Same As Sister (S.A.S.) is an award-winning performance collective founded in 2013 by Canadian-American twin choreographers Briana Brown-Tipley + Hilary Brown-Istrefi. The sisters, who originate from Toronto, both graduated from École de danse contemporaine de Montréal, and have since performed for international dance and visual artists including Bouchra Ouizguen, Doug Elkins, Phillipa Kaye, Mike Kelley, Jillian Peña, and Candice Breitz. Based in NYC and Toronto, S.A.S. was initiated to make experimental narrative performance accessible to a diverse audience through collaborative and interdisciplinary practices within the fields of dance, theater, music, video, and design. Their work grapples with social constructs of gender, race, madness, and power, drawing on historical and contemporary representations of “high” and “low” culture to retell familiar stories in unfamiliar ways.

The collective’s commissions have been presented internationally at The Citadel: Ross Centre for Dance (Toronto); Base: Experimental Arts + Space (Seattle); Women in Motion at Gibney (NYC); Danspace Project (NYC); The People Movers at ISSUE Project Room (NYC); BRIC Arts | Media House (NYC); New York Live Arts (NYC); and Centre d'Art Marnay Art Centre (France).

Film adaptations of their live-performance works have been screened at Spring Movement Curated by Pioneers Go East Collective at Center for Performance Research (NYC); EstroGenius’ EstroFilm Festival at Kraine Theater (NYC), and at several of Video Art Miden’s festivals and exhibitions: Non Stop Project Video Performance & Video Dance at Kinitiras (Greece); Ibrida Intermedia Arts Festival at Marmo - Libreria d’Arte Contemporanea (Italy); Videolands at MOMus - State Museum of Contemporary Art (Greece); Erasmus+ Program: Active Student-Active Citizen at the 2nd Junior High School of Kalamáta (Greece); and From Zero to Infinity! Festival at the Archaeological Museum of Messenia (Greece).

S.A.S. was a resident artist of Base: Experimental Arts + Space’s 2021 Base Residency Program (Seattle); Centre d’Art Marnay Art Centre’s 2017 Artist Residency Program (France); BRIC Arts | Media House’s 2015 BRIClab Residency Program (NYC); Atlantic Center for the Arts’ 2015 Master Artist-in-Residence Program #159 with Reggie Wilson (Florida); New York Live Arts’ 2014-15 Fresh Tracks Performance and Residency Program (NYC); and Chen Dance Center’s 2013-14 Newsteps: A Choreographer’s Series Program (NYC).

S.A.S.’s most recent performance work, This is NOT a Remount, originally commissioned as part of The Miserere Project, a co-production with Citadel + Compagnie, was nominated for a Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts’ 2022 Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Production (Dance). They were an Alternate and Finalist for the Jerome Foundation’s 2021-22 and 2019-20 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship (Dance), and are the recipients of a Foundation for Contemporary Arts’ 2022 and 2017 Emergency Grant (Dance); a Queens Council on the Arts’ 2020 Queens Arts Fund New Work Grant (Multi-Discipline); and a New York Foundation for the Arts’ 2019 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship (Choreography). Same As Sister is currently a commissioned resident artist of the 2023-26 HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP) to support the research and development of their newest project, Upstairs, In Our Bedroom, slated to premiere at HERE Arts Center, NYC in early 2026.

In addition to their choreographic projects, S.A.S. has had several opportunities to share their distinct vision through a series of artistic events and community outreach programs, such as curatorial platforms, online/print publications, artist talks, teaching workshops, and post-performance Q&As. No matter the scale or nature of these projects and activities, Same As Sister’s aim has always been to employ a wide range of aesthetics and concepts to build greater inclusivity and audience engagement. In doing so, they aspire to challenge, deconstruct, and reimagine representations of identity towards a deeper understanding of our individual and collective histories.

