Movement Practise

One Monday per month, Young Lungs Dance Exchange invites all movers and thinkers to learn new skills, experience alternative pathways, and engage in dialogue. Titled Movement Practice, the event is a time to dance and discuss in a comfortable, inclusive environment. 
Every session a different guest is invited to share whatever they are inspired to share about movement practise, each bringing their own unique knowledge, experience, and level of inquiry to the floor. 
 
Movement Practice is open to all ages, levels and abilities. All folks are invited to participate in whatever way they are comfortable with, free of judgement. 
 
The two-hour sessions are a free, monthly gathering to support movement practise and community sharing. We begin with 20 minute warm up of stream of consciousness movement where we let our bodies move freely through the space. After that the guest will begin to share. The guest is not asked to share something specific. Only to share something at all. This might look like just talking, or moving, or offering an idea or method to try. Then at the end, we sit in a circle and have some discussion and wrap up. 
 
There is no dress code, however movement-ready wear is ideal.  
The space is accessible. 
All ages welcome.  
We accept pocket change if you’re able for the studio rental.

A Written Workshop

by Jaz Papadopoulos

Pick something. Something you can do with your body. Something easy.

Something easy you can do with your body.

Something easy you can do with your body every day.

drink a glass of water say hi to yourself in the mirror look out the window and count to
ten do you favourite stretch for five breaths read one page of a book sign a song light a
candle light two candles light three candles light four candles and say your
grandparents’ names say your own name say all your names learn all your names so
that you can say them every day

For the first week (or so),
Your body will learn the thing.
You will remember to breathe while you’re doing it.
You will feel cool air in your nose and warm air on your lip and growing and shrinking
space inside your chest and back and stomach and diaphragm.
You will see your hands move or you will hear your weight pushing out of your feet.
You will learn where your floor creaks and where the dust in your home hides.

For the first week (or so),
Try to do the thing the same way every time.
You will wonder which hand you use
or which way you hold the glass
or which candle you light first.
You will notice patterns:
Where you focus your eyes,
and the rhythm of your breath.
If the floor creaks change, you can’t control it.

After the first week (or so — I’m no expert),
All of those first week noticings will become old hat.
They are easy now, and they just happen that way.
That same way.
Now you will notice new things.
What is the shape of your spine?
When you breathe, your shoulders move too.
You have so many more muscles than you realized.
You can slowly learn where they live and what they answer to.

Something easy you can do with your body every day.

It’s still not always easy.

Tape a piece of paper to the wall
and on the days you don’t want to do the thing,
write on the paper why not.
(Then, you will be free to do the thing.)

After some weeks (or so),
Think about:

  • all the other times you did the thing
  • all the other people who do the thing
  • all the other people who have ever done the thing

Think of the thing like mycelium
All of the enactments of the thing that have ever happened anywhere on this earth over
millennia —
they can communicate.
Your thing secretly knows all those other things.

And,
secretly,
you do too.

Essay

by Beth Schellenberg

2018 November – January Research Series

The morning I head to the Young Lungs studio is biting, the cold and sun making my eyes water. I am one of the last to arrive, and after removing a comical number of layers and setting my boots alongside the others, I enter the studio where researchers have already begun warming up. Two dancers in black athletic wear are being coached by a woman wearing lavender wool socks and a pink ponytail holder the same hue as her scarf. Another trio is across the room, squatting, shaking out limbs, humming and groaning. I recognize Alex, a local contemporary dancer, in a brown turtleneck and floral sweatpants, and Davis in black wearing glasses, I don’t recognize the third person, who is wearing royal blue and light grey, and has a head of tousled blond hair hanging around her shoulders. None of them look as sleepy as I feel, despite my early morning consumption of both coffee and green tea.

The last people arrive, introductions are made, and Brittney, the woman in blue and grey, Alex, and Davis begin with an interactive exercise they introduce as “fast sound and gesture”. The three stand in a circle and mimic each others actions, starting with facial expressions that evolve into sound and movement, growing bigger and louder with each passing minute. The result is disconcerting, and their groans, sometimes escalating into howls, are agonized, as though the sound is being pulled from deep within their bodies – with the sound goes their physical strength, leaving behind a quiet crumpled form. This exercise seems to last forever, and for the first of many times that morning I am taken by how willfully exposed these people are. There is often a vulnerability inherent in morning time, a state of being if not unguarded at least less guarded, but there is something about this intentional physical state, barefoot and illuminated by massive east facing windows, that is particularly striking.

After warm up the three set the stage for their improv performance, which involves a bathtub, a makeshift sound booth, and several lightbulbs hanging overhead. Alex and Brittany climb into the tub and face each other, while Davis takes a seat behind the mixer. Alex outstretches her hand to Brittany, who kisses it gently, like a lover or a mother, the gesture unbearably intimate. “I want you to come home” says Alex, plaintively, “I want you to come home” she repeats, while rocking Brittany like a child. Alex speaks of counting stars while waiting at night, and counting flakes of cereal when there are no stars. She ends saying “I am lost without you”, and the three switch places, with Alex doing sound and Davis and Brittany in the bathtub. This sequence verges into more bizarre territory but maintains the theme of loss, and of breakfast cereal. Brittany squats precariously on the edge of the tub, lamenting her compulsive consumption of cornflakes, the awful sensation of her teeth chewing cereal, yelling “it’s fucking disgusting, the cornflakes”. She finishes defeated, clutching her head in her hands and saying “the more I eat the more I hope maybe you’ll come home”. They switch again, and the session ends with Alex and Davis in the tub. Davis plays dentist, informing Alex that if she keeps eating cornflakes she’ll ruin her teeth, grind them down into dust, which he mimes by crushing a white pillow between his hands and the lip of the tub. He grabs the back of her head, shoves one of the hanging lightbulbs in her face and screams “say you’ll stop”, Alex, her neck craned and eyes wide, refuses. Davis says “my partner left me yesterday, that’s why all I have to eat is cornflakes, they always bought the groceries”, and slumps back in the tub. The improv snaps back and forth between hilarity and devastation, and is intimate, perhaps due in part to the domesticity the clawfoot tub elicits, but mostly because of the raw emotion spilling forth. The ways in which the prevalent themes of food, compulsive eating, and the fear of crumbling teeth, a textbook indication of anxiety, interact with each other is fascinating, but ultimately makes sense given how connected food is to home is to love is to loss is to anxiety is to food is to home and so on.

