pounds per square inch performance | 30th Anniversary Season
Gerry Trentham, Artistic Director
NEWS & UPCOMING
CANADIAN PREMIERE OF Valley of Shadows
August 13, 2026, Toronto
Valley of Shadows has its Toronto premiere as part of Dance Made in Canada's film series
Thursday, August 13
7:00 pm
Carlton Cinema, Cinema #3
After several years of international film festival screenings and awards, we're excited to bring Valley of Shadows home for its first public screening in Toronto with Dance:Made in Canada's Dance on Film+Video Screening - Starting From Where We Are. We're excited to be programmed along with 5 diverse Canadian shorts exploring the search for belonging and strength.
Please join us in celebrating our Canadian Premiere!
Valley of Shadows has received 6 international film awards; from the Tokyo International Film Festival, Cine Paris Film Festival, Rotterdam Independent Film Festival, Hong Kong Indie Film Festival and Dublin International Film Festival, among others, for cinematography for William Yong.
Featuring Gerry Trentham, Valley of Shadows follows a man as he travels back to the landscape of his childhood, the Badlands of Alberta, Canada, a place characterised by layers; strata that are geological, historical and personal. The strange beauty and vulnerability of the Drumheller Valley converge with the nature of his queerness and the gentle toughness he has embraced to survive it.
The film tugs at the heart of identity, resilience, and the enduring connection between a person and his birthplace.
AUGUST 19, 2026 from 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm EST
Love is in the Air (and so is smoke)
Writing Community Gathering
FREE
Sometimes we dance, sometimes we write
As various inspirations seek various forms
No need to register Simply show up to explore and share writing with this generous and caring community.
Over the last number of years Gerry with the help of his sister Martina Payette have offered a space to gather together in a way to inspire each other and share writing passion.
In this summer time, between our workshops, we invite you to simply gather and say hello, anew!
Gerry has been working with a specific poetic prompt this summer and would love to share that writing prompt with our growing community of Artists and Writers. Gerry meets all who join, as we are and where we are, with an open shared space to grow writing practice, imagination, and explore technique. A writing community to support the beauty of the written word together.
All writing levels are welcome to join us. Perhaps, additional sessions will emerge to offer a means to share some of the new poetry inspired by this or other provocative writing prompts.
If you are new to Gerry Trentham’s work:
Over ten years at Buffalo State College in the early 2000’s Gerry helped performers write solo shows in an advanced acting class. From there he was asked to share his own somatic writing from meditative moving with all types of writing artists from poets to playwrights and further to artists, art enthusiasts and those interested in developing a solo writing practice.
If you have any questions or need access to the Zoom information please contact Martina
BAVI - Buenos Aires 2027
Becoming Articulate Vibrant Insightful (BAVI)
performance training through the lens of embodied voice
Finding the Speaking Body:
Breath, Text, and Play across Borders
January 6 - 16, 2027: 10 days (80 hours)
2026 BAVI participants at El Centro Armando
The June 2026 one week BAVI training program offered voice and body training in two languages in a country halfway around the world. An inspiring start to the new BAVI program.
Join us in Argentina January 2027.
Join a groundbreaking International Voice intensives in Argentina, where internationally acclaimed teaching artists explore the moving body, voice and text as inseparable and fundamental to the performance of spoken language. Drawing on a diverse range of pedagogical lineages — from Shakespearean verse to clown, from somatic movement to resonant breath — this workshop offers a rare opportunity to study with a consortium of leading practitioners from Canada, the U.S., and Argentina.
Lunatic Project
IN Residencies..
Following the threads of the work in residency last August at Middlebrook Arts Research + Residency Center in the Catskills of NY, last fall in Tkaronto, two weeks from March 16 - 26 at Clarion University in Pennsylvania and June 6 - 16 at the Armando Centre in Buenos Aires, choreographer Gerry Trentham and sculptor Kaersten Colvin-Woodruff continue to weave their artistry into this unique visual art/performance installation.
Next up Trentham returns to Tkaronto to work with dramaturge Denise Fujiwara for a final research process prior to a year of creation residencies in 2027.
As a seminal project in Trentham’s fifth decade as a queer performer and artist, the Lunatic draws inspiration from the third and final stage of life described by Jungian psychologist and art critic Graham Jackson as the evolution of the “youthful golden messenger” into the “lunatic” whose air-like invisibility is difficult to hear or see.
The New Fulcrum Project (NFP) 2026/2027
Producer/Lead Researcher Shivani Joshi and Artistic Director Gerry Trentham are digging into a new round of our Metcalf-funded creative mentorship and artist cohort development program.
The New Fulcrum Project, or NFP, is a research project aimed at examining how solo-driven artists/art companies can create networks of connection that can be sustained through the creation of artistic work. As part of the lbs/sq" 30th Anniversary Season, the first NFP audience engagement event tested a tangible practice of cooperation that encouraged the development of co-conscious collaboration yet remained dedicated to individual artistic visions. Now in a second phase we are fortunate to be able to continue the research - a creative experiment utilizing a cohort’s shared values and unique visions - that looks to understand the challenges and benefits of collective engagement within our highly competitive field.
This research is generously supported by the Metcalf Foundation.
Thank you for joining the artists June 19, 2025, Summer Solstice Weekend - when light lingers, as they introduced their work as part of the New Fulcrum Project with Natasha Ama Eck, Lucy Rupert, Mutya Macatumpag, Cat Montgomery, Trevor Copp, Tiffany Thomas, Miriam Cummings, Nasiv Kaur Sall and Lauren Runions.