Full Resume (PDF)

Artist Statement

Employing an interdisciplinary approach to performance-making, Same As Sister's work retells familiar stories in unfamiliar ways. Through collaboration and experimentation across disciplines, we create movement-based narratives that are an intersection of real and imagined characters/archetypes, their behaviors as seen through gesture, and the visual environments that we have them traverse. We find inspiration from an eclectic compilation of historical and contemporary sources that cover the quotidian, literary, and cinematic. A meticulous level of detail is applied to our research and translation of these influences via the mediums we engage with so that there is a balance between the aesthetic and conceptual power of each.

Current Collaborators

Lora Appel (VR Specialist) is an Associate Professor of Health Informatics at the Faculty of Health at York University; Adjunct Researcher at Michael Garron Hospital; and a Collaborating Scientist at University Health Network, the largest medical research organization in Canada. Lora heads the Prescribing Virtual Reality (VRx) Lab, which designs and conducts studies that introduce and evaluate AR/VR/MR therapeutic interventions for patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers in different settings ranging from acute-care hospitals to community care. She has received several grants from the Canadian Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation to pursue this work in aging and dementia care. More recently her research has expanded into novel uses of VR for other patient populations and clinical conditions, such as those living with epilepsy, specialized dentistry with stroke patients, and low-vision therapy for pediatric oncology patients and seniors with AMD. She is very enthusiastic about creating technological interventions that are preventative, holistic, and tailored to the individual with a special focus on sensory-health. Lora’s love for the arts (as complementary to the sciences) has led her to explore the potential applications of VR in choreography, dance pedagogy, and performance. prescribingvr.com

Michael Caldwell (Performer) is a choreographer, performer, curator, director, producer, and arts advocate, based in Toronto, Canada. Garnering critical acclaim, his choreography has been commissioned/presented throughout Canada at major festivals, in traditional venues and in site-responsive and community-engaged contexts. Michael’s most recent choreographic work responds to the 'site' in as many ways as can be conceived, and subverts traditional modes of viewing. He will premiere a new large-scale performance/sound work ArtworxTO: Toronto's Year of Public Art in 2022, and is currently working on two collaborative multi-disciplinary projects. Caldwell is a two-time K.M. Hunter Charitable Foundation Artist Award finalist. Michael has performed/collaborated with over 50 of Canada's esteemed performance creators/companies, working internationally and performing across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. His performances have earned him two (2) Dora Mavor Moore Awards for outstanding performance in dance. Currently, Michael serves in leadership at Generator in Toronto, and as Associate Artistic Director for Festival of Dance Annapolis Royal, in rural Nova Scotia. Previously, Michael played a pivotal role in the growth and development of Fall for Dance North, serving as Executive Producer for nine years. He has also previously served as a Guest Curator and Producer for Dusk Dances, Older & Reckless, and most recently, the 10th anniversary season of Kaeja d’Dance’s Porch View Dances. In addition, he acts as a consultant with various arts organizations and as a mentor to many emerging artists/curators in the Toronto arts community.

 With a bachelor’s degree in film/art history from Syracuse University in upstate New York, and professional dance training at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, Michael now sits on the board of directors at The CanDance Network.

Rachel da Silveira Gorman (Disability Arts Advisor) is an interdisciplinary scholar, choreographer, and curator working across fine arts, humanities, and sciences. Gorman’s current projects focus on disability data justice, AI bias, and machine learning; dance and VR; biochemical mechanisms of health inequity; and aesthetic ideologies of disability and race. Gorman has created 20 dance-theatre, site-specific, and screendance productions, ten of which have been remounted or rescreened at festivals. Critic Paula Citron called Waking the Living “a disturbing and riveting reality check,” and Passing Dark a “melancholy journey… of intense sadness.” Gorman served on the editorial committee of Fuse Magazine, and on the curatorial committee at A Space Gallery, where they curated a cycle of four exhibitions on political grieving. Gorman’s writings on ideologies of disability and race have appeared in American Quarterly, thirdspace, and the Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies. They hold a PhD from the University of Toronto and an MFA from York University. revolutionaryforms.org

