Saturday, September 20, 2025, 7:30 PM Mile Zero Dance: 9931- 78 Avenue NW, Edmonton
Access Intimacy (Brooke Leifso and Gary James Joynes); pseudo-antigone (Simone Atenea Medina Polo); Golden Sun Trio (Mustafa Rafiq; Nadir Bellhamer; Ethan Bokma); Gary James Joynes (aka Clinker); Nanyen Lau/ Jia Jia Yong
There is no better way to mark the equinox than a lovely night with some of Amiskwaciy-wâskahikan/ Edmonton’s most compelling artists. It’s a quintuple bill, maybe even a micro-festival, of one of the most varied shows we have ever staged. With artists chosen from a recent open call to all in our city, this is going to be a magnificent party, an awesome chance for you to get to know some great creativity happening right here in our own community, and perhaps revisit some sounds you already know! Either way, this is certain to be a great night for everyone! We will have a concession available – featuring Straight Edge by Sea Change.
Our fantastic lineup is:
Access Intimacy: an innovative graphic score performed by Brooke Leifso and Gary James Joynes; pseudo-antigone (Simone Atenea Medina Polo): hyperpop, from her new album Melancholic Melodrama; Golden Sun Trio (Mustafa Rafiq; Nadir Bellhamer; Ethan Bokma) – Tezeta (nostalgia) scale improv, from three of our city’s stellar experimentalists; Clinker (Gary James Joynes) Panta Rhei: modular synths, and a living, changing, immersive sound sculpture ; and Nanyen Lau/ Jia Jia Yong: a magical performance celebrating traditional Chinese instruments and composition.
Access Intimacy
Brooke Leifso and Gary James Joynes
Access Intimacy, the score by Berlin-based composer Michael Winter and local Brooke Leifso is deceptively simple, amplifying the difference of breath and body through sonic practices. The piece premiered in December 2024 and received support from Art Quarter Budapest (part of the Eastern European Network). The Edmonton premiere will be performed by Brooke Leifso and Gary James Joynes. Gary, known for droning electronic-based sound art was invited to perform alongside Brooke. This work exists in an intersection of their art practices: meditative, contemplative. Access Intimacy is also a term coined by disability activist Mia Mingus, that speaks to the magical interdependent support, more here.
pseudo-antigone
Simone A. Medina Polo
pseudo-antigone shares excerpts from her recent album Melancholic Melodrama showcase the storytelling of the album and the experimental pop sound design around it. The album tells a quasi-fiction about the undoing of an insecure artist who severed her own humanity in a Faustian bargain to become TMZ-level pop star disaster. Sonically, the album is influenced by the work of artists like FKA twigs, Charli xcx, A.G. Cook, and SOPHIE with overproduced and exaggerated pop music with punchy beats, industrial production, and ironic yet heartfelt lyricism.
Golden Sun Trio
Nadir Bellahmer, Ethan Bokma & Mustafa Rafiq
This performance coincides with the release of “Lifecycles Ritual Myth”, the group’s second full-length record and first with Edmonton label, Honey Farm Records. An unofficial release party. Vinyl will be available for purchase through the band.
Clinker
Gary James Joynes
Panta Rhei unfolds like an evolving river of sound. Inspired by Heraclitus’s philosophy that “everything flows,” the performance builds an ever-shifting sonic landscape that resists structure, embracing transformation. As modules connect and disconnect in real-time, the audience is immersed in a living sound sculpture—fluid and impermanent. In Panta Rhei, the only constant is change.
Nanyen Lau and Jia Jia Yong
Nanyen Lau, erhu and Jia Jia Yong, konghou
Nanyen Lau and Jia Jia Yong celebrate Chinese traditional music. Nanyen brings out the rich and soulful tone of the erhu, a traditional two-stringed bowed instrument, through repertoire that highlights regional genres and musical interpretations. Jia Jia plays the modern Konghou, a double-strung harp with features that allow for unique techniques and ornamentation. Each artist will perform select solo pieces, and together, will present a unique arrangement of the famous Chinese folk song “Moon Reflection on the Erquan Springs”, demonstrating the harmony of the two instruments.
