How do we see action? How is it changing the air between us? How can we change the air between us with gesture?

Zephyrs works with kinetic reach, made visible by a dense mass of theatrical haze and light. Working with hidden movement and visible stillness, performers Steph Cyr and Sophia Laurio beckon and repel the air around them to create constantly shifting conditions. They are apparatuses for dispersion: a hazy weather system within the gallery.

Here, air is made thick, and the performance stirs our mid-pandemic understanding of that space as charged, intense, and at times threatening. Zephyrs finds a fluid movement, conjuring something more generous, attentive and intentional in the space between us.

Libby Leshgold Gallery, Emily Carr University of Art and Design
Soft Launch, Curation by Vanessa Kwan
Performance by: Steph Cyr and Sophia Laurio
Lighting: James Proudfoot
Sound: Scott Morgan / loscil
Images by: Rachel Topham Photography

Leonard & Ellen Bina Gallery, Concordia

Sediment: The Archive as a Fragmentary Base
Curated by: Denise Ryner

Dance precisely works on the preservation, continuation and emergence of  embodied archives. It  is an inheritance of “doing” that only occurs in the transmission between bodies: in the feeling of vibratory forces and the actualization of fleshly practices. Our bodies synchronously hold the latent and the emergent – our archive has always been in the making and it is arriving right now. This work sifts through an archive of dance heirlooms. Held by the structure of the Electric Slide, the work is a scored, real-time calling up of a personal dance history lodged in the flesh.

Sound by: Mauricio Pauly
Costume by: Sarah Doucet

Photo by: Vitaly Bulychev

When I start to see my thoughts I know I’m almost asleep and these waking-images -almost-dreams keep me at a threshold, a membrane that will/can/may/inevitably be ruptured creating a deluge of movement, but in the meantime I am held in that place where all I can do is move to not move to not upset to not spill something that can’t be put back so I don’t cross over or puncture, but instead feel myself shifting thoughts to shift my shape and feeling(s) to not embarrass or blame, but stay in the place before, still and not static suspended and not floating but fervently here holding myself and holding you while I feel you shift towards sleep and watch your mouth go slack and I don’t dare take this as permission to move but permission to watch and wait for you to descend a little deeper as I pretend to fall with you so that you can feel us in unison and so that I can leave you and this queen sized bed, but not yet, because it’s too soon and I will fracture the hush and if I don’t move the right things I will be able to slide out from under you and off the edge of the bed where I lay like a sarcophagus knit in towards you with great effort and I know the way out is to slide along my body, because it is made up of ramps and incrementally my absence will not be felt and your body can continue to unfurl and reorganize and turn like the hands of a clock, and when I return I will ramp back in again wishing I had more space and knowing that I don’t and won’t, but also sanguine in the fact that I have learned to sleep soundly on the edge and then we are all there each of us who do this ritual all at once on a too green field in a stadium filled with queen sized beds covered in Merimekko sheets (my grandmother Elizabeth who was married to my grandfather Ted had a Merimekko dress) and we are balanced on the edge holding each of you adding and releasing pressure through our skin into your skin to remind you that you are trying to sleep, and we are at once releasing and holding our flesh, yielding unyieldingly to cradle your necks and support your arms while we reach for our phones because we are so bored and we resist picking them up because we know our attention to you will get sloppy and the pull of the lit screen will interfere with our ability to concentrate on doing what we are doing so we don’t pick them up but collectively rest our free hand on them and instead we practice psychic alternate nostril breathing to preserve this mini-universe comprised of breath zephyrs that gently circle around your face, and it is then that we know that you are not entirely you, but an over-filled life-sized water balloon with unforgiving consequences and in sequence we astral project above the field to see that we are multitudes teetering on the edges of beds holding water balloons trying not to move and move enough to get free, but not away, because we are tethered to each other by Macgyver-ed harnesses made of long strands of chewed gum, still kind of stretchy and completely unreliable, balanced on our hip bones threatening to slide down to our ankles like failing elastic on desperation underwear, and we reconfigure ourselves by reaching our thighs apart from each other and tipping our pelvis forward to not move to not upset to not spill something that can’t be put back. 

moving still was commissioned for PushOFF 2021: Speculative Futures

Performance: Steph Cyr, Alison Denham, Kate Franklin, Bynh Ho, Vanessa Kwan
Lighting Design: James Proudfoot
Artistic Support: Susan Gibb, Josh Martin
Production: Susan Gibb, Ben Wilson

