South of the border, where Chuck Wilt operates his bicoastal dance company UNA Projects, the LGBTQ community has had a tense few years under the Trump administration.

But amid that atmosphere, Wilt has chosen to create a work that focuses on the positive. His Coloring, which the New York City– and San Francisco–based artist is showing here in the final days of the Chutzpah Festival, celebrates the forces that bring the queer community together.

“Overall, the work came out of this desire to understand what we have in common and what unites us,” Wilt tells the Straight before heading up here for shows in a remote region near the northern end of Vancouver Island (more on that later), and then at Chutzpah. “I was interested in how there’s a lot going on in the world, and in our country specifically, and it feels like it’s really easy just to focus on the negative. So it was important for me to acknowledge that, but look at the history and imagine a future that was more positive.”

Wilt knows his subject matter well: he identifies as a gay man, and he grew up with two moms. But to create Coloring, he brought a few LGBTQ guests into his dance studio in New York to share their stories with his company. He made sure they were from different generations and had varied experiences of the eras they grew up in; only one of them had any experience in the dance world.

The resulting work for seven performers, though not narrative, reflects their stories through dance that feels as vulnerable, emotional, and deeply human as it is resilient.

“I’m really interested in performance that feels honest and how we can move in really physical ways that are still honest,” Wilt explains. “Everything was really focused on how to portray unity, and so it became clear that I wanted a bigger group of people. And also this work sort of intentionally plays with a bit of frontality—there’s something about storytelling where I felt like they should be able to speak directly toward the audience.”

One larger-than-life element we haven’t mentioned yet: the divine drag queen and cello virtuoso Rose Nylons providing live accompaniment that’s by turns haunting and upbeat.

“It brings in an icon of the queer community, but also something from my childhood that I connected with at a young age,” Wilt says.

As the piece progresses, dancers’ and Nylons’ costumes—true to the title—become more colourful.

Before its local debut, the work will have travelled as far as Sointula, on isolated Malcolm Island, where Chutzpah artistic managing director Mary-Louise Albert has a home, and where she plans to spend much more time after finishing her last edition of the fest this month.

“I’ve been bringing dance up to this region for the last four years through Chutzpah,” Albert says in a separate phone call, speaking about the mission of her B.C. Movement Arts Society to reach culturally underserved areas of the province. “They’re very well-versed in contemporary dance now because I’ve been doing this for a while. And I want to have the time to do this more.”

In the past, Albert has brought up artists from Shay Kuebler to Donald Sales for residencies. In the case of Coloring, the troupe will not only perform at the hall in Sointula, but hit venues in Alert Bay and Port McNeill as well. It’s a rare chance for those communities to experience the kind of cutting-edge dance that Albert has made the signature of Chutzpah since she took over the helm 15 years ago. But troupes like the big-city-based UNA Projects also get a refreshing taste of West Coast wilderness and a rare interaction with audiences far outside of urban centres.

As for programming, Albert, who plans to expand this passion project in the coming years, has found that audiences in rural coastal B.C. are as open to challenging work as are those in her headquarters at the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre. “There’s a range of people here and there’s a range of people there,” she says.

UNA Projects presents Coloring as part of the Chutzpah Festival from Friday to Sunday (November 15 to 17) at the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre.