



Joshua Sailo (he/him)
A traveller between worlds and mediums, Joshua transforms his experiences into artistic expressions through dance, music, and visual art. His creative practice involves artistic collaborations across various mediums, exploring themes of identity and power from a queer indigenous lens that places emphasis on the body as a living archive. Bridging his multidsciplinary practice with his Mizo cultural history, his current interest is in bringing folk systems to dialogue with contemporaneity through improvisation and compositional scores.
With an intercontinental outlook, Joshua continues to expand his range and versatility as a performer, and has recently appeared in works by Preethi Athreya, Cirque du Soleil, Boris Charmatz/TERRAIN, Merce Cunningham, Dayita Nereyeth, Surjit Nongmeikapam, Mandeep Raikhy, MOUVOIR/Stephanie Thiersch, and Sasha Waltz & Guests amongst others. He is committed to building new arts audiences across India through teaching, podcasting and facilitating artist residencies in the North-East of India, and in Bangalore where he currently pays rent.
Training and Background
Born in Mizoram, growing up in Delhi, and spending four years in the foothills of the Himalayas, Joshua neither felt from here nor there when confronted with the question "where are you from?". This feeling was exaggerated when he moved to Canada where he was suddenly confronted with his "Indianness" and confusing people with his "Asianness", as though the two were mutually exclusive. Despite this ambiguity, Joshua always felt at home exploring his inner universe through music and visual arts. However, it was dance that gave him clarity to pursue a professional career in the performing arts.
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Joshua began his training at the School of Toronto Dance Theatre where he was awarded the Kathyn Ash Scholarship Award (2014) and the Kathryn Ash Leadership Award (2015). He soon joined Toronto Dance Theatre under the artistic direction of Christopher House, and performed in collaborations with Cirque du Soleil and 45 Degrees. He later worked with various international choreographers and companies spanning the fields of dance, theatre, physical theatre, circus and music that helped him grow in range and versatility as a performer. Influenced by his works with Blue Poet D.T., Studios Wayne McGregor, Jasmin Vardimon Dance Company, Compania Sharon Fridman, Darryl Tracy, Frederic Gavel and Mandeep Raikhy amongst others, Joshua began cultivating his own choreographic interests. This led him to seek further education through Institute of the Arts Barcelona, where he was awarded an MA in Dance for his practice based research in the male exhibitionism and the performativity of gender. He continues to deepen his choreographic investigation and artistic research through the initiative Sailoway. Since its inception in 2018, Sailoway has collaborated with a diverse range of artists with performances in Canada, France, Malaysia, Spain, Hungary, Germany and across India. ​
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He is committed to the exploration of movement with efficiency, sensitivity, safety, and pleasure, collating research from both artistic and scientific practices that offer insights to deepen our body-mind connection, make him a sought after dance teacher, facilitator and mentor. He is currently engaged in various multidsciplinary projects and enjoys the possibility of building his art form while deepening his relationships with friends and the community he serves. Navigating the blurry line separating his artistic and personal life, Joshua enjoys brewing coffee, gardening, drawing, and volunteering his time at U&I Rescue Foundation.
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