Thinking about “steady” by Benjamin Kamino

“I remember late nights, steady rockin’ the mic..” [Black Thought, “Act too (Love of My Life)”]

I think that to be both satirical and uplifting of a subject is quite difficult. Satire as an antagonistic gesture, I think, is quite easy; Alec Baldwin sports a wig and with pursed lips buffoons through a dialogue on stage in attacking (rightly so) the character of Donald Trump to the effective roar of laughter on the SNL stage. But to build a satire around a subject that bears no grievance of it, rather even the opposite; a glorification of said subject is something quite rare and special (precious even?). And this is what I saw on stage at the Western Front on Thursday June 24th from 7:15 – 8:30 pm (PST). 

Maybe something about nostalgia clouds my vision. Before entering the theatre I hear Joyce Rosario ask Justine Chambers: “Is it hot in there?” pointing to the open windows covered by blackout screens. Justine admits that the room is hot, that there will be smoke, and I remove my coat in expectation of a discomforting hour of porting my COVID protections whilst I sweat into a small puddle. 

I enter the room, and a dancer is already in action. Chambers has made a “stage”; colourful LED ERS’, white-light par cans, and a disco ball all point to the singularity of a solo dancer at “center-center”. The hazer is on and I note that the scenography is at once quite contemporary and quite “oldschool”. Contemporary in “colour” and “oldschool” in placement maybe? This theme to me is repeated clearly in the costume of performer Byhn Ho who sports a 70s style pointed colour (beige even?) suit with a multi-colour sequence emblem on their back only becoming visible once they begin turning about two and a half minutes into their dance. 

While on the topic of costumes: I feel this piece would make such a glorious replacement to the current standard of what I know to be a fashion show. I know Justine Chambers as a friend, and I am very aware of their interest, effort, and fascination with “fashion”. I cannot help to think that this work, as much as it is a staging of bodies, is a staging of apparel (garments and jewellery). For example: only once before in my long career as a dancer has a costume designer given me a gold chain to wear (Claudia Fancello for a piece by Ame Henderson). And I remark how rare it feels to have this concern for apparel to be a crucial choreographic concept and not (as often costumes can become) an afterthought for staging a dance. 

It becomes clear by the arrival of the third dancer that the work is a series of overlapping “solos”. Each solo will be a sequence of 4 or 5 songs. Each solo overlaps the next for the duration of a song. I suspect that the dancers themselves choose their playlist. This suspicion is underpinned when during Byhn Ho’s solo I am delighted to hear some Korean language. Byhn Ho is not of Korean decent but I know them personally (and I may be saying this wrong) to be committed to a study of non-white artwork and artists. Regardless of origin it is clear, through the music, that Chambers is busy with a certain effort or interrogation of “pop” aesthetics. 

The dances being done are slowly moving forward, steady rockin’, and in this way seduce a certain and special form of spectation from my body. In reading Chambers’ description of her event “the rock is a whole and joyous dance that can tap into the parasympathetic nervous system” I am somewhat shocked to realize that yes, indeed this was the “feeling” I had. The music is so loud and heavy, the lights are so colourful, flashy, and club-like, the haze and heat is so disorienting, and yet there I sat pleasantly swaying alongside this calm motion of the dancer. 

I remember in grade 8 my school hosted a Much Music Video Dance. This was a school dance in which music videos were projected on a screen whole while music blared. It was actually quite a great form for a dance at that awkward age in grade 8, wanting to dance together, wanting to touch, but not knowing how nor where to look. I remember vividly this moment when the music video for “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None The Richer came on and my crush (Meave Gallagher) was swaying with her friends gazing up at the screen as they all sang along to the song together. I, from across the room, watched her sing, welling up with feelings, and just swayed with her from afar. And, for me, too scared to walk up and ask her to dance, that was enough for me to feel connected to her. 

In Steady, by Justine Chambers, in 2021 — while still living under protocols of separation in regards to health and safety — I was able to be again at the club, flirting with a stranger and hiding in a crowd. In this way I do not complain of the heat, in fact, the heat was crucial in melting away my sorrows accumulated in my body from this past year of isolation. 