The Artists
Brooke Leifso (co-composer/performer) is a disabled/crip artist, academic, access consultant, and expressive art practitioner (EGS, MA,EXA-CT). Most recently as a professional artist, Brooke had recent fellowships at Akademie Schloss Solitude (Stuttgart, Germany) and Art Quarter Budapest (Budapest, Hungary) producing the performance series, BODYwork describing an embodied lived experience through metaphor, audio description and captioning. Access intimacy is part of the BODYwork series. Brooke is performing with Gary James Joynes. Photo credit Barni Kiss (courtesy of Art Quarter Budapest).
Gary James Joynes, also known as Clinker, is an award-winning visual and sound artist based in Edmonton, Canada. He blends the beauty and physicality of sound’s auditory and visual elements in rigorous and emotional installation works, and in Live Cinema AV performances. Joynes’ innovative and thought-provoking works have earned international recognition, with exhibitions and performances held at renowned art galleries and festivals worldwide. His artistic practice invites audiences to experience the profound beauty of the unseen and to encourage a slowed and attentive state in viewers-to have them interrupt busy-ness for prolonged moments of being-ness. Photo credit Ian Hunter.
Simone A. Medina Polo is a philosopher and interdisciplinary artist based out of amiskwaciy-wâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada). As a musician, Simone has released multiple music albums as pseudo-antigone including her album Melancholic Melodrama which tells a quasi-fiction of the subjective destitution of an insecure artist who severed her own humanity in a Faustian bargain to become TMZ-level pop star disaster. Academically, Simone has published articles and book chapters in philosophy, psychoanalysis, and Marxism with collaborators and editors such as Nicol A. Barria-Asenjo, Slavoj Žižek, Julie Reshe, Vanessa Sinclair, Todd McGowan, and Duane Rousselle. Photo credit Simone A. Medina Polo and Pip Co
Golden Sun Trio is an improvised music group formed by Nadir Bellahmer, Ethan Bokma & Mustafa Rafiq based in amiskawaciy-waskahikan (Treaty 6, edmonton, ab) Live performances have drawn comparisons to the Necks & Jamie Branch . Dense & airy, punctual and fluid. This devotional sound is wrung from the transitive nature of improvisation. The group continues to work and propel further. Recording sessions are one-take afternoons spent at Bellahmers home studio, gathered around tea. often no words will be said before music is flowing. The new record is prairie blues, folktale and new-age meditations ‘Lifecycle, Ritual, Myth’ Out Fall 2025 on Honey Farm Records. Photo credit @momerfish.
With 20 years of experience in performing and teaching Erhu, Nanyen Lau is dedicated to bringing Chinese culture and music to a wider audience through teaching and playing for community events in the city. She is a longtime member and current concertmaster of the Edmonton Chinese Philharmonica Orchestra and one of the forces behind Edmonton’s emerging Echo Ensemble, and on the side enjoys playing covers of video game, anime and movie soundtracks on YouTube. Photo credit Nanyen Lau.
Jia Jia Yong is a harpist and composer based in Edmonton. She performs as a freelance musician at various events in Edmonton and area and also enjoys developing collaborative projects with other musicians and artists. In 2022, Jia Jia received a grant from the Edmonton Arts Council to learn the modern konghou, a Chinese harp, becoming one of only a handful of players in North America
Accessibility
Mile Zero Dance Space (9931 – 78 Avenue NW, Edmonton): accessible building with multiple all-gender washrooms. There is a cleared path from the front door to the warehouse space. We have two accessible washroom facilities on the main floor as well. Please note that we do not yet have an automatic front door and the sidewalk outside needs to be improved as well. The #523 bus stops at 99 St and 78 Ave, approx 120 meters from the venue (stop #1542 SB, stop #22729 NB), and the #8 bus stops at Whyte Ave and 99 St, approx 500 meters from the venue (stop #1035 EB, #2824 WB)
