Assis Carreiro
Artist Management 
International Arts & 
Cultural Projects

The Press

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”The pervading energy is that of joy through endlessly innovative, flowing movement: at times an invisible string seems to pull the dancers up toward the ceiling from their chests. Telford’s piece shows off the expressive finesse of Jung, Zenon Zubyk, Ellis, Jacob Williams, and Chessa (back from a stint at Nederlands Dans Theater). Like the other works on the program, Lean-to feels like a pure celebration of dance—of bodies moving together in space in front of a live audience.” - Janet Smith, Stir Vancouver

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“The magic that Telford achieves with her 11 dancers is something akin to suspended time, like we enter an instant, then rewind, then freeze, then enter it again from a different perspective. Dancers hurtle backwards like they’re being pushed by some unseen force, then fall on the floor and lie still. New corps member Emily Chessa, in one intense scene, rushes toward something unseen then runs backward, again and again, drawn and repelled by powers we can’t fully understand. Telford pushes the dancers off axis, bends them over backwards, and sends them leaping in reverse. Amid them all wanders the always magnetic Rachel Meyer, sometimes stepping through their frozen, fallen bodies, as if she is somehow looking at what could happen or what could have happened. Heady stuff, yes, but strange, haunting, and thought-provoking.”- Georgia Straight / Janet Smith,  Vancouver.

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"The Festival Madrid en Danza closed last Sunday with what was undoubtedly its best creative work in dance: Brittle Failure. Working with a very thoughtful and sustained balance between the intellectual and the choreographic material, (the work) … demonstrates how aesthetic awareness, maturity in scenic knowledge and the right selection of interpreters, are the basic ingredients for a successful work of ballet or contemporary dance and not mere platitudes.” - translated from EL PAIS/ Roger Salas,  Madrid

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“Through various fraught couplings, Telford seems to be getting at the fragility of relationships and the way they can break under pressure. There is no doubt Telford has a clear, fluid, and utterly unique voice when it comes to choreography.” - Georgia Straight / Janet Smith,  Vancouver

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Telford makes the considerable leap from conceptual to theatrical with elegance and wit. Telford uses science as a jumping-off point only, tackling entanglement at a human level. Her finely wrought choreography for five dancers has them skittering and skating around the stage... in various configurations, hypersensitive to each other and the space around them. Their articulated bodies, moving with freedom and force, often seemed more like particles of colour and motion than flesh-and-blood human beings. With Spooky Action, Telford hits her stride as a choreographer. The idea of entanglement hovers mysteriously in the air, creating a fresh paradigm in which to view the dance.” - Kaija Pepper/Globe and Mail, Vancouver.

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"The movements are strung together with rhythmic diversity, punctuated acutely with the consideration of a composer or a beat poet.” - Naomi Brand/ The Dance Current, Vancouver

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"The Canadian Lesley Telford starts this triple-bill with Everything Might Spill, giving extra meaning to the title with a tense and erratic choreography, startling and robotic. The piece is about the fragile balance and illusion of real stability (which is life, is it not?). …the shadows and the overall tone of the physical score were alive and moving." - translated from Notodo.com, David Cano, Teatro de Madrid

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