And of course, also, the work is hilarious. This “parasympathetic dance” contrasts with all expectations ever begotten by pop music or pop aesthetics as pop, traditionally speaking, is massively loud and brilliantly fast moving with stark drops and high rises of motion and feeling. This “very little” and “almost nothing” being presented through the performing bodies of Steady, satirises pop aesthetics, however without antagonizing the form. Steady bears no complaint but rather proposes a new “sexy”. A place, I must say, when the world does re-open, where I would much rather be. 

https://legacywebsite.front.bc.ca/events/steady/

A special virtual performance by Justine A. Chambers, in collaboration with fourth-year students of Ryerson University’s dance program.

Semi-precious: semaphore is a new iteration of Chambers’ ongoing work-in-progress titled Semi-precious.The project considers the possibilities of the multiple and the potential to build upon collective aspirations through reiterated actions. Developed in collaboration with fourth-year students of Ryerson University’s dance program, the performance will consider wider questions of how we can develop frameworks, or inhabit already existing structures and systems, that allow for our collective desires to unfold

JUSTINE A. CHAMBERS
Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver

Viewers were first introduced to And then this also (2020) by its score, printed in a fuzzy handwritten font on bright pink paper and offered as a handout at the entrance of the exhibition space. I picked it up and squinted, trying to read through the instructions, leveraging the paper away from myself as if the problem were my eyes. I looked to the people around me for hints: perhaps holding the sheet at the right distance or viewing it through 3-D glasses would finally bring the writing into focus. Some words I got, while some remained obscure. But as the score suggested — with the words I could make out — I didn’t stop, didn’t pause. I continued reading and I moved on, placing myself by the wall as Chambers welcomed viewers into the room. Her performance was part of the group exhibition “The Artist’s Studio is Her Bedroom, ” and it took place among that exhibition’s other works.

The score had already tuned viewers’ bodies in to the uncertainty, distraction and care that Chambers practiced as she danced the score and worked through it in movement. She sequenced quotidian gestures as she advanced through the space in a straight line. Her movement was continuous. She kept looking at people, greeting friends and acquaintances, listening to something on her earphones. She only stopped when her timer rang and she took a break. She hung out, she rested, and then she began again from the place where she had stopped. Chambers acknowledged people entering and leaving the space responding to the ever-changing situation, while previously featured movements loosely established themselves through repetition, advancing her trajectory until the timer rang again.

A specific quality of being together developed. Chambers’s greetings and her capacity to acknowledge the concreteness of every moment (a sound, a child running around, a technical problem) slowly relaxed the stiffness of the performance. One person dancing in front of many motionless ones stopped feeling like a demonstrative act and began feeling like a collaborative one, in which viewers could share in a space of uncertainty, distraction, time, togetherness and care.

Chambers’s hyper-reflective clothing and solo performance combined with her totally unpretentious attitude brought viewers into the shared endeavour of her activity. The demanding and almost impossible nature of the score, in both its written and performed shape, disarmed expectations and developed a common attention able to hold Chambers’s investigation of what the exhibition text called “a near-constant experience of being in multiple places at once….as a working artist and a mother.” – VALENTINA DESIDERI

In this score and durational work, And then this also (2020), Chambers explores issues of distraction, adrenaline, time and care as a working mother and artist.

This work was part of the The Artist’s Studio is Her Bedroom group exhibition at the Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver) in early 2020, curated by Kimberly Phillips.

Rooted in friendship and alliance, One hundred more is co-authored by Laurie Young and Justine A. Chambers, and created in collaboration with Emese Csornai, Neda Sanai and Sarah Doucet. This work is urgently informed by our current socio-political climate, which has produced an ever-greater groundswell of racialized bodies resisting, moving in collective anger, revolt and counter-resistance, captured and replayed in an endless torrent of images. Through incremental and iterative actions, an iconic gesture of political resistance becomes the site to house quotidian physical strategies for resistance as embodied by two women of colour. The gestural vocabulary of this work is simultaneously archival and emergent allowing the notion of the minor gesture, as articulated by Erin Manning, to inform action and structure.

“The major is a structural tendency that organizes itself according to predetermined definitions of value. The minor is a force that courses through it, unmorring its structural integrity, problematizing its normative standards”.  (Erin Manning, The Minor Gesture)

Through the emergence of the minor gesture from rhythmic repetition, Young and Chambers invoke the illegible and in the words of Edouard Glissant, “ the right to opacity”.

In Conversation
Laurie: We’ve been busy working through our allyship to specific personal and iconic gestures of political resistance and using rhythm and repetition to feel the force of the gestures in the studio as a way to uncover different forms. Feeling the force might find it’s way as an emotional connection or response to a specific gesture. With the gestures where we feel charge, we dwell within these forms to see what other physical traces emerge. The container for much of our work is the “Hands up, don’t shoot” gesture and the micro movements that lead up to and fall off after that recognizable gesture.

Justine: I think when you have two women of color in front of you working with the force of a gesture again and again and again, the dancing the gesture is less about making it into dance and instead about how to see it again and do it again and feel it again. Committing to continue to revisit it and imbue it with whatever is available to us in the moment or whatever we’ve previously inscribed for ourselves.I’ve been thinking a lot about opacity and for me it’s less about a mask or veneer or a blocking or as shade. But more about an action, a way of being.
Opacity as another standard of measurement that relates to action, that relates to rhythm and that relates to repetition.

Laurie: There are moments in our movement sequences that feel very readable and
then moments where we work with opacity. We think through the words of Édouard Glissant and “the right to opacity for everyone”. Within this opacity lies the desire for these unknowable micro-gestures, or as Erin Manning might say “minor gestures”, to have their own agency and also for us to bear our rights to be unreadable for every gaze. So what gestures are legible and illegible keeps shifting. And this also has to do with the metric. We are in this world of finding pathways into gestures, those pathways may not be readable. There are gestures that some gazes are not privy to understand.

BIOS

Emese Csornai studied architecture at the Technical University of Budapest and fine arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam (BA 2009). Her research in fine arts lead her to lighting design, which two principles keep informing each other in her work as a practicing lighting designer.

www.emesecsornai.com

Sarah Doucet has spent the majority of her life as a performer, choreographer, rehearsal director, dramaturge and costume designer for various Canadian contemporary dance companies, (The Holy Body Tattoo, Vancouver; Animals of Distinction, Montreal) to name her favourites. A recent shift of focus has since led to full time costume designing for various theatre and dance companies across Canada and for the first time, Berlin. 

Neda Sanai is a Berlin based DJ & Producer, their artistic practice moves along a hybrid of various media such as audio, video and performance. Essentially conceiving a mixed media world where the sonic experience is the onset. 

Laurie Young is a choreographer and dancer whose work focuses on the embodiment of unauthorized histories and their representation. Her work brings into focus how relationships are choreographed between human and other than human beings in the theater, museum and city. Laurie has been busy with interdisciplinary projects between arts and science and is a fellow of Volkswagen Foundations Arts and Science and Motion. 

Justine A. Chambers is a dance artist living and working on the unceded Coast Salish territories of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Her movement based practice considers how choreography can be an empathic practice rooted in collaborative creation, close observation, and the body as a site of a cumulative embodied archive. Privileging what is felt over what is seen, she works with dances that are already there – the social choreographies present in the everyday. She is Max Tyler-Hite’s mother.

CREDITS

Concept, Choreography, Performance: LAURIE YOUNG AND JUSTINE A. CHAMBERS

Light design: EMESE CSORNAI

Composition, Sound design: NEDA SANAI

Costume Design: SARAH DOUCET

Artistic Support : JOSH HITE

Rehearsal Direction & Dramaturgy: SARAH DOUCET

Outside Eye: Sergiu Matis

Production: M.I.C.A. – MOVEMENT IN CONTEMPORARY ART 

Thank you: Bruno Pocheron, Kemi Craig, Lee Su-Feh

A PRODUCTION BY LAURIE YOUNG + JUSTINE A. CHAMBERS in co-production with the Visiting Dance Artist Program, a joint initiative of the National Arts Centre and the Canada Council for the Arts, Agora de la Danse – Montreal, and SOPHIENSÆLE.

Supported by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe, the Canada Council for the Arts, Dance Victoria’s Chrystal Dance Prize, British Columbia Arts Council and the Goethe – Institut.
MEDIA PARTNER: Taz. die Tageszeitung 

Choreography Walk invites a shift of gaze to pointedly experience what has already been choreographed around us in relationship to architecture, urban planning, topography and governance, and in turn what has been choreographed within us through out individual and shared histories, cultures and the many spoken and unspoken social codes of conduct. It asks that the public engage with the social choreographies of the everyday; the ways we travel through public spaces together, how we cede or take space, and the ever-shifting constellations of action that determine the movements of the city.