The woman in the pink scarf is Hannah, a dancer and choreographer, and her group is up next. After explaining that her piece is playing with ideas of instinctual movements and animal interactions, her dancers Sasha and Ilse begin. They make slow concentric circles by squatting low to the ground and swinging an extended leg, after several turns starting to move more rapidly, around and around, now faster and nearly frantic, approaching distress with ragged breath. After whirling, trapped in motion, for another few turns they collapse, fatigued. Sasha pulls herself into a seated position beside Ilse, who is lying rigid on the ground, observing her impassively for a moment, before lying down as big spoon, comforting her. In the next sequence they begin standing face to face, bodies nearly touching. Sasha is significantly taller but still they move as a many limbed creature, keeping space while maintaining close proximity, exploring the boundaries of bodies, of bond. After flinging their bodies far from each other as though they are opposing magnets, the piece comes to an end with both dancers curled on the floor. This investigation into interaction is not merely physical, it is also an emotional inquiry, an embodied relation that queries non-conscious impulses of empathetic and possibly abject connection.

We break for a few minutes to shift about on the floor, stretching stiffened limbs, before settling in for Jaz’ performance. In the meantime Jaz has been arranging two vessels about ten feet apart from each other, one a large cut glass punch bowl, the other a hand pinched clay bowl. They have also retrieved half a dozen water glasses and an aquamarine plastic pitcher from the studio kitchen. Jaz says that the piece is about ritual, walks over to the punch bowl, straightens their back, and picks up a glass, taking three careful paces before placing it back on the ground. They do this with the remaining glasses, painstakingly arranging them until a circle, roughly ten feet wide, has been formed. Jaz fills the pitcher, drops of water falling from their hand and catching light, the moment pregnant and over too soon as they take measured steps around the circle with the full pitcher. They fill each glass about two thirds, the sounds of pouring water punctuating silence. When all the glasses have been filled Jaz empties them, in the same measured way, into the clay vessel, which they play like a singing bowl, splashing water onto the ground, before lying prone on the floor. This ritual is mesmerizing, the immersive nature of the performance pointed back to a physical remembering, an inherited motion.

After the performances are done, the spilt water has been mopped up and people rearrange on the floor, we sit in a circle and I am confronted again by the vulnerability of this exercise. Perhaps it is commonplace for those in performance communities to witness such openness, but it strikes me that I am surrounded by people I barely know and they are brave enough to use their bodies to communicate ideas that are still in the process of being formed and articulated. This research series, bringing together people from different disciplines, points to a basic and perhaps incredibly reductionist thought: that everyone is seeking, albeit in different ways, to learn about themselves and each other. This is perhaps why it feels so intimate, so vulnerable. Not simply due to the morning, or the physical abandon, but because it is fragile and special to be able to witness strangers searching.

***

 

Dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker Yvonne Rainer’s psychotherapist once told her “feelings are facts”, a dictum after which she named her autobiography (Rainer), and one so simple as to be stunning. We are told to exist in a certain way, a way that is often based in someone else’s reality because it is more convenient, for society, for the individual, for both, rather than because it is what we are experiencing. These rules are often enforced based on how society perceives different bodies, and accordingly values, restricts, and/or denigrates them.

 

***

Sartre, famed father of french thought and misanthrope extraordinaire, is one of many philosophers who privileges control over emotions, and applauds striving to maintain mastery over oneself. In fact he seems to hate moments of vulnerability, speaking at length in Nausea about how repulsive humans are when they eat, and how disgusting he finds other peoples bodies. In a letter to a lover who expressed feeling an overwhelming sadness Sartre wrote “I hate and scorn those who, like you, indulge their brief hours of sadness. What disgusts me is the shameful little comedy rooted in a physical state of torpor” (Boulet 61). Sartre not only condemns this person for recognizing her emotional state, but also deems the physical manifestation of these emotions shameful. His vitriolic refutation of the importance of feeling, both physical and emotional, seems to reflect something of the privilege the patriarchy grants certain kinds of people.

***

 

I recall at various points in my life having my sadness levelled against me, being made to believe it was my fault rather than a product of how I was being treated. I remember how my body felt when I was sad. Times of pain and grief, fear and stasis can be physical, the body manifesting self-doubt in a stutter, tripping over curbs, allowing a glass tumbler to slip just so from a distracted hand. How to move with intention, let alone grace and fluidity, when the mind is reeling, one half using all of its strength to diminish the other? I spent much of my twenties being alternately weightless, about to slip up and away, and so heavy as to sink into the earth. I think I found my way back into myself by learning to un-believe what I had been told – there is power in unlearning.

During that nearly decade long period of general sadness or angst or depression or what-have-you I was told I needed to fight against and overcome, rather than explore, my feelings and intuitions in order to exist in reality. Whose reality? Certainly not mine, in fact this fight against myself took place in order to maintain relationships with people who were convinced their framework of ideals (or as Helene Cixous succinctly put it, their “conceptual orthopaedics” [10]) was a representation of a grand, overarching truth, when in fact it was a constructed ideology allowing them to act beyond the rules of what they disparaged as restrictive “social norms” while still benefiting from those “norms” and the hierarchy they create. This faux-political, airtight rationalizing allowed them to cause harm without culpability. For the most part these people weren’t intentionally malicious, but they were unwilling to engage with empathy and attempt to unlearn behaviour that served them at the expense of others. The troubling thing about my situation is that it is in no way unique, and that as a white passing, CIS woman who has a supportive family and network of friends it doesn’t begin to speak to the magnitude of repression faced by so many folks with less privilege than I. What is also troubling is that it echoes how our society at large functions.

Why did these people assume that I should live within their conception of the world, particularly when it was one that disenfranchised me? Is the answer simply the patriarchy? I suppose I could chalk it up to a “power” imbalance: the employer was paying my (minimum) wage, which meant I “owed” him and had to take whatever emotional abuse and sexual harassment he chose to inflict, or: the boyfriend said he “loved me more than anything (and more than anyone else ever would)” which somehow negated devastating betrayals, lies, and manipulations, and placed the onus on me to live with his destructive choices rather than on him to be better. Except this doesn’t feel like power to me, it feels like fear, like they were clutching to their conceptual orthopaedics with a death grip, white knuckled, terrified they would be caught out and lose their place in the world, or god forbid have to accept the validity of other people’s perspectives. Can this fear actually be a sign of hope? Can it be attributed to the fact that things are finally changing, albeit slowly, and that different bodies, minds, and ways of being are finally allowed to survive and thrive, that the white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy (™ bell hooks) we are so used to is finally being challenged?

