IAN
IS
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IA: Can you introduce yourself and describe what it is that you do?

AL: OK. My name is Alexandra Landé and I’m also known as Spicey. That's the name that people know me by in the street dance community and in the contemporary dance community. I am a dance practitioner, a choreographer and a teacher of street dance - mainly hip hop dance. I am the founder and director of Ebnflōh Dance Company, a company I founded almost 10 years ago and this year we're celebrating 10 years which is crazy. Time just flew.

 

I created work prior to Ebnflōh, but eventually I wanted to get more support for my work and wanted to create a community around it, so I created Ebnflōh and started to create work that not only spoke to me, but to other artists. I wanted to foster work that is trying to open things up, deconstruct hip hop and go into realms that are less seen in that genre. I wanted to create a place or organisation that would help with the professionalisation of street dancers and give them opportunities. Because when we talk about theatre work, stage work and performance work, we're mostly talking about contemporary dance.

It was important for me to - because I love creation, I love making work - create a space where street dancers and hip hop dancers can come, push themselves, enter that world, become familiar with it and eventually create their own work. That's pretty much who I am. I'm also a sister, a friend, a mentor and mentee. I'm many things, but in dance and performance, that's who I am.

IA: What is your relationship to endings?

AL: Well, I just ended a relationship. I was way better at it when I was younger, when things ended I mean. I had emotions around endings, but I feel like as you get older, endings become...you foster relationships and you do things because you have a better understanding of the world and yourself. You go deeper. Everything's deeper. Relationships are deeper. The work is deeper.

 

Now I have more support for my work I'm able to go into a theatre or a studio and really push ideas and push dancers. I have these relationships with my collaborators and endings become a little more challenging. You create a community around you and there's a network that you build through work, and it becomes like...emotions are attached and then you get attached to work. If we’re talking about work specifically, I get attached to pieces. The way I construct work is a never ending thing, I'm always rethinking and trying to find new ways of approaching a work. When I've stopped doing that research, that's when I feel like I'm ready to let go.

 

I have a piece right now (In-Ward) which is coming to an end in the next few months. We have a tour in Montreal and even though we started in Montreal, not many people got to see the piece the first time round. We presented it twice, but, you know, contemporary dance spaces, 80 people, a 100 people max. So a lot of people still haven't seen that piece and we're ending it this season. It's strange because we presented it first in 2019, that's 6 years ago and if you count the 2 years of gestation and creation, we're talking about about 8 years of work. 8 years of holding on to a piece, remodelling it and changing dancers. We got to tour the piece to Edinburgh, but that was pretty much it. It didn't get the exposure that it could have gotten. You have to end things and you have to end the dream that you had for that piece.

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The dream I had for this creation...I dreamt of it going to the US because as a piece it was so attached to Hip Hop. The things that are really subtle about Hip Hop and the culture around Hip Hop, there was a lot of cultural nuances that I explored in this piece and I wanted to see presented in the US. But now who knows? Maybe? By some chance, maybe somebody will see it, but I'm ready to let it go. I'm also saying goodbye to possible dreams of seeing this piece in other places. A first important work that I did in 2008 was one that I won a prize for. I'd been presenting work on stages and touring in Montreal and Ottawa, I was in existence, but to the contemporary dance world, I was a mystery and they just discovered me. That was funny. I've been around doing work.

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But we have to say goodbye...I think I'll leave the door open for that possibility of going to the US, but it takes work to go back to work. You have to get funding for it, the dancers have to still be willing – especially for that kind of work – because In-Ward requires a real commitment, time wise, mentally and physically. That's important for me. I won’t just do it to do it.

IA: 2025 is the company's 10th year. A milestone and a serious body of work. What three moments mean the most to you during that 10 years?

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AL: It’s funny because in that first year, 2015, I also had to say goodbye to Bust A Move. Bust A Move was a street dance festival and competition that I put together that became international and put Montreal on the map. It started with Montreal dancers, but slowly we started having Canadian dancers come through...people from Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary made it national. Then I started having judges from the international street dance scene come in like Popin Pete. There was one year where Buddha Stretch was the head judge, Popin Pete was the popping judge, Caleaf was the house judge. Adesola was the locking judge. And then Wacking, did I have Tyrone yet? I'm not sure if Tyrone was there. That's some pretty good people and these people brought other people. If you have these judges, people will fly around the world to come and be judged by them. It really propelled Bust A Move and it became really big and a whole festival. Do you remember in Montreal the big circus venue La TOHU - it was there. For the last 7 years it was there and it was completely full. 1300 people per night and I said goodbye to that.