During this silent walk, participants are prompted to take time to feel their own bodies — their gait and pace, the effort needed to walk down a busy street or up a staircase, and the minor and major adjustments made to move in relationship with other bodies and structures around them.

This project decentralizes the choreographer, and places emphasis on the gaze and somatic experience of the participant. It is an open aperture into considering not “What is performance?” but “Where is performance?” Choreography walk creates a fluid space where participants are both spectator and spectacle, and is the confluence of three choreographies: the way the city physically moves individual bodies, and the patterns of multiple bodies moving through the city; the imposed choreographies created for the walk by participating choreographers; and the imposition of a group of people moving silently through the city.

We were introduced to the northwesterly historic neighbourhoods in Hong Kong. Immediately struck by the natural and human-made verticality of Hong Kong Island, we took the staircases, the world’s longest outdoor escalator, and the sky passageways as our foundation for feeling pedestrian movement in the city. Between the old, quiet and spacious and the new, loud and dense, the walk begins in one mode and incrementally transforms into the other. The direction of the walk alternates each time, either beginning by clinging onto the natural landscape or elevated over what was once the ocean.

Concept by: Justine A. Chambers
Created in collaboration with Josh Hite
Choreographic contributions from: Justine A. Chambers, Mao Wei and Wong Tan-ki
Dancers: Wong Tan-ki, Justyne Li, Li Tuokun, students from the Belilos Public School and Jockey Club Government Secondary School
Event Coordinators: Eric Lam Yin-hung, Kaitlyn Liu Hoi-ying, Francesca Chan
Presented at the Hong Kong Arts Festival 2019

Justine A. Chambers & Delores Hutchinson
August 7, 1983

This project begins with a story my grandmother has told me a number of times. A story about dancing on Saturday evenings at The Parkway Ballroom at King Drive and 47th in Bronzeville, on the south side of Chicago. A weekly ritual performed throughout her teens. My grandmother’s name is Delores Hutchinson. She is 90 years old, and was a single mother to four children. My mother is her only daughter. I have always felt my grandmother’s love deeply. We are close, but not in a way where we tell each other everything–in a way that is felt and mutually understood. In this work, I want to create an echo of my grandmother’s dancing body through time.

When I asked my Granny to recreate her dances with me, she agreed on the condition that she chooses the music. She has an extensive music collection which spans 75 years. She has created a 45-song playlist for the project that you can listen to here. In our conversations, I asked her to describe the dances she did at The Parkway Ballroom–while the directions were sometimes vague, I was still able to envision and feel her moving. This, for me, speaks to the value and legitimacy of embodied practice and the transmission of information between bodies.

The choreography we will share in the dance sessions engage collectively reiterated actions as a way to make visible and to house a body which has historically been erased. This project focuses on her body and its movements as a site of joy. I think of dancing together as an opening towards other ways of being in relationship. The project considers these collective dance sessions as a location for togetherness, and, in all its jaggedness, invites a possibility for care.

Tailfeather was commissioned by Jesse Birch at the Nanaimo Art Gallery for the Across the Table Group Exhibition April 26-June 30, 2019.

March 11 – March 29, 2019

Artspeak

With Alison Denham, Billy Marchenski, Aryo Khakpour, Kate Franklin, Lisa Gelley, Josh Martin, Rianne Svelnis, Erika Mitsuhashi, Elissa Hanson, Ileanna Cheladyn, Kaia Shukin & Layla Marcelle Mrozowski

Post Script by Brynn Catherine McNabb

Ame Henderson activating the score

A Restorative Arrangement
by: Deanna Bowen

for all of us was created specifically for the I continue to shape exhibition at Art Museum at University of Toronto, curated by cheyanne turions.

“If the extra-rational potential of artworks can change minds and behaviours, it is important to tend to the affective labour involved in this. Justine A. Chambers offers a place of rest through a malleable scenography that invites gallery visitors to reconfigure it as they see fit, and allow their bodies to unfurl. It recognizes flesh as a way of understanding being in relation with bodies past, present and future. Over the course of the exhibition artists Deanna Bowen, Ame Henderson and Jessica Karuhanga to activate her work, so as to relay the nation of the work as, in Garneau’s words, a place of ‘sensual and intuitive study….where people can find refuge from the ideas that otherwise rule them’.”