Susan Mar Landau (Dramaturg) is a NYC based dramaturg and interdisciplinary artist. Over the last ten years she has developed a rich practice as a dramaturg working in the fields of contemporary dance and devised performance; collaborating on numerous original productions that challenge the definition of a single genre. These include works by choreographers Vanessa Anspaugh, Massimiliano Balduzzi, Yanira Castro/a canary torsi, Daria Faïn, Levi Gonzalez, and RoseAnne Spradlin. Landau holds a BA from Hampshire College; a MA in Performance Design and Practice from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, University of London; and a Graduate Certificate in Performance and Interactive Media Arts from Brooklyn College, CUNY. She was a 2011/2012 recipient of the Joyce Theater's Rockefeller Dance Theater Partnership Residency. Landau joined Same As Sister in 2015.

Peggy Piacenza (Performer) is a choreographer, video artist, and performer, who has lived and worked in Seattle since 1990. As a choreographer and performer, she has toured nationally and internationally with Pat Graney, 33 Fainting Spells, Dayna Hanson, as well as performing in the works of choreographers Deborah Hay, Bebe Miller, Stephanie Skura, Lionel Popkin, and Beth Graczyk, among others. Piacenza is the co-founder of Base, a non-profit organization dedicated to elevating risk and invention in dance, performance, and multidisciplinary art. Her work draws from her explorations in improvisation/performance techniques, religion and gender studies, and inter-disciplinary collaborations. She is a 2010 graduate of Smith College, where she was an Ada Comstock Scholar and the inaugural recipient of the Helen Gurley Brown Magic Grant. peggy-piacenza.com

Annie Wang (Performer + Costume Designer) is a freelancer based in New York. She dances with Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group, Company Stefanie Batten Bland, Daria Faïn, and Same As Sister. Her choreography has been presented at Five Myles; Center for Performance Research; 92nd St Y; Brooklyn Studios for Dance; WestFest Dance; Triskelion Arts; BRIC Arts | Media House; and Chocolate Factory Theater. Over the last several years she has pursued an obsession with knitting and textile design. Same As Sister’s Kallax, is the debut of her creations as a costume designer.

Past Collaborators

Patricia Allison (Dramaturg) is a Toronto based choreographer, filmmaker, educator, performer, and theatre creator. She won a 2018 Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best Director in Independent Theatre for a production of Mark Ravenhill’s Pool (No Water), which she co-created with Jill Harper and Cue6 Theatre. Allison graduated from École de danse contemporaine de Montréal in 2007, and earned her MFA in Dance from York University in 2019. Through her thesis research she developed her passion of approaching the western classics (Shakespeare, Ballet, etc.) through her own feminist, queer, and disabled lens. In 2017 Allison was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, and is an advocate for disabled artists while continuing to familiarize herself with her new body. patriciaontheinternet.com

Leigh Atwell (Performer) graduated from the University of California, Irvine, where she was a member of Donald McKayle's international touring company, Etude Ensemble. Since moving to NYC, she has performed with various choreographers including Jana Hicks, Taye Diggs, Jennifer Archibald, and Mariangela Lopez. Atwell has been a member of Julieta Valero’s RASTRO Dance Company since 2004. She also creates her own dance works, which have been presented at venues, such as the 92nd St Y and Chen Dance Center.

Gabi Berkers (Animator) is a visual storyteller at heart, whose artistic work is inspired by both the everyday and fantastical. After starting her career as a freelance designer and animator, she worked for several companies creating illustrations, animations, and motion graphics and designs. In 2019, she graduated from the School of Visual Arts in NYC where she received her MFA in Visual Narrative. Gabi's graduation work - a comic book under the title, Op Weg naar Orléans, has been published in the Netherlands. gabiberkers.com

Hannah Caggiano (Performer) is a NYC based performer working in film, who is interested in exploring how media can be used as a platform for dance. Since graduating from Hunter College with a BA in Media Studies, she has been working as a production assistant, editor, and co-director for national television and film productions. Caggiano received her bicoastal dance training at the Westside Academy of Dance and Ailey School, and has collaborated on several projects with the collectives of StandUpHungry and Same As Sister.

