Isabella Leone

Refractions, a site-responsive dance work with @lucy.fandel is happening this weekend! Friday June 20th and Saturday June 21st, as part of the @angles.of.consequence performance series. This has become a very special work for me, and I am very excited to share it and curious to how it is received. Refractions takes place on a street between the suncor oil refinery and an urban phytoremediation site. It is the fruit of many months of spending time with this specific place, dancing with mirrors and willows, and tracking the movements of the sun. We are exploring hidden labour, orientation and acts of close attention. I have lots of thoughts and feelings to share about this work and process, but to be honest my brain is currently a bit fried by making it. So for now, I will just say: come! Bring your pal who studies urban planning or has never been to a dance piece before or who loves industrial sounds or butterflies. Or bring your pal who loves cycling and join the bike train! For real there will be a group cycling out there together. All of the info is on the eventbrite link on my profile — it’s a free event! Register for the exact location and all the details. 📷 @pahgey_ 🌱🌱🛢️🛢️🌱🌱

𝓢𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓜𝓸𝓾𝓷𝓽𝓪𝓲𝓷𝓼 music video is out now! I had the sweet pleasure of directing + editing this bb for the ever magic and very talented @sofia_mllr and now I am thrilled to share it with the whole wide internet! Link in bio. I was just minding my own business, papier maché-ing with all my friends, when Sofia said, what you gonna do with that mountain? and I said, I don’t know, and she said, wanna make me a music video, and I said hell yes because I freakin love music videos and I freakin love Sofia Miller’s music. I listened to this song so many times (as one can imagine) and it’s still so good! That’s wild! If you don’t yet know the absolute delight that is @sofia_mllr , do yourself a favour and go listen to all her tunes on all streaming platforms on repeat. I am in continuous awe of rich and intricate worlds she builds through her music, and how incredibly hard she works to make it all happen. Director/editor: @rockharlequin (me lol) Cinematographers: @frankest_frotos and NIV Additional mountain footage: @sofia_mllr @desboisetienne @rockharlequin Mountain maker: @rockharlequin Mountain building crew: Mia, @freya_savage @frankest_frotos @hey.its.ur.mom @shell_ma_belle_ , @littleblackbirdxo @find.logan @tristanlahaye Mountain painter: Rome Donati (my mom!!) Also big thanks to all the pals who gave me their feedback while editing and crash courses in colour correction, it truly takes a village on both sides of the country! @ooopze @__bencompton @jeanbaptistebellebna @gabrielellisonscowcroft @desboisetienne and moon, I’m so grateful for y’all. Filmed on Sinixt and Syilx Okanagan territory in Midway, British Columbia, and a hop skip and a jump from where I grew up.

Can someone in Montreal please do me a favour and go sing an Ernest Tubb song at the Wheel Club for me? What else you gonna do on a Monday night? A vid from back in January when it was their 60th anniversary! With the shredder band and five fiddle players to mark the occasion.

My trusted pair of three foot stilts. Made from mostly unwanted materials, complete with carved-in secret protective charms. Poppies, daffodils and diamonds to keep me tall ✨

We just celebrated my niece Quiniscoe’s 5th birthday this weekend 🎉 To mark the occasion, I made her a cardboard puppet theatre! (The last slide includes the inaugural performance, a dramatic act of friendship between no-name sheep and nearly-drowned farm dog). It was quite a success, now my family gets to watch a minimum of five puppet shows per day. So proud of this little puppeteer 🥲 Made with cardboard, papier mâché, collected shells, a bit of velvet and a whole lotta gold paint. Then packed up in the car with everything else I own lol. Dad added a cherry on top, installing a little battery operated LED light system — look at that Technical Director hard at work, even on his day off! So next time you’re wondering what the five year old in your life may need, perhaps it’s a puppet theatre? #puppettheatre #toytheatre #cardboardtheatre

I am excited to share that come fall I will be starting an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art at SFU’s School of Contemporary Art in Vancouver! I feel all sorts of feelings about leaving Montreal (for now!) and returning to making work in an academic context — something about the ladder is actually monkey bars and there’s an engaging (yet prickly) plant growing right next to me and I am trying to simultaneously camouflage with tree bark and bright yellow metal. So all I can say is yehaw and I am in need of housing!

some photos from the making and gathering of “A Shell by Any Other Foam” : an ode to the shells and the foam and their processes and processing. From the shore side, the recycling centre, the hearth, the workshop, the window gallery. This was a sculptural excuse to conduct the important work of spending time picking up shells and looking at them closely from all angles. To admire the excellent artistry, craftsmanship and collaboration between mollusks, rocks and saltwater. It was a means to carry forth the material iterations of these bits of orange polyurethane foam. After insulating the hull of a fishing boat, they then spent an indeterminant amount of time living as floatsam in the ocean. Then I brought them home to warm up by the fire. They now further iterate their existence as sculptural objects. And finally, it was a reason to reflect upon the complex material ecologies we are entwined with, one in which a piece of foam, a rock, a shell, may camouflage as another, living side by side. And to practice my sculpting skills, to existentially obsess over what makes a prop a prop, to practice patience, and to follow the voice in my heart that requested large shells to be made. I’m listening I’m listening ok ok! From my time at the @sointulaartshed residency

sea star tide rock dance @sointulaartshed

It’s the year of the horse, so everyone should probably do what these very beautiful local horses and their very smart and cool riders Ayla and Storm did yesterday and stroll on by to check out the new Window Gallery show! It’s Isabella @rockharlequin ‘s ‘A Shell By Any Other Foam’, and it’s all sorts of thought provoking and lovely - come see! .•* Isabella is here doing Rebekah’s Sointula House residency, and she’s been gathering styrofoam found on local beaches and carving it into these beautiful shells. So not only is she making great art, but she’s also doing the community a really excellent service in clearing some marine debris, too - thank you Isabella! We love this show, and also appreciate how it’s attracting an expanded art audience including these horses and also sweet Pogo the dog. .•* 🐚 🐎 🐕 🖼️ #downtownsointula #windowgallery #tłatła̱skudis

𝑨 𝑺𝒉𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝑩𝒚 𝑨𝒏𝒚 𝑶𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝑭𝒐𝒂𝒎 (2026) Polyurethane foam, plaster, paint, shells The shells in their (somewhat?) natural habitat. They are carved out insulation foam from the hull of a ship that washed ashore on Malcolm Island several years ago.

I’m halfway through my month long artist residency at Rebekah’s House Residency, programmed by @sointulaartshed in Sointula B.C. feeling very grateful to be here, surrounded by eagles and sea glass and a warm fire and people who wave at you when you’re walking down the street. it’s been a dreamy dream and it’s not even over wow

Happy to share that 𝓢𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓜𝓸𝓾𝓷𝓽𝓪𝓲𝓷𝓼, a music video I directed for @sofia_mllr , will be screening at the Okanagan Screen Awards Film Festival! March 28th at the Landmark Cinema Xtreme in West Kelowna ✨🎬🍿 Tickets and event info can be found at @okanaganfilm or in the link in my bio. So sweet that this little labour of love and ode to Midway (a town sorely underrepresented in Canadian cinema I must say) gets its moment on the silver screen 🌟 And I’m delighted to share work in my hometown! This hasn’t happened since high school… !!