***

 

Part of the problem: the enlightenment philosophies that inform our “western” conceptions of identity are built on binaries of mind/body, man/woman, human/animal, light/dark and tend to negate or at least ignore emotional and physical realities that exist beyond that of the privileged white male. Donna Haraway identifies such binaries as part of the “informatics of domination” that impede contemporary resistance to injustice (167). Theories of rationality, detachment, and mastery of oneself create a somewhat brutal meritocracy that demands if one has enough will and intellectual acuity they will ascend a mountain and become what they are (263 Nietzsche). Of course if one is born brown, black, female, impoverished, homosexual, etc. then society tells you what you are and how you are supposed to be, and it often isn’t an uber-mensch. Ultimately the doctrines of philosophies from early enlightenment to existentialist lack empathy, creating a very bleak outlook on human relations and difference.

A possible solution, or at least an alternative to the above: “affect theory”, which is defined as the study of “visceral forces beneath, alongside, or generally other than conscious knowing that can serve to drive us toward movement, thought, and ever-changing forms of relation” (Affect Theory Reader). These explorations acknowledge that bodies provide motivation, attachment, and desire, and strives toward a knowing that is not grounded in what we are told is real, but rather in dismantling those beliefs and focusing on what we feel could possibly exist. Anna Gibbs says that affect theory “might also take the form of an ‘anti-history’ or ‘counter-memory’ which attempts to detach the present from history as a constraining and defining identity so that it can be moved beyond and something other can be invented. This is an enterprise which, in charting the limits of the present, unsettles the taken for granted and suggests that things could be otherwise, leaving the future open” (6). This way of thinking provides a vital departure from enlightenment humanism and the various philosophies it informed, and engenders empathy, allowing more ways of knowing, conceptualizing and experiencing the world.

One of my favourite theorists at the moment is José Esteban Muñoz, who envisions ideas of a utopian, queer futurity through transgressive moments of aesthetic, performative culture. For Muñoz it is the moments taking place outside of, or between, the interconnected systems of domination that define contemporary reality and contain hope. In Cruel Optimism Lauren Berlant also focuses on themes of liminality with her theory of “the impasse” (21), which she defines as “a crucial place that lies between the old habituated life and something different, something that radically resensualizes the subject” (27). Her idea of a “refutation of the precious normative construction of domesticity and privacy [that] leads to an embodiment of the impasse” (Berlant 27) runs along the same lines as Muñoz’ assertion that we must reject the present social structure in order to “dream and enact new and better pleasures, other ways of being in the world, and ultimately new worlds” (1).

If we understand Sartre’s conception of freedom as a tortured knowledge of nothingness (Being and Nothingness) and Muñoz’ “ideality” of freedom to be a site of un-materialized, potential utopia which is predicated precisely on not-knowing, a stark contrast emerges, and at the risk of being reductionist I would guess that these differentiating ways of viewing the world, the non-verbal articulation of ideas versus the enlightenment definition of knowledge and thought, rather alter the ways people understand and perceive one another.

***

They way movement can elucidate ideas and feelings is remarkable, and illustrates how the body functions as a site of emotional and intellectual knowledge, containing information vital about ourselves but also information that is vital when trying to enact a social shift towards a softer, kinder world. Jaz’ ritual connects to a tradition of embodied articulation, and a turn back into oneself, and to the intrinsic knowledge we carry that can reveal previously unknown information. Brittney’s improv is an explosive example of release, the pent up everyday coming out as words and signs, as well as the intuitive bonds that can be forged by crossing disciplinary lines. Hannah portrays a physicality concerned with touch, and the manifestation of varying boundaries and connections we draw between each other, and perhaps within ourselves. These forms of research lie between what is consciously known and what runs beneath the surface, and are an identification of mutable, fluid ideas that can’t quite be pinned down, but whose contours can be traced. This kind of ephemeral performance is what Munoz envisions can literally save the world, and although I’m not as strident a utopian as he, there is a hope inherent in people striving to reach new spaces within themselves, with others, and with their bodies. Anna Gibbs perhaps says it best when she says that research can be “an experimental and productive forging of connections to new ends, rather than the analytical disassembling of a machine in order to show how it works, as if this (the analytic disassembling) were sufficient to bring about desirable change” (4).

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Berlant, Lauren Gail. Cruel Optimism. Durham : Duke University Press, 2011. Print.

Gibbs, Anna. “Writing as Method.” Affective Methodologies,

Gregg, Melissa, and Gregory J. Seigworth. The Affect Theory Reader. Duke University Press, 2011.

Haraway, Donna. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in

the Late Twentieth Century.” Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of

Nature, New York; Routledge, 1991,149-181.

Muñoz, José Esteban. Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. NYU Press, 2009.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, and Thomas Common. Thus Spake Zarathustra. Gordon Press, 1974.

Rainer, Yvonne. Feelings Are Facts: a Life. MIT Press, 2013.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness. Routledge, 2007

Sartre, Jean-Paul. Nausea. Penguin Books, 2007.

January 2018

Research Series Nov-Jan 2018

This winter, three teams, each with their own set of questions about movement, are working in the Young Lungs Dance Exchange Studio. Hannah Everest, Brittany Thiessen, and Jaz Papadopoulos lead the movement research this series. Between them, they have wide-ranging approaches to movement – contemporary dance, clown, dance/theatre – providing for a multifarious series of events.
January 26th-30th, the three research teams invite you to take a gander at the colourful linings of their creative processes.

All events take place at 618 Arlington St.