 

It wasn’t difficult for me because I had gotten to a place – like I was telling you earlier – where I felt like I'd done everything I needed to do with it. It did the thing that it needed to do and it was time to say goodbye for so many reasons. That was a big one. A big goodbye for the community and for myself. People still talk about Bust A Move. I'm still asked questions about it, but I'm like, that was 10 years ago!

 

I would say In-Ward. That was the next piece that really...for the company it was the one that really got us and my work known. What else can I say about those years? I realised that I have a 10 year cycle. From 2005 to 2015 it was Bust A Move. From 2015 to 2025 it’s Ebnflōh – don’t worry I'm not closing Ebnflōh – but I feel like I'm going into a different cycle regarding my work.

 

The third thing about all of this, it’s coming full circle in a way, is making space for people to grow. We have this thing called B-Side. I don't know if I've ever talked to you about B-Side, but it's a 2 week research lab for 8 street dancers in a studio where they have 3 hours a day and at the end of those 2 weeks, they present. It’s the real beginning of their research. We've been doing it for 5 years and have had 40 dancers come through. Out of those 40, probably 10 have theatre work that has continued. You know one of them, Nubian Nene, she’s doing her show now. She has a solo happening that I commissioned at the MAI, and that solo started at B-Side. There's a lot of full circle moments that are happening through the things that I've been able to contribute. Knowing I have a network and so many collaborators that I work with, that I've built relationships with over the years means I never feel alone in the work or whatever I'm doing. Those are the three things, the third one is all over the place, but that's good.

IA: When do you begin to think about the end of a work? How do you end your work?

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AL: I think I wanna constantly end it. I have this envy of ending it...as much as I wanna do it, especially once it's done, once it's been presented, I'm in negotiation with myself as to do I end it? Does it end there? We've done it, it's done. It’s there, it exists and I created it, but I feel like I'm constantly on the edge of ending things. That’s not just in work, but in relationships too. It's everything that's attached to the work. The work is one thing and I love seeing how it evolves. I've seen it surprise me at times, but there comes a time when the work sits. And every time you see it, you see little things that brings pleasure, but it becomes a bit more like – this is what it is. I can play with a few elements, but that's the work. Once I get to that place, then it becomes more about the relationship of why is this work still pertinent?

All these questions go through my mind. Why should I continue doing it? What does it do for the community of street dance? What does it do for stage work? Does it still say something? Is it still relevant? The dancers, are they still committed? This is one of my biggest yes or no questions. If the dancers are all saying no, I don't feel like doing the show anymore, to me it's the end because my work requires a big commitment. It's not the kind of work that you could just come and punch your card. You have to be involved and you have to want to expand through the work. So if the dancers are like, I think I've given enough to this piece and I don't feel inspired to do it anymore, then it's the end for me. I'm OK with that because I've already ended it in some ways in my head. You know what I mean? I've already negotiated that. It's probably the thing that would make me go, that's enough. We've done enough. Performance is live art, it's live work and if it dies in people's minds, bodies and spirits, I think it's time to end it.

IA: How do you end an artistic relationship? Either with a dancer, a collaborator or a producer?

AL: I've had so many, but not that many at the same time. I like long term collaborations. I'm a sucker for long term relationships and collaborations because I feel like I ask so much of my team and we need we build trust over time. And then that trust becomes almost like – I don't wanna say wedding or marriage – but it's almost like a marriage because of the commitment required. I'm asking them to go a little further than most people would. If a relationship has to end, there's normally a few reasons why. One is, I've had dancers – right when I started the company, the first piece before In-Ward – and some of those dancers were changing lifestyles. One wanted to have babies and another was going back to Toronto. Lots of life changes. Some wanna do dancing, but they don't wanna do theatre work anymore. They wanna go and battle, train and put their focus on more commercial work. For some of those dancers it was about making more money, because stage work is tricky when it comes to getting paid well. Another reason is conflict.

I rarely have conflict with dancers because I try to keep communications open when it comes to commitment. I try to build a relationship that's very solid in terms of...they could come and see me if there's something wrong or if they're not feeling it, they can tell me. Because I build those relationship with dancers, I've rarely had conflict with them. We've had conflict within the team, but not necessarily with me. In terms of endings with dancers, it's very rare that it's in conflict. I also have a very in-depth process of selecting dancers. I do auditions – I choose almost no one – and it's a real one on one. I build the relationship over time and that's why it's very rare that it ends in conflict because there’s been all of these processes and work. The most conflict I've had is with TDs.

IA: What’s a TD?

