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 next episode of 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.

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

‘Spicey’ is a Montreal choreographer, a performer, a teacher, a curator and a major player on Canada’s hip-hop dance scene. She is recognized as a pioneer and an artist with unparalleled vision, drawing her raw material from hip-hop culture, whose field of exploration she is constantly expanding.

Spicey presented three works in Quebec between 2008 and 2015 including Retrospek (9 performers), which influenced a generation of street dancers. At the same time, the Bust A Move Festival, which she founded in 2005 (active until 2015), became the largest street dance competition in Canada.

In 2015, Spicey founded her own dance company, Ebnflōh, and premiered Complexe R (five female dancers). In-Word, her 2019 piece featuring six dancers, was awarded “Prix Révélation” at Les Prix de la Danse de Montréal. The piece was a finalist for the 35^th Grand Prix du Conseil des arts de Montréal and was presented 50 times in Canada, Scotland and Germany from 2019 to 2023. 

During the pandemic, she created two works for webcasting: Hanging by a Thread (8 dancers) and the duo Ever Endeavor – commissioned by the National Arts Centre. Danse Danse presented her most recent work, La Probabilité du Néant (8 dancers), in October 2021 at Place des Arts. It will be presented in Vancouver at the end of 2023. She has presented a new creation, MONAD, a duo that was presented by Danse-Cité at Théâtre La Chapelle in 2024. She is also directing and choreographing her first dance film entitled Le Néant.

‘Spicey’ is deeply committed to supporting street dance. She mentors emerging artists and is regularly invited to teach master classes in Canada and abroad.