JANUARY 26TH – SHOWING 5:30 doors/ 6PM start/ $10 – All three works-in-progress will be showcased

JANUARY 27TH – ENDNOTE 5:30 doors/ 6PM start/ Free – Presentation of essays in response to research

JANUARY 30th – WORKSHOP 2PM – 5PM / $10 – Researchers will led a movement workshop based on their research


Find their project descriptions and artist bios below

 BRITTANY THIESSEN BRITTANY THIESSEN

Brittany Thiessen is obsessed with live performance of all kinds.
Especially taken with acting, music, and dance, she often finds herself caught between the three, setting herself up for what she likes to call an ‘existential art crisis.’ In response to this crisis, she’s decided to investigate how these three mediums can exist together onstage, (specifically in improvisation) throughout this Research Series.
Her recent acting credits include: On Love (Winnipeg Fringe), My Name is Rachel Corrie (May Works), and From the Seat of a Canoe (Long Take Collective). Brittany is a co-founder of Make/Shift Theatre, Company in Residence for Theatre Projects Manitoba, who are in the midst of dramaturgy on their new work, The Party: A Scientific Romance. Also known as ‘B-Rabbit’, she is one half of the musical-comedy duo, BUNNY, who harmonize about everything from time travel to Instagram. Later this spring she’s looking forward to assistant directing TPM’s A Short History of Crazy Bone, another piece which blends the worlds the dance and theatre.

 ALEXANDRA ELLIOTT ALEXANDRA ELLIOTT

After performing her own work in New York Alexandra Elliott and Hurricane Sandy came face to face. Physically demanding and emotionally charged, her work made it back to her hometown of Winnipeg and beyond. As a contemporary dancer and choreographer it is Alex’s highest intention to leave you transformed. With over ten original works under her belt, her dances have been produced in New York, Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, and Winnipeg. Alexandra remains humble with a commitment to learn from her seniors and peers. She has studied choreography with award-winning choreographers Tedd Robinson (QC), Susie Burpee (ON), Marie-Josée Chartier (QC), and Susan Rethorst (NY). Fresh after graduating with a BA Honours Degree from the University of Winnipeg and The School of Contemporary Dancers, Alex was a company dancer with the unforgettable Ruth Cansfield Dance. Four years later she joined the Young Lungs Dance Exchange to pursue choreography. After seven years of constant support from this organization she has taken an important step and is now the Artistic Director of Alexandra Elliott Dance. She had the unique opportunity to self-present her own production and will continue to do so with the supportive community she lives in. Alex cycles to her studio every week, year round, to make the creation of dance her daily practice, and not one day is taken for granted. She is thrilled to announce the unveiling of Art Holm, a bi-annual performance series that showcases three artists of different disciplines. Alex shares the role of curator and producer with fellow artist Hilary Anne Crist.

 DAVIS PLETT DAVIS PLETT

Davis Plett is an intermedia artist working with audio, text, and performance. His praxis attempts a resistance against reductive ontological formulations of bodies, minds, and the economics of meaning under capitalism, recontextualizing the rituals, spectacles, and material detritus of consumption/production to reveal their/our infinite horror, beauty, and mystery. Davis holds degrees in performance and literature from the University of Winnipeg and has studied clowning with John Turner, intermedia performance with 2boys.tv, and composition/sound design with Greg Lowe. As a composer/sound artist he has worked with Theatre Projects Manitoba, Mia van Leeuwen, 2boys.tv, Frances Koncan, and Gislina Patterson. Upcoming projects include THIS IS GOING TO BE A SILENT POEM, a text-based performance for overhead projector, audience, and projectionist, and Fanta, an intermedia creation/performance that just completed its first stage of development through a fall 2017 Young Lungs residency.


 HANNAH EVEREST HANNAH EVEREST

An independent contemporary dance artist originally from the west coast of BC, Hannah Everest is a graduate of the School of Contemporary Dancers and the University of Winnipeg (BA Honours degree). Thrilled to be embarking on her first choreographic research project through Young Lungs, she has had the pleasure to have worked professionally with Jennifer Mascall of Vancouver BC, Odette Heyn and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Danielle Sturk in her 2013 film A Good Madness, and be part of WCD’s VERGE under the direction of Brent Lott. Most recently, Hannah is excited to be collaborating as a dancer and creator in a choreographic mentorship with Johanna Riley, to be completed in February 2017.

 SASHA WILDE SASHA WILDE

Sasha holds a Bachelor of Arts (honours) in dance from the School of Contemporary Dancers in
affiliation with the University of Winnipeg. While in school Sasha had the opportunity to work
with many esteemed teachers and choreographers. With the School of Contemporary Dancers
she performed in the 50 Dancer Project at the 2016 Canada Dance Festival. Post graduation
Sasha traveled to Mexico to perform in the show “Creando Lazos a Través de la Danza”
(Creating Bonds Through Dance) with GPS Dance Collective, of which she is a founding member.
She has also participated in projects with Stephanie Ballard and Dancers: Landscape Dancing,
Odette Heyn Projects with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Dancers’ Studio West: Dance
Action Lab, a Choreographic Mentorship with Johanna Riley and NAfro Dance Productions,
including the 2017 Moving Inspirations Dance Festival. Along with performing Sasha teaches
modern and

 ILSE TORRES OROZCO ILSE TORRES OROZCO

Ilse Torres Orozco is a recent graduate of the Professional Program of the School of
Contemporary Dancers and Co- Director from GPS Dance Collective. She has had the honour of
working professionally with Stephanie Ballard and Dancers, Odette Heyn- Projects with the
Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Gearshifting Perfomance Works and with the Mexican dance
collective Colectivo 1.618. She was the artistic coordinator from the project “Creando Lazos a
Través de la Danza” that was presented in León, Mexico as part of Canada’s 150 th anniversary.


 JAZ PAPADOPOULOS JAZ PAPADOPOULOS

Jaz Papadopoulos is an interdisciplinary artist who works in experimental poetry, installation, video and performance. They are interested in diaspora, gender, bodies, place, memory, grief, and ritual. They are a current recipient of the New Artist in Media Art Production Fund at Video Pool. Jaz lives in Treaty 1 territory.


ESSAYISTS

 GRAHAM WIEBE GRAHAM WIEBE

Graham Wiebe, born in Winnipeg, Manitoba completed his B.F.A. (Hons) Degree at the University of Manitoba. Employing the snapshot as material toward a visual memoir, Wiebe’s photographs become a record of impulse and engagement. These fragmentary and still documents weave together to highlight the intersection of the urban and suburban landscapes, creating an intimate portrait of youth culture rooted in time, place and personal experience. His photographs have been exhibited and published internationally. Wiebe recently won the AGO AIMIA Photography Scholarship Prize Program, exhibiting his series Summerland at the Art Gallery Of Ontario.