AL: Technical directors. TDs are the ones I've had the most conflict with – not necessarily big conflicts – well, it depends on who the TD was. My last one was someone I had to let go because they were impossible to work with. Like I said, I try to build trust and there’s a lot of conversation and communication – as much as I can – but if the person...after that, it's a character thing. I'm not afraid of difficult characters, because I have worked with them before, and I give them chances and have conversations. But, yeah, that one had me, I was like, this needs to end.

 

With collaborators it's still difficult, it's still hard. I still have a hard time saying goodbye. When it comes to people and the people I work with, I think that's the my biggest challenge. Saying bye to a work, yes, it's difficult, but sometimes it's just like, the work is done, bye bye, we've said what we needed to say. But people are my biggest weakness and ending a collaboration is difficult.

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IA: Why was your work Retrospek so influential?

AL: Retrospek was my biggest work outside of Ebnflōh. I was ambitious and I wanted to create a stage work. After seeing Rennie Harris – that must have been a good 6 or 7 years prior – and seeing Wanted Posse at the Just 4 Laughs Festival, that was it. For me, it was like, I can do this? I'd never seen it before. I'd never seen a show with street dance, a clear intention and costumes and it wasn't cheesy. I saw those shows and they blew my mind. I was like, I need to be able to do one of those shows. So, I put together some of the most prolific street dancers: Handy ‘Monsta Pop’ Yacinthe was there, I had Eric ‘Zig’ Martel as a b-boy and I had Frédérique ‘Pax’ Dumas. These are some of the most important street dancers now, they're the young OGs of Montreal, and they were part of it. For street dancers here to see that kind of work on stage and see the possibilities, at the time it was a big deal for the community. People that got to see it were stunned because Montreal had never seen that kind of work before. First we had Flow Rock, a legendary bboy crew from Montreal, who had created a piece, then came RUBBERBAND. RUBBERBAND were the first company to use the word Hip Hop when describing their work for the contemporary mileu and they were doing really interesting work at the time. They were combining ballet, contemporary and breaking – making it a very specific language – but it was not street dance as we know it.

Retrospek was almost like a play. Everybody had their roles, everybody had their stories and then there were dance sections, lots of dance sections. I think it's different from the work we see today because there was such a strong storyline; at the same time, there were 2 poppers doing popping choreography, then a group of hip hop dancers would come in and do a section and then some House. All the styles were represented. I think that's why it was a big deal. I asked Zig and Monsta Pop to do choreography in the work too – it was collaborative effort. At the time I had no money and I wasn't getting any grants, so everybody was working for free for about 2 years. I think we met three times a week for 3 hours, for 2 years, for free to create Retrospek.

Eventually I had to adjust the pace to compensate for all the work they did. But at the time nobody was thinking about money. It was so new and exciting, we were just, let's get together and do this thing. It was one of the best experience I've had and then I had to say goodbye to it. I was fine with it. I'm fine with ending things because I go overboard, I do too much and I go way above. I go partly insane, dive in and obsess over the thing I'm doing and it takes so much of my energy and life. It takes over my life. But when I'm ready to part, I know I've given everything to it and there's nothing else to give, so I’ve gotta let it go. When Bust A Move ended, everybody was like OMG, it's the end, no. And they still talk about it. I remember just feeling like, oh, it's ending. Yes. It's done. Do you regret it? No. Would you do it again? No. To this day, it's still no. I'm fine, it's great, we did it, it’s done.

IA: We're in the first month of 2025. What was 2024 like for you in terms of dance?

AL: Last year was the expansion of La Probabilité du Néant. We were working hard in presenting it across Canada. We did it in Vancouver, then we went to Quebec City and did it at this conference. We did the Europe tour and then back to Canada in Alberta and Edmonton. So 2024 was really pushing the work – which is a different hustle. Once you've made the work, then you have to sell the work and that’s a whole different challenge. It's a whole different game. Especially when you're developing and growing the company. Not everybody knows us, so there's a lot of work around conferences. La Probabilité was the work that I was trying to push, but it was a pandemic work too and there's this weird relationship to it. There’s weird feelings about pandemic work around the world, but I still think it's relevant. This year, now that I remember, I had to do a solo.

IA: A solo? Tell me about that.