Cern (Visual Artist) a native of NYC currently based in Brooklyn, got his start writing graffiti in the early nineties. Continued development as a visual artist and musician finds him painting murals and exhibiting works throughout South America, Europe, and South Africa. Cern’s work has also been featured at the San Diego Museum of Art, Museu Brasileiro De Escultura in São Paulo, and Los Angeles MOCA. cernesto.com

Bridgette Charbonneau (Performer) is based in NYC as a coordinator for a full service music company, but continues to fulfill her passion to perform onstage. Before she attended Baruch College, where she graduated with a BA in The Management of Musical Enterprises, Charbonneau trained at the Catskill Mountain Dance Theater, Petite Productions Academy, and Saugerties Ballet Center to pursue her interest in dance.

Melissa Draugsvold (Jewelry Designer) hails from Wisconsin, but has been based in NYC for the last eighteen years. She founded Draugsvold Jewelry in 2004, and has since crafted countless one of a kind or limited edition jewelry pieces which have attracted the likes of Beyoncé, Cameron Diaz, Chrisette Michele, Nadia Ackerman, Amy Van Doran, Martha Wainwright, and Michael Stipe. Draugsvold is inspired by the materials she discovers along the way, as well as the natural environment around her and its mystery. melissa-draugsvold.squarespace.com

ALEXA GRÆ’s (Performer) work is a combination of artistic disciplines informed by specialized academic training in music composition and opera. Rigorous training as an opera student challenged them to transcend the boundaries of various art forms and to understand cultural boundaries of art in the everyday world. They bridge these chasms by focusing on how art informs identities, socialization habits, self-expression, and the ability to create, creating genre-defying performances that incorporate multiple dance styles, theatrical personas, and experimental storytelling styles. Themes of deconstructing classical forms, beliefs about the feminine and masculine, and channeling greater collective consciousness find an evolving presence in ALEXA GRÆ's work. Their mission is to identify moments of pure imagination and innocent creation, harnessing the immediate kinship it creates in order to draw us all toward something divine, something as yet to be defined. alexagrae.com

Kristina Hay (Performer) is a Norwegian dance artist who performs, collaborates, and creates across Europe and North America. Hay attended the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet in Oslo, before graduating from London Studio Centre, where she was a member of INTOTO Dance, touring works by Henri Oguike, Jose Agudo, and John Ross. In recent years Hay has worked with choreographers, Luke Birch, Diana Scarborough, Meredith Bruno Company, Robert Kenny, Feeling Blue Collective, Jessica Nina Barlow, Human Dance, Same As Sister, and film director, Kayla Arend. As a choreographer she has collaborated with artists in London and NYC to present her works: You Are Someone Else; Fix; Filter; You Are Someone Else (Too).

A two-person team of multidisciplinary makers tackling performance, cinema, installation, and even the commercial to create dynamic projects from inception to execution, Intrinsic Grey (Production Team) lives between the grain. Acosta and Tate have collaborated on feature films, such as The Ladies Almanack; created dance films with Jessie Young and Cynthia Oliver + Leslie Cuyjet; music videos; stop-motion projects; and micro-documentaries from foundries to fashion. Based in NYC, they engage in a hands-on approach at all levels of production to create the good, the dark, the smart, and the weird with a varied host of collaborations and partners. YOU ARE INTRINSIC. WE ARE INTRINSIC. intrinsicgreyproductions.com

Lamy Istrefi Jr. (Sound Designer) is a NYC based drummer, composer, and conductor, originally from Kosovo. Istrefi attended the University of Music and Dramatic Arts Graz (KUG) in Austria before moving to the US. He is currently a member of Grammy Award-winning saxophonist/composer Joe Lovano’s Quartet for which he has toured internationally to perform at Coltrane Day; Jazz Standard; Monterey Jazz Festival; Blue Note Milano; and Bimhuis Amsterdam, among other venues. His independent projects include: The Lamy Istrefi Quartet featuring Dave Liebman (2011 NEA Jazz Master), George Garzone, and Ben Street, as well as Musical Minds Orchestra (MMO), which he founded in 2010. MMO collaborated with HB² PROJECTS to present New York Sketches: So The People Came during the Exploring the Metropolis’ 2017-18 Choreographer + Composer Residency Program, in partnership with the Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning. smallslive.com/lamy-istrefi-jr