–cheyanne turions, curator I continue to shape 

Score design by : Jeremy McCormick
Photographs by: Justine a. Chambers

Commissioned for UNWILLING: Exercises in Melancholy
March 23-April 27, 2018
Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, Haverford College

Curated by: Vanessa Kwan and Kimberly Phillips

The Score
You:

Source from your memory an image of resistance, whether iconic or widely shared, personal or perceived.

Do not perform the gesture itself. Perform the transitions into or out of the gesture. Imagine the transitions without movement. Arrive in the gesture with your whole body at once.

Let the breath determine the rhythm of the sequence of gestures. Never complete an inhale or an exhale. Keep the breath continuous. Slow or interrupt the breath — do not arrest or stop breathing. Do not predetermine the length of each breath. Allow this rhythm to be erratic /changeable.

Attempt for each gesture to be framed within a standing body with the hands incrementally moving upwards, but never arriving symmetrically above your head.

Count each gesture — audible or not.

Work on being illegible.

I:

Perform 100 gestures in 100 different locations in one day.

Use my whole body as an imperfect recording device, record one gesture during the performance at each of the 100 locations.

Hold this gesture in my body. Memorize the feeling.

Use the recorded gestures to map a route between locations.

Perform the 100 recorded gestures one time in one location.

Perform the felt gesture map at the entrance of the location.

Let my breath determine the rhythm of the sequence of gestures. Never complete an inhale or an exhale. Keep my breath continuous. Slow or interrupt the breath — do not arrest or stop breathing. Do not predetermine the length of each breath. Allow this rhythm to be erratic /changeable.

Count each gesture — audible or not.

Work on being illegible.

Photographs by Ryan M. Collerd

Family Dinner: The Lexicon is a choreographic culling of each immersive dining performance of Family Dinner, to date. While Family Dinner prioritizes what is felt over what is seen and offers a co-creation with dinner guests, The Lexicon proposes choreography as a method for archiving gesture. The 227 gestures have been sourced from the people present at each dinner. The bodies of the performers are used as imperfect recording devices to hold each dinner guest in the memory of the work. The Lexicon re-organizes and categorizes the inventory of dining gestures to create a living catalogue of movement.

Created in collaboration with Alison Denham, Kate Franklin, Lisa Gelley, Aryo Khakpour, Josh Martin, Billy Marchenski, Marie Claire Forté, Claudia Fancello, Alanna Kraajeveld, Adam Kinner, Jean Benoit Labrecque and Katie Ward.

Performed by: Marie Claire Forté, Claudia Fancello, Alanna Kraajeveld, Adam Kinner, Jean Benoit Labrecque and Katie Ward
Lighting Design by: James Proudfoot
Sound design by: Nancy Tam
Video documentation by: John Moon

Agora de la danse, Montreal – March 11th, 2017

Semi-precious: the faceting of a gemstone only appears complete and critical (in process)

Performed by and Created in Collaboration with: Alison Denham, Billy Marchenski, Kate Franklin, Erika Mitsuhashi, Elissa Hanson, Ileanna Cheladyn, Aryo Khakpour, Lisa Gelley, Josh Martin, Rianne Svelnis, Layla Marcelle Mrozowski, Kaia Shukin, 

First iteration of the research performed in the Second Floor Galleries, Vancouver Special: Ambivalent Pleasures – Vancouver Art Gallery

In its first iteration, Semi precious was a decentralized choreography  performed throughout the second floor galleries in the exhibition Vancouver Special: Ambivalent Pleasure at the Vancouver Art Gallery. The choreography has been made in response to observing visitor’s body movement inside the exhibition, as well as the figures found in the artworks in the exhibition and the artists’ body movements in their video interviews. The movement process of the performers is borrowed from the actions and principles of faceting gemstones.

Photo by: Daria Mikhaylyuk

We’re Making a Band is a research project developed by Ben Brown and me. Joined by drummers Joy Mullen and Mili Hong and dancers Ashley Whitehead and Kevin Li, this research project works to transpose the physicality of the drummer into the choreographic. Our original proposition was about the idiomatic movements of drummers, specifically how the physical approach to the drum kit may (or may not) be defined by gender. As we began to work there was a shift away from the questions around gender and we rested up on the movements of the body in relation to the kit framed by specific manipulations of rhythmic phrases. Dancers and drummers are interchangeable, the question of sound is moot and the unconscious movements of the body take precedent.