BETH SCHELLENBERG

Beth Schellenberg is an arts administrator, curator, writer, and MA student living on Treaty One Territory in Winnipeg, MB. Her academic research is focused on how creative works and popular movements illuminate dominant social ideologies, and on the transformative nature of communications technology on cultural production. Her work has been featured in Dear Journal and PaperWait: Contemporary Art Writing, and she has upcoming pieces in Briarpatch Magazine and De Gruyter’s Open Cultural Studies journal.

Photo by Public Parking and Laina Brown


Visual Essay

September – November 2017 Research Series Visual Essay

by Michelle Panting

Davis Plett with Rachelle Bourget

Alex Winters with Warren McLelland

Kayla Jeanson with Alex Winters and Brianna Ray Ferguson

Self Portraits inspired by research

Michelle Panting is a writer and lens-based artist living in Winnipeg, Manitoba. In 2013, she
founded FULL, a website dedicated to documenting art, culture, and travel. Through FULL,
Michelle interviews artists and cultural influencers as well as capturing their work through
photographs. In her personal artistic practice, she uses both still and moving images to explore
issues of identity, mental health, and trauma. Michelle has exhibited her work at aceartinc. and
Parlour Coffee. She is currently enrolled in the Cartae Open School at aceartinc.

Healing as Performative Practice: How Gesture Leads To Shared Sisterhood

Healing as Performative Practice: How Gesture Leads To Shared Sisterhood

or

Soil

by Jillian Groening

There are many ways to break

to crumble.

eroding like damp sand

water pushing the grains further and further apart.

a gaping mouth opening to expose the muck beneath the beach,

wanting to be fed

to grow larger

to expand

gobbling up taking in

consuming the land

with a voracious

appetite.

there are many ways to fall to bits.

There is a creek running through the land where my partner grew up

splitting right down the middle of what would otherwise be a perfectly good field.

It acts as a division of ground between his dad’s land and their neighbours.

I say his dad’s land

(as though land can be owned as such)

because it is dad’s land

not his mother’s

after his dad passes on it will become his brother’s responsibility

not his sister’s.

my dad often farmed the land of a woman who lived in Germany

she was older

and owned lots of land.

I always imagined we would have gotten along

that older woman and I.

The earth where my partner grew up is finicky

it is light and gritty and requires frequent irrigation.

It’s good for planting juniper bushes

and potatoes

and that’s about it.

Roots have difficulty taking hold in this kind of earth

as they have to reach very far down

in order to sip the water.

The fields here have poor fertility as nutrients are easily washed away

slipping

through the particles of earth.

This is a far cry from the soil that I have gathered beneath my fingernails

where the mud is thick like clay and the land floods frequently.

Every spring

murky

frigid

water

washing away the tiny stick tombstones you made for dead kittens

and crushed butterflies,

rusting your swing set

scattering white plastic fertilizer pails across the prairies

like some absurd flower girl

begrudgingly walking down the aisle at her babysitter’s wedding

plunking the remnants of

toxic

artificial growth

on the driveways of farmers

who just need their crops to grow.

When my partner was young, this creek was thin

a sliver

that he and his friends could hop across

in order to get to the beach by the reserve.

Every year

the creek grew from dainty scar

to wide gash

to engorged pit

swallowing the spindly sandy soil trees

and eating up land

the father’s land

not the mother’s.

Last summer

(or was it two summers ago)

my partner and I went camping on the land,

pitched a tent where he used to do his chores

mow the lawn

feed the chickens.

We brought along my sister and her partner

for more voices around the bonfire

and to keep away the eerie country silence

creeping down the road

hiding by the gate.

In the morning we went to go find the beach by the reserve.

we started walking

sweating

itching

wearing denim and rubber boots to avoid the ticks

waving on the tall blades of grass

waiting to hitch a ride.

We crawled

slipped

tumbled

into the crevasse

where the creek was

the cavity that used to be so small.

My sister and her partner started to bicker.

We were all victims of a gnawing hangover,

the one that starts right behind your eyes and sits at the very top of your belly

makes you want to vomit at the very thought of eating

or opening your eyelids

to the sun.

We trudged through the crater in the earth

grabbing onto the gnarled roots

of trees that had fallen sideways

the rug pulled out from under them.

With each step we took

dry earth fell deeper into the chasm

sprinkling down the sides

dusting our shoulders

and finding its way into our socks.

Our legs became heavy

after the water bottles were polished off

the bickering lulled

to the hum of cicadas

and pissed off silence.

My partner clambered through the wreckage

of turned over shrubs and beaver dams

hurrying

wide-eyed

disbelief

at how the earth was changing

how the erosion had eaten the land

had chewed at the memory of his childhood

was devouring us.

The following winter

(or was it last winter)

my sister and her partner broke up

the caustic

pissed off silence

had swelled

had disintegrated

had melted the desire

to help with dishes

to come home early from the bar

to forgive.


I guess what I am trying to say is that we all break

we fall to pieces

like the grains pouring

from what should have been a field

basking in sun

the sun that was too hot

too dry

instead

keeling over into the ravine

in search of water

of cool

of healing.

We break because of a weight

a weight that we all carry.

It lives in how we sit on the bus

how we walk down the street at night

alone

keys in our hand

ready

our muscles prepared to cross the street

shift over

run.

This weight casts purple shadows

over the words leaving our mouths

pinching the syllables between the bones of our teeth

until we feel we have said our part

done what we can do

but it remains

a dust cloud

looming over our rickety house frame

of exposed nerves and hair and guts.

It straddles our shoulders

presses on our bra straps

discomfort is a bitch.

This weight

(this bitch of a weight)

propels our hands

to speak when sound can’t

won’t

escape out throats.

It informs us how to purse our lips and shift our weight from foot to foot.

Sometimes

we hate these mannerisms

we resent the fact that it reminds us of someone else

someone we are not.

Sometimes

we relish in the memory

the fleeting glimpses of past selves

past friends

past loves

ghosts that live on

in subconscious movement

we can wrap our arms around these memories

that come out to say hello

in the most mundane of moments.

Regardless

these memories exist because we want them there.

We have plucked them from our history

and tended to them

perhaps with care

rolling the details around in our mouths

like a jawbreaker

trying to keep them alive.