Krista Jansen (Performer) is a dancer and choreographer born, raised, and based in NYC. She was an original cast member and assistant rehearsal director for the critically-acclaimed production of Doug Elkins & Friends’ Fräulein Maria, which for seven years toured throughout the US and Canada. Jansen’s choreography has been performed at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival; FAB! Festival; DancenOw RAW Festival; Harkness Dance Festival; and Dance Theater Workshop. In 2013 she joined with CJ Holm to form the dance company, Jansen & Holm. She is also a teaching assistant to Ellen Robbins, whose modern dance classes for children were her first experience in dance, choreography, and improvisation. kristajansen.wordpress.com

Magda Kaczmarska (Performer) is a NYC based performer, choreographer, teaching artist, and creative aging advocate. She was born in Poland but grew up in the southwestern US, where she received her MFA in Dance Performance and Choreography, as well as her BS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics from the University of Arizona. Drawing on her extensive ballet, modern, and folk training, Kaczmarska’s choreographic work explores infrastructures of language and identity, and has been presented at Center for Performance Research and Shoestring Press in Brooklyn, NY; Scenofest, as part of World Stage Design 2017 in Taipei, TW; LEGS Performance Festival in Giswil, CH; the Tucson Museum of Art, Fred Fox School of Music, ZUZI!, and Stevie Eller Theatres in Tucson, AZ. magdakaczmarska.com

Visnja Krzic (Composer) currently resides in NYC, but hails from Belgrade, Serbia, where she began her music education at an early age, first as a pianist and later as a composer. While in Serbia, Krzic also worked as an assistant to the renowned Balkan composer, Goran Bregovic. She holds a Ph.D. in Music Composition from UCLA, where she studied with composers, Paul Chihara and Ian Krouse, and musicologists, Robert Fink and Susan McClary. Krzic has participated in numerous master classes and music festivals such as Atelier Acanthes in Metz, FR; Young Composers Meeting in Apeldoorn, NL; Bartók Festival in Szombathely, HU; Young Artists Festival in Bayreuth, DE; and Summer Academy at Mozarteum in Salzburg, AT.

Yuan Liu (Videographer) is a Chinese-born filmmaker based in New York. She has a background in scientific research and production design. She supported the world-renowned contemporary artist Caiguoqiang (2008 Beijing Olympics, “I Want to Believe” Guggenheim Retrospective). She draws on her interdisciplinary background as inspiration for writing, directing, and producing. Yuan’s approach to cinema is a letter written to the subconscious self. She is interested in magnifying surrealism in visuals in a free form. Primarily music driven, each of her film pieces is a type of mathematical contemplation on the social cachet behind one’s individuation, and especially of those embodying a quixotic way of life. yuanliu.xyz

Claudia Maciejuk (Performer) a Malmö native, started her dance journey in a Polish folk group with whom she performed nationally and for television. In 2010 she was accepted into the Royal Swedish Ballet School in Stockholm, where she danced in works by choreographers including Jîri Kylian and Johan Inger. During this time she performed at the Royal Swedish Opera House for Stina Nyberg. Upon graduation she was cast in the opera, The Marriage of Figaro at Confidencden. Maciejuk is also a graduate of the Ailey School and has been working as a freelance dancer with several NYC based companies, most recently with Mark Morris Dance Group, Alison Cook Beatty Dance, and the Merce Cunningham Trust.

