Nate Yaffe is a rare artist, a singular figure in experimental dance. His work emanates a freedom that refuses to choose between seriousness and absurdity.
Drawing from Jewish mysticism and its numerological traditions, Nate Yaffe and Ben Grossman venture where numbers cease to be reasonable. Practicing Kabbalistic meditation, surrounded by ten speakers and equipped with a lap steel guitar and a perhaps somewhat questionable faith, these two naïve mathematicians calculate the harmonic frequencies that might allow them to decode the messages of angels and, while they’re at it, access the limitless infinity of the blue sky.
At the intersection of performance, concert and ritual, Nate and Ben measure, meditate, vibrate, make mistakes with a self-conscious awkwardness, and follow a few heretical paths toward the sacred.
Credits
A co-creation by Nate Yaffe and Ben Grossman
Choreographer, performer: Nate Yaffe
Musician, sound designer, performer: Ben Grossman
Co-presentation Danse-Cité + Phénomena
Co-production Le Radeau + Danse-Cité
About the artist
Nate Yaffe is an experimental dance, theatre and video artist, based in Tiohtà:ke (Montreal) who researches queer strategies for bodily permission and courage. His tactile dances dismantle movement shame through un-correcting the self-censored body. He weaves a relational web with his audience, and uses affect as a tangible choreographic material, reminding us that performance is a social exchange, after all.
As co-artistic director of Le Radeau, Nate seeks community-centred alternatives for being a dance artist in face of the uncertain future. He has also co-curated many events including Signal Vibrant: a ceremony for the dead, and Hommage Fromage.
His work has recently been presented at FRAC Bretagne, La Chapelle Scènes Contemporaines, OFFta, Performance Mix Festival (NYC), SummerWorks (Toronto), Plastic Orchid Factory (Vancouver), and Biennale d’art performatif de Rouyn-Noranda
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Ben Grossman is a busy musician and sound artist: improviser, studio musician, composer, and noisemaker. He works in many fields, having played on over 100 CDs, soundtracks for film and television, composition and sound design for theatre, dance, installations, work designed for radio transmission, and live performances spanning early medieval music to experimental electronics. Ben's tools of choice are electronics, percussion, and especially, the vielle à roue (hurdy gurdy), a contemporary electro-acoustic string instrument with roots in the European Middle Ages. Through extended techniques, and sometimes electronic processing, Ben seeks to use it as a physical interface into sound creation, spontaneous composition and the exploration of acoustics, form and extended aesthetics. ➤ www.macrophone.org
Practical Informations
As part of Festival Phénomena
Dates:
October 21, 2026 – 7:30 PM
October 22, 2026 – 7:30 PM
October 23, 2026 – 7:30 PMVenue:
Anti-Space5425 Casgrain Av. #318
Montréal, QC, H2T 1X6Pricing
More information coming soon...