Studio research open for public viewing:

Thursdays January 14, 21, 28, 2016: 11.30am-1pm
Thursday February 11, 2016: 11.30am-12.30pm
Free admission.
http://thedancecentre.ca/justine_a_chambers_residency

Supported by the BC Arts Council.

an installation by Justine A. Chambers and Deanna Peters
inspired by The Names of Dancers, an anonymous online dance of proper names choreographed by La calq

Many female choreographers have been at the forefront of major movements in dance. However, we see a growing trend in the already limited media about dance/choreography where female choreographers are rarely being mentioned or their contributions to dance history are being excluded entirely.

As female choreographers we feel the need to be vigilant by creating a physical space to name our colleagues, mentors and peers (past and present). This binder, installed in the lobby of the Faris Theatre at Vancouver’s The Dance Centre, is an invitation for the public to account for, broadcast, show reverence for and observe the work of these women.

Thursday November 19, 1-3pm
Saturday November 21, 2-4pm

Inspired by the Soundwalk, participants will be lead on a two-hour silent walk through the city of Vancouver. The Choreography Walk will invite eight curated dance/performance-makers to develop fleeting choreographic works that respond to “choreography as a way of seeing the world” (Klein, Valk, Gormly). Where the Soundwalk is “an excursion whose main purpose is listening to the environment….to rediscover and reactivate our sense of hearing” (Weterkamp), the Choreography walk invites choreographers to create work that will re-shuffle context, broaden participants perception and draw attention to the many choreographic acts of the everyday.

conceived and directed by Justine A. Chambers.
choreographed by prOphecy Sun & Mirae Rosner, Deanna Peters, Naomi Brand, Emmalena Frederickson, Donna Redlick, Josh Hite & Justine A. Chambers, Alexa Mardon
document designed by Deanna Peters/Mutable Subject
map by Erick Villagomez

design by Mutable Subject & Justine A. Chambers

This audiobook was created with Vancouver-based emerging dance artists. Each contribution was recorded in one take, as a live performance.

Performed by: Rianne Svelnis, Andrea Cownden, Sophia Wolfe, Ralph Escamillan, Avery Smith, Kevin Li, Diego Romero, Renée Sigouin, Kaitey DeSante, Layla Mrozowski, Ileanna Cheladyn, Hayley Gawthrop, Matilda Çobanli,  Kaia Shukin,  Natalie Gan, Soroush Emami.

Many thanks to Kaia Shukin for getting this audiobook online.

Contents

8 Experience / memory / multiplicity
Justine A. Chambers and Marie Claire Forté
Performed by Rianne Švelnis
Download

11 Shared Library
Compiled by Marie Claire Forté
Performed by Andrea Cownden
Download

19 Exclusion 
Caroline Gravel
Performed by Sophia Wolfe
Download

24 Reframing Time and Space – Altered Inspiration 
Stephen Thompson
Performed by Ralph Escamillan
Download

27 Look at the Sand and Then the Sky
Bee Pallomina
Performed by Rianne Švelnis
Download

30 Consider Cooking
Claudia Fancello
Performed by Avery Smith
Download

34 Some Things We Shared
Compiled by Laurie Young
Performed by Andrea Cownden
Download

47 Stigmergy
Peter Trosztmer
Performed by Kevin Li
Download

49 On Mindfulness
Christopher House
Performed by Diego Romero
Download

53 Floating
Michael Trent
Performed by Renée Sigouin
Download: Part 1
Download: Part 2
Download: Part 3
Download: Part 4
Download: Part 5

72 (no title)
Tedd Robinson
Performed by Kaitey DeSante
Download

75 Assembly and Dispersion: Notes from Inside
Naomi Brand
Performed by Layla Mrozowski
Download

78 aesthetics becoming [ALWAYS ELSEWHERE]
Benjamin Kamino
Performed by Ileanna Cheladyn
Download

