Burnaby's multi-talented Heather Laura Gray is set to perform with the Vancouver-based contemporary dance company, The Response, in the world premier of The Art of Stealing, a tale of surviving in a post-apocalyptic world.
In the piece, Gray's character and her fictional older brother (Kevin Tookey) try to make it through the dog-eat-dog world they find themselves in after the world as they knew it has come to an end.
Along the way, the pair meets up with the rest of their gang of survivors and together they fight and support each other in an effort to endure.
Throughout the performance, the theme of what people steal from each other, figuratively and literally, is explored.
"There are some twists and turns that happen with my character that are a lot of fun," Gray told the Burnaby NOW over the phone earlier this week as she made her way home to Burnaby on the bus.
Gray said dancing in this performance gives her a chance to focus on being physical in a way her other work as a choreographer doesn't.
"It is so much fun, I get to be a collaborator, but in a different way," she said.
Gray has worked as a choreographer on commercials (recently for Crayola), and was one of the choreographers on the set of the Vancouver-shot series The Killing and the Canadian film, Random Acts of Romance.
Gray said being one of six dancers under the choreography and direction of Amber Funk Barton was an opportunity to worry less and move more.
But giving up control over the process isn't always easy.
"(It is) challenging to be more focused as a dancer and in my own body and not necessarily in my mind," she said.
Thirty-something Gray grew up in Burnaby and attended Morley Elementary and both Moscrop and Burnaby Central secondary schools. She later headed to ballet school in Montreal and then spent five years working in Toronto. She is now back living in Burnaby.
"Burnaby has been my jump-off point. I keep coming back to it," she said.
She said the world portrayed in The Art of Stealing is the exact opposite of the community she got to be a part of growing up.
"The idea of having a lot of neighbours that I got to have great times with and to build a community - this is the complete opposite. In this world we are scared of everyone. It is as if Burnaby were completely desolate and we were just trying to find food to survive.
"For me Burnaby is a beautiful, comfortable place, and definitely the piece is very much in a state of anxiety and struggle."
The Art of Stealing runs May 28 to 31 at the Firehall Arts Centre in Vancouver. See firehallartscentre.ca/event/the-art-of-stealing.
