

Kena Leon

Kena Leon (they/them) is a queer Filipinx multi-disciplinary artist who uses music, sound and technology as their main media. Kena is active in the queer and arts scene as a DJ, sound designer, performing artist and producer.

Their passion for uplifting the local arts community led them to support the following work through sound design:
Dance Nation (2025 - SkirtsAfire), Brick Shit House (2024 – Fencless Theatre), Boy Trouble (2024 - Amoris Projects), Tough Guy (2023-2024 - Hayley Moorehouse), and Enough (2024 – Hoy! Productions).

They are very grateful to be part of the Capable team and hope you continue to support art by local women and non-binary artists.