Sometimes these memories bleed onto others

melding into a crusty

congealed

mass.

Things we’d rather forget

throw laundry over

these wisps of recall live within us.

We are the container.

A vessel filled with our history

the history of our mothers

our grandmothers

generations of bodies that have lived and breathed and now take up space

in the soft skin behind our knees

in the tension between jaw and earlobe.

The weight is memory

and the memory helps us move

it is the support

or impetus

that precedes movement.

We develop learned habits with this memory

recollect steps

actions

from watching those before us.

In dance

this muscle memory is used to remember choreography

develop technique.

Without allowing for time

saturation

movement can appear shallow

superficial

skimming across the surface of the stage with the blissed-out grace of ignorance.

It is mid-translation

stuck frozen in the air

words you wish you could retract

swallow back into your throat

Muscle memory allows you to become a character

a different you

past selves/present selves

transform into another being

time and distance

allowing the lines between the authentic and the instructed to blur.

Muscle memory is something we grapple with

we tuck our pelvis

push out our sternum

hyper extend our elbows

yada yada yada

Memory

Muscle

Weight

The weight can become unbearable

pushing down harder when we are asked to smile

when our words are manipulated

chewed up

or completely disregarded

when our experiences are discounted

shoved under the bed

when we are silenced.

We are good at dealing with these setbacks

we have done it before and we will do it again

we will clear our throats

and roll up our sleeves.

Sometimes

the weight clogs our brain

makes it difficult to fathom aspects of our own reality

solutions

we paddle through it’s thickness

attempt to navigate the reeds and the muck.

As much as we push against it

swim against it’s current

the memory propels us forward

upward

outward

wraps its fingers around our wrists and lifts.

The weight is accumulated history

that we drag our bodies through

but it also supports

it’s palms secured under our warm armpits.

Our flesh is a palimpsest

layers of the past

swimming liquid beneath our skin

layers of soil

roots reaching down

grasping.

This history slips out of us sometimes

like how a shell on your windowsill

spills out grains of white sand

years after it has left the water

the curtain lifts in a dark theatre and a beam of golden light breaks through

we open our mouth

press our palms

and out it spills.

We hold it tightly

and yet it leaves us.

No matter what study you read

all researchers agree that physical cues make up the majority of communication

raising our eyebrows

flailing our arms

how we speak with others has more to do with our physical bodies than our words.

Brenda McLean

together with Ali Robson

has been working towards developing a system

with which to analyze

and teach gesture.

Gestures are something that we use every

damn day

yet

when asked to generate on the spot

or to abstract

or interpret

our impulses get marred

and we struggle to find clear pathways.

Their research has opened up a dialogue to discuss these everyday motions

to put into words that which we inherently do

and try not to overanalyze

lest we turn into numb

still

signalling

robots

similar to how Labanotation

took movement patterns

and expressed them through abstract forms

line drawings of figures in space

to articulate movement qualities

sustained

bound

direct

light

so as to teach his students

and archive his work

Brenda and Ali

break down what it means to express

using Michael Chekhov’s list of archetypal gestures

gathering

pushing

throwing

and make it possible to discuss

to have shared language

to teach

they are drawing a roadmap

to assist others with the intention and interpretation of movement.

Watching Ali move from literal motion

to abstract

to interpretive

one could witness the drift

from external

to internal focus

the molten flow of communication

speckled

with moments of literal action

halting

highlighted

feeding the observer with just enough

information to understand and explore Ali’s journey.

Striving to put sand in the pockets

of a fleeting movement

to weigh it down with meaning and intention

calibrating it on a shifting scale

Brenda and Ali boil down what it means to communicate physically

finding ways to capture the flutter of a finger

the jut of an elbow

to trace it and label it and pin it to the page

“like nailing jello to the wall”

the stuttering

familiar movements

the push of an open palm

the gathering of air

combing the manipulations

abstractions

interpretations

of these simple

pedestrian movements

allowed for

“a portal into the universe of the performer”

as mentor Grant Guy expressed.

The viewer is allowed in to this world by these familiar anchors

small weights dropped down into the bottom of the well

presenting an opportunity for the audience to grasp the rope

pull them up

reveal a sliver of light

lead them.

The study of gesture summoned learned behaviour patterns

analyzing what we are born knowing versus what has been taught

or passed down through observation

diaper-bottomed infants do not need to be told how to walk

or reach

or shrug

we take those precarious first steps knowing

despite the shakiness and the weakness

how to put one foot in front of the other.

This is different than the gesture

of bearing weight.

When asked to illustrate this action

Ali

who is pregnant

instinctively brought her hands to her hips

in a motion that implied

domestic exhaustion

women’s work

the female experience

ask a man to interpret this same instruction

bearing weight

and he will most likely bring his hands to his head

expressing frustration

a hurting brain

over a hurting body.

Gesture also implies a sense of memory

each gesture is something we have seen before

taken in

worked through our body

added our own comforts or flairs

we inherit gestures from our parents

our friends

soaking in this bubbling

silent

conversation between bodies

before acting out a gesture we feel it

we internalize it

we allow our memory to support the movement

the memory is the impulse for the movement

we feel it

and our bones follow.

Gesture is an imprint of our memories

an expression of our memories

communication between our past and present selves.


For Kristy Janvier

gesture and intention

run parallel to commonalities among individuals

to connectedness

and wholeness

to the body holding memory

and memory travelling down the bloodline.

Working with Emily Barker

Lise McMillan

and Rayanna Seymour

Kristy seemed to find herself drawn to the fact that even though the group of artists came from

various backgrounds

they all had shared experiences

as Kristy puts it

even though they all came from different side of the mountain

they had arrived at the summit together.

Water is of interest to Kristy

how we can exert energy onto water

how water can conduct energy

bodily fluids

the water within our shell

the water that is moved by our bones

by our memory

water pathways

rivers as roads

leading people home

guiding those who are lost

the life force that enables communities to grow

the blood veins beneath the earth’s surface.

Harkening back to a certain Dr. Masaru Emoto

the Japanese researcher

who administered various energies

happy

sad

confident

beautiful

ugly

onto collections of water.

He would write these affirmations onto the jars of water

and when frozen

the water would form crystals.

Dr. Emoto found the shape of these crystals

to be a reflection of the affirmations written on the jars.

