How we are creating this work : The dance artists will create medium - long durational works that are choreographed for that site to bring it to life in an intriguing way. The performance will flow like a guided tour through the space, drawing the audience into specific corners of the space, indoors and outdoors, like a movement installation. The focus of the residency is to provide space and time for the artists to explore new movement and choreography at Mini Mart and their surrounding gardens, to share a creative space with other dance artists, and to create a supportive environment through regular community cyphers and sessions. The durational performance is designed for the artists to have as long or short of time as they need to display their process activating the space, while the audience can come and go and roam the space as they please. As a choreographer and curator, I’m interested in creating an experience for the audience that allows them to settle into a contemplative state while observing the artists bring the space to light through their bodies, vulnerability, and physical transformation of the space.
A reason why I'm creating this project : As a movement artist, I am primarily interested in texture, musicality and spacial relationships, and have a very dedicated improvisation practice that pushes me to move creatively, viscerally, and with complexity. During the pandemic, I incessantly trained by myself in a storage room, for the love of dance, curiosity in what I could teach myself, and for my sanity. Moving forward, I’m desiring to take what I have been working on into my community, make and share something together, and create community around experimenting with our artistry. A creative aspect of this work, Ode, is investigating the necessary, dependent and reciprocal relationships between the individual, the community and the environment. We don’t exist in a vacuum - while there are perceived binaries between the mind and body, individual and community, humanity and animal, and animate and inanimate life, neither can be without the other and all are in collaboration to create the lives we live. This particular space also feels important to me because of its dedication to the environment and to placing the arts within the environmentalism movement. It calls me to examine how I can bring our collective views about the environment and my philosophy and spirituality of animism into my creative work.
