ECU x MP: Boots ‘n’ Cats

Merging performance, sound/music and celebration to bridge the vibrant local communities of Ballroom and Hip Hop/Street Dance. This evening brings these forms into dialogue, the event highlights their shared spirit of resilience, artistry and community, calling in future, present and past Emily Carr alumni alongside the wider community, the event expands what performance can be within the contemporary art context. Positioning Ballroom and Street Dance as not only cultural practices but as vital, living art forms that challenge and reimagine how performance enters and transforms institutional spaces.

Katria Phothong McKinnon is a Thai-Canadian artist, dancer, and curator working across new media, sound, sculpture and performance. Her practice explores embodiment, transcultural identity, and the intersections of tradition and technology, drawing from Thai dance and Street styles such as Voguing, W*acking, Campbellocking, Popping, House and Hip Hop. A recipient of the inaugural New Media Curation Award at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, where she completed a BMA in New Media + Sound Arts with a minor in Curatorial Practices. She is currently an artist-in-residence with the Festival of Recorded Movement in their Technology + Interaction program.