Water with positive affirmations froze into intricate

stunning

symmetrical shapes

while the water burdened by negativity clustered

into asymmetrical

jagged

tumour-like forms

with this study in mind

Kristy collected water samples from the red river

a river that at one time had been the highway

for people in the community

where families would swim and paddle their canoes

build homes near

had turned into the source of news tragedies

bodies discovered on the muddy shores

bodies of women

bodies of indigenous women

wishing to heal this water

heal the past

heal communities

and those in pain

kristy

emily

lise

and rayanna

speak to the water.

During one of the first brutally cold days of winter

the group of us

kristy

emily

lise

rayanna

and i

were tucked away in a studio in the exchange

the room was being warmed by heat fans

scattered around the space.

Every once in a while the power of the fans

would cause the breaker to blow

cloaking us in cold

reminding us of the city we were in.

As the energy

the light

returned

Rayanna came down the hallway in her traditional jingle dress.

The jingles glowed rose gold

in the warm light of the heater.

She began to dance.

Her moccassin-clad feet

hitting the hard wood floor

with each down beat

the jingles moved to their own rhythm

a call and response

they were the light

dizzying

rain

in contrast to the steady rumbling of a thunderstorm.

Rayanna had constructed the dress herself

stitching on each jingle

going back with a needle and thread to fix any mistakes

she might make

the dress

the dance

has become an emblem of dancing for those who cannot

the response of the jingles a far away call

an echoing catalyst.

Memory lives in each step

each movement in the dance

even how the dress is made is passed down

through families

through communities

through generations

the dress dances for those who can’t.

Focusing on the energy of the water

the process became an act of women healing women

the power of touch

of breath

of connectedness

by healing the water through osmosis

the women were doing the same with each other.

healing through dance

healing memories through movement.

by accessing the healing

power of support

and the hands of a strong community of women

togetherness

and peace

were articulated

found

and fostered.


Jaime Black

through work with natural props and improvisation

asked the question of

why we must heal

and how we could possibly

brave on

continue

succeed.

Working with Lise McMillan

using sculptural images

the two women

inquired about our connection to natural objects

the weight

and the energy that these items hold

sticks gathered in the woods

a scratchy wool

Bay blanket

stones from lake huron.

How can we alter the energy of an item?

How can we use it to heal ourselves?

Each other?

Images of the natural body

the female body

rose to the surface of the practice

a ball of red yarn

when pulled

bundled

and manipulated by the two sets of hands

evoked intestines

blood clots

veins

umbilical cord

a heart.

Similar to our own flesh

the items hold memory

carry the past.

It is our responsibility to release that

acknowledge the energy.

By using the props,

she is taking ownership of their use

taking ownership of the associations attached.

In one exercise

we took the broad

flat

stones

gathered from the large lake

that borders Ontario and Michigan

They had been sitting in Jaime’s car overnight

and they were icy

we held them in our hands

rubbed them in between our palms

attempting to warm them

we pressed the cool stones

against our warm bodies

onto sternums

thighs and bellies

creating calm

meditation

healing

Similar to the stones taking in cold

or heat

our bodies absorb what is around us

releasing it through gesture

through movement

and dancing

Jaime and Lise would often return to images of women working

wringing the blue blanket

scrubbing the studio floor

gathering wood

task-oriented jobs that contained pedestrian

or functional

gestures

By bringing nature indoors

uniting elements of organic beginnings

with the artificial

The two women allude to a melding of two worlds

two cultures

two backgrounds

two histories.

Swaddled in the blanket

a place of security

or confinement

or carrying one another on their back

images arose of women helping women

women healing

from places of strength and togetherness

ceremony.


The weight

inherent in women’s lives

in all our lives

the weight that can feel so crushing

is supported by our sisterhood

the works in discussion present a matriarchy

a community evoking compiled memory

physical wisdom

women healing women

and action

action for change.

we wail

we throw our bodies against the wall

someone must be listening

someone has to be listening

who do we even want to hear us

and if they do

will they understand our language.

we break

in search of healing

crumble like sand towards the water

cool rocks on warm bodies.

we heal each other

women healing women

connected by blood and intention

we rise, together

we huddle in ceremony

create our own rituals

turning fluorescent bulb to warm sun,

sucking the energy from the windows,

the dusty snow fall.

oscillate to form new patterns,

new ways of connecting

of restoring.

And so we move

boldly

hopping in home-made jingle dresses

creaking on hardwood floors

in front of the whirr of a heat lamp

we dance for those who cannot.

we do women’s work

women’s gestures

that is what we know.

we know these learned behaviours from lines of mothers

grandmothers

wrinkled hands wringing cloth

cleaning

scrubbing wet wool

sewing thread through leather

bearing the weight of a pregnant belly

female bodies are a shelter

bearing weight

containing responsibility

holding strength

energy.

This healing as performative practice

to be healed

and to see other people being healed

is vulnerable

restorative.

It suggests a tool to take into our everyday

a safeguard

a reminder

of who has your back

a reminder to be present.

Not only does your sisterhood

have their hands open

palms exposed

ready to catch you

but your body

holding history

holding memory

knows how to heal.

how to repair.

how to preserver.

We dance for those who cannot.

It’s a Big Mess: Non|Sense Making on a Damaged Planet

By Praba Pilar

I dedicate this talk to Glamdrew Andrew Henderson. I am honored to have been a part of his process with Eroca Nicols and collaborators Carly Boyce and Mars Gradiva. I am grateful he took my secret to the grave.

Life, vida, biome, biotic, creation – always a process, never a state. Whether its biopoiesis, abiogenesis, or that great big bang, maybe its terrestrial, extraterrestrial, artificial, augmented, extended, simulated, telepresenced, ectropic or extropic – we don’t REALLY know if it comes from intergalactic primordial gas or just plain subatomic play. Which brings me back down to Earth.

What is life as we enter the 6th extinction? Can we stay with the trouble?

Can we confront the necrosis at the core of our contemporary CULT OF THE TECHNO-LOGIC? Can we crawl away from the cult of necrotic egocentrism oozing over the world in globalized neoliberal capitalist crapdom?


