Moving between sound and performance, Be Heintzman Hope is a facilitator of music, dance and embodiment ritual based between Tio’tia:ke/Mooniyang, colonially known as Montréal and the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓ əm (Musquem), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Wateuth) peoples.
Their practice bridges dance training with conflict resolution, healing and community arts. They hold workshops in transitional spaces, dance institutions, universities, DIY contexts and festivals that center queer, trans, racialized bodies and sex workers – offering meditation, singing and dance as medicines to those on the front lines of their healing journeys. They have facilitated workshops for various organizations and institutions such as Sherpa Centre de Recherche, Queens University, University of the Arts Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, Mascall Dance, Toronto Dance Theater, Ponderosa, Studio 303, The Toronto Dance Community Love-In, Articule, Festival TransAmériques and The Center for Gender Advocacy. They dance in Clara Furey’s recent creation, Dog Rising – alongside Winnie Ho, Brian Mendez, and Baco Lepage-Acosta. This endurance piece uses repetition to explore primitive impulses, dissonance, unison, and polyphonic vibration.
Simultaneously, artist supported by Parbleux, Be is in the process of creating a multi-media ambulatory performance and installation. Their studies in eroticism, energetic boundaries, meditation, medicine, trauma, healing, illness, and death are at the foundation of their practice. A larger part of this work is a quest to co-create alternative economies and community-based structures of radical tenderness and care.