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AL: I tried to keep it as a secret for so long and I put so much effort into keeping it a secret. For half the shows there was only half an audience. I was resisting it for so many reasons. It was kind of a duo at the end, because it was collaborating with a composer and friend (Jai Nitai Lotus) that I've been collaborating with for over 10 years. He's such an incredible artist. He's very eclectic, dynamic and he was supposed to be in the background just playing music. But then he performs and he gets into it. So it really became a duo because there's this big connection between us. It's me dancing a dance solo. That's it. That was a thing and it was a real challenge. First of all, I've never done a solo. Second thing, I wanted to end it the minute it was done. Like, the minute it was over. I was like, I don't need to do this, this can end now. So that was the worst in terms of ending a relationship – the absolute worst – because the company were like, we have to promote it, you have to go and sell the show, and I'm like, no, I'm not doing this. No. No. I don't wanna do this. It's been really interesting trying to push the show because it's me. I decided I was gonna do a solo and everybody's seen my group work, and all of a sudden I'm putting myself on stage. The vulnerability was insane.

It was really humbling because all of a sudden, I was like my dancers, but with an ageing body, that's half as capable as what they can do. I was not necessarily interested in dancing, it wasn't about that, it was more about performance. That's the thing I wanted to do through the work. It's very performative. It's close to my work, but different at the same time. That was a thing I did this year and that was huge. It took a lot of energy and time.

 

And then everything else. B-Side. We did the second edition of DNA – a crew battle that we organised during B-Side and that was incredible in terms of energy. We have a kids battle, a crew kids battle and then we have an adult one at night. There was lots of travelling and I'm still travelling. I took a break and went to Europe – France, Portugal and Spain. That was the main period of rest and recuperation. I spent two weeks with a my friend Tara Wilson who's the founder of Pulse Studios (Calgary) in the south of France, then decided to travel on my own for 2 weeks in Portugal and Spain. It's been a really strange year and now I'm starting a new work. The cycles and new beginnings. 2024 was something. It was something.

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IA: How do you consider your archive? How do you document your practice and what do you think your legacy will be?

AL: Those are such good questions. I document it thanks to a friend and collaborator - Ja James ‘Jigsaw’ Britton Johnson. You've seen Jigsaw, the krumper and hip hop dancer, he has a passion for film, filming and archiving. He's been archiving the work for almost 10 years. I document, I have my GoPro, but I'm not the best at documenting because I'm so in the work and sometimes I forget to press record. Ja has become a really important collaborator for that. He films every show and his art is evolving and getting better. He's getting better equipment and the work is really well filmed and presented.

We did a film last year...did we present it last year? Yes. We presented the film at La Festival International du Film sur l’Art in Montreal and we started filming it in 2022, right before Edinburgh. So that’s a type of archiving. That was a really, really cool film and I have one mini documentary on La Probabilité. It's such an important element of what we do, because every time we ask for a grant, every time we have to do promotion, the archive is super important and historically I’ve had really bad recordings of everything. So Ja coming in, recording things and doing a great job has really helped in that department.

 

My contribution? I don’t know. What's my legacy? What's my legacy? (pause) What is my legacy? It's innovation through hip hop and street dance. Innovation is a big word and a lot of what I do already exists. It's all things that people are already doing across the world, but I'm always digging, trying to rethink and reimagine the things that are there. I think my legacy will be pushing Hip Hop boundaries through stage work and building communities. I've even been building communities in the contemporary dance scene. The funny thing is my work doesn't really get presented in festivals of Hip Hop. It doesn't really fit yet. Can I be frank with you? A lot of the Hip Hop dance work for theatre that I've seen is very basic. When I say basic, I don't mean that the technique is basic, the dance is usually amazing. I feel like I haven't encountered a lot of that in Europe. I've seen it in contemporary dance, but I haven't seen it in street dance. My work is not really interesting to Hip Hop festivals, but it is to contemporary dance festivals. So, my contribution is pushing Hip Hop boundaries for stage work and really trying to innovate and think differently about work – but always wanting to keep it as true to what it is. There's this constant...I'm pushing the boundaries, but I like the idea of staying in Hip Hop culture. Community is huge for me. Everywhere I go, I try to create community. Community in Ebnflōh, around Ebnflōh and in the street dance community. I'm also a mentor to a lot of people. So mentoring is huge for me, and that's a contribution in terms of passing it on and helping other people grow and reach their goals.

IA: Is there anything that you've not spoken about in terms of dance or endings that you would like to speak about?

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AL: Yes. The negotiation of me as a dancer. I told you about the solo and that the solo was a performative solo. It's mostly performance, but me as a dancer...my ego is still around knocking. Because I'm a director, yes I dance, I create dance, but I'm mostly doing administration, sitting and Zooming. I don't get to really practice the thing I love that much. I've found ways to do it and I've been doing 30 day challenges since the pandemic. Sometimes I do a dance everyday for 30 days challenge and send the video to Ja and Dr Rico. I've learned jookin in the past 5 years, which I find extremely difficult and challenging, but my ego is like you're still terrible at it, keep going.