I am a twinned larvae, segmented by distributed intelligence into rejecting the egocentric unitary self-recruitment of the failed human project. Naming the homo sapien as the human ignores our microbiome, our 90% of our DNA that is not human. [LARVAL SCREAM] In the segmented paramythology of LARVAL ROCK STARS, my twin Anuj Vaidya and I find many historical precedents that have led to necrotic civilization, in which severe damage to one essential system leads to secondary damage to other systems, causing a “cascade of effects”. Necrotic civilization is an ugly show. It arises from ossified states of domination of the Anthropocene, it is based on a lack of proper care, and as it spreads, it releases harmful effects that damages everything around it. As larvae of a post-human era, we effect care, to remake ourselves in the biotic ecocentrism of the larvalscene. Death is not the opposite of life. Many deaths have passed, and many are to come, deaths of more of our languages, of some of our identities, ways of life, comforts, hopes and ideals, of our embodied selves, our non-human kin, our planetary world and world-ed planet. But astride this destructive necrosis are other possible deaths, occurring as a disruptive poesis and an infectious refusal – deaths of unitary truth and stasis that deny our perpetual becoming outside of reason and rationality. These are the deaths we can risk to generate a biotic ecocentrism beyond necrosis.

This brings me to the Young Lungs Research Series – a laboratory providing funding, space and support for research and exchange. Research, for artists, is rarely funded, at least in my experience. But research is critical to an artistic practice, it is in expansion, not product, that a practice grows. The four artists groups in this series intermingled challenges to norms of social relations and dynamics – themes interrogated from different positionality by Frantz Fanon, Erving Goffman and Elizabeth Grosz. Fanon focuses, in Black Skin, White Masks on the oppression, forced masking and destructive alienation of Blackness in a white supremacist world designed for the benefit of others. Goffman, in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, focuses on the dramaturgical perspective of social scripting and impression management in everyday life – which in contemporary techno-culture, multiplies exponentially online – Instagram anyone? Or are you too busy photoshopping your feed? In Volatile Bodies, Grosz challenges dualistic binaries by interweaving the internal/external through the model of the Mobius Strip. All of the artists spoke of going beyond technique and training, false authenticity, curated interactions and illusions of control.

Carol-Ann Bohrn’s project was done in collaboration with Madeline Rae, the two met in Ace Art’s Cartae School. The work centered on dichotomies between the subjective inner self and the performance of self in the social sphere. Through this research, Bohrn shared deliberately clumsy articulate and inarticulate embodied and verbal dissonance that demanded: where does the social front negate or support internal subjectivity, where does it mirror, and where does it reshape interiority while risking intolerable alienation?

Sometimes concordant, other times discordant, her movement and speech rode the Mobius Strip inside to outside to inside to outside as a continual loop, because rather than being dichotomous we are pluralities. But it’s painfully hilarious isn’t it – to witness your own shameful accommodations rendered materially visible. We live in sociality, managing varying histories of trauma, and if you thought Bohrn and Rae were going to provide some neatly packaged resolution of the resultant complex conflicts that arise, think again.

Zorya Arrow began with an exploration of intimacy by experimenting with 1 on 1 performances to explore the relationship between performer and audience. But for her this raised antagonisms of expectation that proved to be unproductive. How else to find out, how does who is there, in the how is there, determine the outcome of what is there.

But the difficulties of entering the unknown by not doing the same doing that threatens to become a pattern or a predictable trajectory, led her to instead invite the audience literally behind the curtain to witness her disposition.

Delf Gravert shared WALRUS, I AM, which arose during time he spent in the North. His research raises pressing epistemological questions of what is valorized in ways of knowing – the oral, the textual – and beyond those binaries, the physical, the sonic and other senses? What is a staged work, what is the structure, why do you behave as an audience and who is there to see it – is it the embodied presences in the room, or can we operate multi-dimensionally and recognize we are multitudes of generations of relations that are always, already, in the room.

Delf comes at the questions of affective states and emotive reasoning relentlessly, with uncanny idiosyncratic physicality and humor that at one point explodes in his scream – “I don’t know fuck all!” Well how about that, neither do we.

Andrew Henderson and Eroca Nicols, close friends and co-creators, faced the life altering moment of Glamdrew Andrew’s terminal diagnosis with beautiful courage, bringing Eroca’s study and practice of death rituals to create a Living Funeral as a queer monument to an embracing of that which for most remains shamefully unspeakable.

With collaborators Carly Boyce and Mars Gradiva, they created a joyful and inclusive space challenging cultural denials of death, creating magic in an atmosphere of loving generosity that opened public conversations around death, not only in the performance but broadly through extensive media coverage. It is from our conversations of delusional denial, of how it is ‘A Big Mess,’ that the title of this talk came to be. Andrew Henderson died on Wednesday October 26th.

We are a mess, in a big mess, and current sense-making makes no sense as it forecloses possibility. Creativity unconfined can provide artists the platform to disrupt necrotic sense making, to displace the self and selves, to reinscribe our bodies and then infect others with a refusal, so creation can live aside so much cessation.

I end with the work of Andrew Henderson, Eroca Nicols and collaborators Carly and Mars because they created a performance of consummate generosity – and I think it was covered extensively in the media as it provided a broad and enticing invitation to bring forth a self beyond ordinary sense-making, reaffirming the profound place of love and care, where our shameful secrets and living deaths can go to the grave and we can begin again.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Carrington, Damian. “World on Track to Lose Two-Thirds of Wild Animals by 2020, Major Report Warns.” The Guardian, 27 October, 2016.

Fanon, Frantz. Black Skins, White Masks. New York: Grove Press, 1967.

Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books, 1959.

Grosz, Elizabeth. Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994.

Larval Rock Stars. Chrysalis. Praba Pilar and Anuj Vaidya. < https://larvalrockstars.wordpress.com/>

Mooney, Chris. “What the ‘sixth extinction’ will look like in the oceans: The largest species die off first.” The Washington Post, 14 September 2016.

Pilar, Praba. Photographs of performers taken in Winnipeg, Canada. 2016.

Sarson, Janet. Photograph of Praba Pilar in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico. 2010.

Stanford University. “Sixth mass extinction is here: Humanity’s existence threatened.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 19 June 2015.

Zalasiewizc, Jan. “The Earth Stands on the Brink of its Sixth Mass Extinction and the Fault is Ours.” The Guardian, 21 June, 2015. < https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/21/mass-extinction-science-warning>