DanceHouse will bring performances from four continents to the Vancouver Playhouse in its ambitious 2025-26 season. It will kick it off with celebrated Montreal choreographer Daniel Léveillé’s Amour, acide et noix (Love, Acid and Nuts) on October 24 and 25. He first unveiled this work in 2001 as artistic director of DLD, a position he held until 2018.
Set against Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, pop music, and birdsong, Amour, acide et noix (Love, Acid and Nuts) won the Grand Prix de la danse de Montréal in 2017.
“As the dancers move through a series of entanglements, the shock of nudity disappears, helped along by a lick of humour that runs underneath the solos, duets, and ensemble work,” DanceHouse says in a news release. “The shared commonality of the physical is reborn in all its delicacy and resolve.”
DanceHouse will follow up on November 28 and 29 with Birdy, by Taiwan’s Hung Dance. Presented with its community partner, the Asian-Canadian Special Events Association, Birdy features a vibrant head piece of pheasant tail features called “Ling Zi”.
“The calligraphic eloquence of four-feet long feathers moves from gentleness to violence, transforming into spears, whips, and a blade drawn sharply across the throat,” DanceHouse reveals. “As the dancers flock together in rippling patterns of conformity and divergence, rituals of behaviour gleaned from the non-human world, find their choreographic counterparts. Group think meets the defiance of individual identity, revealing a universal cry for freedom.”
Choreographer Lai Hung-Chung founded Hung Dance in 2017. The National Taipei University of the Arts grad draws from Chinese opera, martial arts, and traditional cultural symbols to create contemporary works exploring human relations.
DanceHouse lineup features aerial dance
Meanwhile, from January 21 to 24 in 2026, DanceHouse and the Cultch will co-present the Hungarian company Recirquel’s Paradisum. The company’s artistic director and choreographer Bence Vági incorporates aerial dance and ground genres of circus arts in addressing cosmological concepts via archetypal figures.
“In Paradisum, Recirquel’s new production, the ‘fabric of life’ weaves its way through the natural world, organically creating new forms of being, ones without memories, pain or beliefs, where movements are instinctive,” the company notes on its website. “They experience the power of community and create a harmonious balance with pure love and trust.”
That will be followed by Hamlet, Prince of Denmark in partnership with community partner Bard on the Beach from March 10 to 21. The Ex Machina + Côté Danse production of William Shakespeare’s famous work was co-created by Canadian theatre legend Robert Lepage and dance artist, musician, and composer Guillaume Côté.
Closing out the season from April 16 to 18 will Manifesto by Australia’s Stephanie Lake Company.
“In this ‘tattoo to optimism’ nine musicians and nine dancers fuse their respective instruments to offer up a collective call for radical joy,” DanceHouse states. “Against the backdrop of a towering velvet curtain, Manifesto sets loose a cacophonic wall of sound, grounded in effort and soaring on human energy.”
For tickets and more information about DanceHouse’s 2025-26 season, visit the website. Follow Pancouver on X @PancouverMedia, Bluesky @pancouver.bsky.social, and Instagram @PancouverMedia. Also follow Charlie Smith on Bluesky @charliesmithvcr.bsky.social.