 

I sit sometimes when I'm watching a video and think, I could do this, I could so kill that new song. But I'm just sitting and watching somebody else dance or listening to a track that I could actually feel. I have people like Pax that are pushing me up the ass, who say let's go and train, let's go and exchange and session and actually I don't always do it. That's something for me that I don't want to end. I wanna keep dancing, but at the same time, it's not like I'm doing much about it for most of the time. It's very strange to be a dance practitioner and not always dancing. I think that's the thing that I didn't talk about.

IA: Life is administration. The actual art creation as a percentage is so little across the year.

AL: Every time you're in the studio it's precious time and a great privilege to be there. We spent the first week of January...usually I start the third week of January to go back to work, but we had got this residency in a theatre. It was January 6th and we had a week and we did 6 hours of dance – which is rare because we usually have 4 hour practice sessions. Working on this new piece was a privilege, but that's the only week of this month that I get to do that. It's done, it's over and in February we have another two weeks. Most of the time I'm at my computer, I'm on the phone, I'm Zooming and I have other responsibilities. I'm a co-curator at the MAI with two other curators, Lara Kramer and Angie Cheng. It's the 25th anniversary of MAI, so we're celebrating all year and we have all these activities. I have so many other things other than creating and I don't get to be in the studio that much.

 

IA: We're in the end times. It's literally the end of the world. If you could have a last dance with 2 people, who would they be and why are you choosing them?

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AL: Ian, I can't answer this. Two people is impossible. Your question is impossible. Impossible. (pause) If I could, I would dance with 2 people who have passed away. One would be my mother and the other is my best friend who passed away from cancer when I was presenting La Probabilité. My mother passed away about 17 years ago. Those are the two people I would dance with if I had the chance. Because after that, there's no way I can tell you in the world right now who I would dance with.

 

I've actually danced with all the people that I love. I've had a dance with them all in my lifetime. Even my dad. In my solo, I went up the stairs and my dad was there, I took him and we danced. I've danced with everybody that I needed to dance with. So at the end...it's such a big question, really big. If I have to choose, I would say that I would dance with Pax because she's my sister and my friend, one of my biggest collaborators, she has been there for me, she's supported my work, she's pushed me up the ass to to keep dancing and she's one of the only people I continue sessioning with. I would dance with Pax. Who else would I dance with? There's so many people. I think I would dance with my dad. One last dance with my dad because he's such a great konpa/kompa dancer. I used to watch him dance konpa/kompa when I was younger and he would ask me to dance and I'd be like, no, I don't wanna dance...but I would end up dancing with him. He was such a showman. He would swirl around, show off his skills and watching him dance was always so amazing.

IA: What is the best ending in dance that you've ever experienced?

AL: Oh wow. That’s a big question. I think one of my favourite endings of all time...I don't know if it's once, it's not just once, because it happened many times. Dana Michel. You know Dana Michel? Every time she ends her show, she's crying and bawling her eyes out. And that always, always touches me. There's something about the honesty at that moment when I see her...and I've actually experienced it a couple of times doing my solo. I was like, oh, that's what she...that's why it happens. I get it. It's that complete vulnerability, that honesty, being in the moment and being naked in front of people having given everything you could...it’s honestly my favourite end. Dana Michel ending a show.

There's several other things I could talk about. Battles. Final battles. At the last DNA the end was incredible. You have to come for this event. You have to come, because it's like a game at the same time, it's like an improv game.

IA: Why was it so good?

AL: It's the honesty. For me, it's the honesty. You're in the moment, it was a collective moment, you have 5 dancers that are in the moment, expressing, being absolutely true to themselves and to their art form...that really touches me. That honesty is very rare in dance. With battles, everything is constructed, everything's fabricated...it was Kosi, Jigsaw, DJüngle. What's the name of the popper from Britain?

IA: Paris Crossley?

AL: Paris. Exactly. Who was the 5th dancer? A b-boy, a super well known Canadian b-boy called Jayson Collantes. Those 5 brought the house down. I was like, wow. I live for that honesty and truth but you don’t often see it in battles because of the circumstances. It's nobody's fault, it's just the way things are. They have one minute to say things. They have the pressure of the crowd. They have to construct their dance so that it surpasses their opponents. All of these things make it fabricated to some extent. The levels are there, the skills are there and the dance is there, but it just doesn't feel true to me. That was a moment for me and Dana Michel.

IA: Any last comments?

AL: All the questions were amazing and very challenging. It's so nice to think about and to reflect on endings because I've had so many of those. It was so good to put words into something that I practice. Thank you.

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