Aitor Mendilibar (Cinematographer) is a filmmaker, cinematographer, and musician, who collaborates across artistic genres. Originally from Basque Country, he moved to the US in 2012 to study documentary filmmaking at the New York Film Academy. Since graduating he has worked as a cinematographer and editor for film, television, and live performance projects including his work with Oscar-nominated director/producer, Oren Jacoby; award-winning cinematographers, Buddy Squires, ASC and Tom Hurwitz, ASC; and most recently choreographers, Reggie Wilson, Raja Feather Kelly, and Same As Sister. His first feature film as a director of photography, PROM KING (2010), won the New Vision Award at Cinequest Film Festival. aitormendilibar.com

Beau Mullis a.k.a. RAW Q (Composer) a NYC native, has contributed to the international electronic music scene as a DJ and producer since 1995. He has been invited to perform at many notable music events and festivals throughout the US, Canada, South America, and Europe, such as Juice!, Portland; Respect, LA; Jungle Warfare at Limelight, NYC; Radikal Styles, Bogotá; and Intrigue, Bristol. Mullis' popular releases include Vital Soul (Bingo Beats) which was ranked 11th on the BBC’s Global Dance Music Charts; and the I Want Him Dead! EP (Intrigue Music).

Micaela Rich (Performer) is an independent choreographer, performer, and yoga instructor dba Wild Rich Productions. Wild Rich Productions serves as a resource platform, in which she uses her expertise in management and production to help emerging artists create and present work. Rich managed Valleto Dance Company (2014-15), producing the premiere of #VOIDS, at Center for Performance Research, which also showcased her work, this was together alone. She received her BA in Dance and Psychoanalysis from Hampshire College, and has performed for Jen Rosenblit, Pavel Zustiak, Lindsey Dietz Marchant, and Cathy Nicoli.

Rahmus Rifical (Performer) is a NYC based Dancehall performer, choreographer, and instructor originally from Kingston, Jamaica. He began his professional dancing career at the age of 16, and since then has performed in several television and stage productions including Reggae Sumfest®︎, and Jamaica Jazz and Blues Festival®︎, two of the largest music festivals in the Caribbean. Rifical is a founding member of the dance group, Rifical Team, who are the official performers and choreographers for international reggae artist, Richie Stephens. He has also worked with artists and producers such as Major Lazer, Beenie Man, Mr. Vegas, RDX, Kreesha Turner, Capleton, Future Fambo, Chi Chi Ching, and Frass Twins. Rifical is currently touring across the US, Central America, Europe, and Asia to teach and choreograph Dancehall workshops.

Jamie Robinson (Performer) earned his BFA in Dance at the University of Arizona, where he also received a BA in English and Media Arts. Robinson loves dance for its ability to communicate beyond language, even as he writes and reads compulsively. His latest projects include collaboration and performance with choreographers, Same As Sister (This is NOT a Remount; Kallax; VIR{US}) and Magda Kaczmarska (Wesele), as well as film directors, Kayla Arend (Mars) and Ryan Mitchell (Lune).

Kit Tipley a.k.a. FROwNS (Composer + Video Artist) is a Toronto and NYC based composer and video artist who despite his lone wolf tendencies has managed to collaborate with others to share his unique sound and aesthetic. Tipley has worked with the Long Island punk record label 86’d Records to create music videos for Rations’ Occasion For War off their 2013 EP Martyrs and Prisoners, as well as Another Dream About Nightclubs for the beat collective of Urban Sasquatch, Red Carpet Hobo, and The Hindsight Genius’ release, Celebrity Internment Camp.

Jessie Young (Performer) is a New York based choreographer, dancer, and teacher originally from the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. Her work has been presented by Danspace Project (DraftWork); New York Live Arts (Fresh Tracks’ Artist-in-Residence); Dixon Place; DåncēHøLø; Pieter Performance Space; and FringeArts; among other venues. Young currently works with Julia Mayo, Stephanie Acosta, Same As Sister, and Isaac Pool. Additionally, she has worked with Abby Z and the New Utility, The Seldoms, Kristina Isabelle Dance Company, and Khecari Dance Theater. She holds an MFA from the University of Illinois Urbana – Champaign, and is on faculty at Lion’s Jaw Performance + Dance Festival, and Rutgers University. jessie-young.com