The Paper Bag Lunch Chats Series (PBLC)

Introducing: The Paper Bag Lunch Chats Series (PBLC)

Angélique Willkie, Concordia University Research Chair (CURC) in Ecologies of B/black Performance, is pleased to announce the launch of a new initiative: The Paper Bag Lunch Chats Series (PBLC).

What is PBLC?
The series invites accomplished artists into Concordia's Dance Department to share insights into their creative practices through informal, dialogue-driven lunch chats. This is a space to centre artists whose work sparks critical reflection and exchange.  Conversations will centre on three core themes: Priority, Practice, Process.

Upcoming Sessions

• January 29 12:30pm - 1:30pm with Cherish Menzo

• February 12 12:30pm - 1:30pm with Dedra McDermott

Why Attend?
Bring your lunch, engage in stimulating conversation, and learn directly from leading artists in an intimate and welcoming setting.

Cherish Menzo (1988, The Netherlands) is a choreographer and dancer based in Brussels and Amsterdam. She graduated in 2013 from The Urban Contemporary (JMD) at the ‘Hogeschool voor de Kunsten’ in Amsterdam. Menzo has performed in works by Lisbeth Gruwez, Jan Martens, and Nicole Beutler, and collaborated with artists such as Akram Khan, Olivier Dubois, and Eszter Salamon. Alongside her performance work, she creates internationally touring productions that explore the transformation of the body on stage.

Her choreographic works include EFES (2016), LIVE (2018), JEZEBEL (2019), D̶A̶R̶K̶MATTER (2022), KILLED AND EXTENDED DARLINGS: SUBTLE WHINE (2023), and FRANK (2025). For her artistic work, she is interested in the transformation of the body on stage and in the “embodiment” of different physical images. Implementing distortion, decay, and dissonance, Cherish attempts to detach bodies from forced perceptions and their daily corporeal realities, underlining the complexity and contradictory nature of images that seem recognizable at first glance.

Menzo has received numerous awards, including the Amsterdam Fringe Award (2019) and the Charlotte Köhler Award (2022). With D̶A̶R̶K̶MATTER, Cherish received the BNG Bank Theater Prize (2023) and the Dutch Drama Jury prize for best direction (2023).

Be of service and bring people together. 

That is the fundamental principle upon which Dedra McDermott has founded her career. As a Jamaican, First-Generation Canadian, her love of movement began in her mother’s living room.  Training in diverse dance forms as a youth, she has been fortunate to have a successful career as a professional contemporary dancer (Film/TV/Stage). Through consistent commitment, Dedra has charted a robust, challenging, and exceptionally rewarding path that has allowed undeniable range in the live performance sector. Her educational background (BFA, MA, MFA) has allowed for cross- disciplinary artistic knowledge that includes live performance and visual culture. Following two significant concussions, Dedra became a dancer who is also an artist-researcher, emerging curator, producer, administrator, and movement dramaturg. In all facets of her evolving artistic practice, she prioritizes and supports the choreographic voices working to re-educate the public on the realities of Black histories across the diaspora, inclusive of Latin American and Caribbean stories.

Notable recent work includes the public program Cartographies of Presence: Live at Mercer Union: a centre for contemporary art (2024) and her previous role of Co-Executive Artistic Producer of DanceWorks, a choreographic presentation platform in Toronto, Canada (Aug. 2023 - Aug. 2025).