83 Dances for Anyone in the World
Compiled by Jennifer Mascall
Performed by Hayley Gawthrop
Download

126 Retrace
Freya Björg Olafson

129 Le grand écart 
Karine Denault
Performed by Matilda Çobanli
Download

135 Selfishness as a Recipe for Change (in Dance)
Andrew Tay
Performed by Kaia Shukin
Download

137 Au début, il n’y avait rien, sauf les amis, ou enfin presque
Martin Bélanger
Performed by Matilda Çobanli
Download

140 Practicing Eight Days
Ame Henderson
Performed by Natalie Gan
Download: Part 1
Download: Part 2
Download: Part 3

175 What do you do when you’re not ready, but need to be ready?
Marie Claire Forté
Performed by Kaia Shukin and Soroush Emami
Download

ELSEWHERE

8 DAYS III/Bananapanda Floating Page
Conceived and compiled by Katie Ward

8 DAYS III/Bananapanda audiobook
Arranged by Justine A. Chambers

design by Mutable Subject

PUBLIC RECORDINGS 8 DAYS IV : APPEL À PARTICIPANTS | DATE LIMITE : 1 DÉCEMBRE 2014 UN RASSEMBLEMENT DE CHORÉGRAPHES À ARTSCAPE GIBRALTAR POINT, TORONTO ISLAND 14 au 23 JUIN 2015
8 DAYS est une rencontre intensive ouverte à tous les chorégraphes canadiens. Le rassemblement propose la curiosité, le questionnement et la réflexion pour approfondir les pratiques chorégraphiques.

Le projet itératif 8 DAYS cible le besoin d’un perfectionnement chorégraphique d’égal à égal au Canada et soutient que la pertinence de la forme d’art en dépend. Mis sur pied en 2012 par Ame Henderson et Tedd Robinson, 8 DAYS IV est issu du désir des participants à poursuivre l’échange. Les codes d’une démarche artistique agissent intimement sur l’œuvre. Théorie et pratique, articulation et création, action et réflexion, et les systèmes desquels l’on dépend ou non s’entrecroisent autour du développement créatif. 8 DAYS est une occasion de contextualiser son travail, de partager les approches et les défis pour se provoquer, se revigorer et s’inspirer entre créateurs. L’événement se soustrait des impératifs de production. La rencontre crée un espace pour se pencher sur sa pratique et favoriser de nouvelles possibilités artistiques par l’expérimentation et le dialogue rigoureux.

À la suite d’un appel à participants, SIX chorégraphes canadiens œuvrant ici ou à l’étranger seront invités à se joindre aux 20 participants des trois éditions précédentes. Une cohorte de 26 artistes se réuniront pour une aventure cocréée, à l’écoute de son environnement, mise en œuvre par ceux présents et guidée par leurs expériences imbriquées et divergentes. Les artistes sont appelés à faire preuve d’ouverture quant à la forme et à la nature de l’événement, de volonté de partage et d’un esprit critique dans les échanges. Parce qu’il y a plus de participants d’année en année, nous demandons que tous soient disponibles à de nouvelles façons de se rencontrer. Le comité de sélection est composé de trois anciens participants et d’un invité.

Chaque chorégraphe est responsable d’une partie de la rencontre. Les journées sont principalement structurées autour des repas communs (préparation, consommation et ménage). Manifestation du travail collectif, les repas éclairent comment l’on peut fonctionner et se nourrir au sein d’un groupe. Les journées peuvent aussi compter le partage de recherche et l’échange de méthodes, la lecture, la discussion libre, ainsi que des temps de repos et de réflexion personnelle.

Il est impératif que 8 DAYS se mette en rapport avec la communauté élargie. À cette fin, on demande à chaque participant de répondre à l’idée de la documentation et à la nécessité de partager leur expérience. Jusqu’à maintenant, 8 DAYS a produit deux livrets financés par les contributions personnelles des participants. Chaque artiste propose et crée une réponse particulière à 8 DAYS pendant ou après sa conclusion. La documentation cosignée sera ensuite diffusée sur une plateforme choisie par les artistes afin de partager le processus et ses résultantes.
Logistique 8 DAYS IV se tiendra à Artscape Gibraltar Point à Toronto Island. L’ancienne école offre 35 000 pieds carrés d’espace à usage multiple. Les artistes profitent d’hébergement semi-privé, de grands studios clairs, d’une cuisine partagée, d’une salle de détente, d’un réseau wi-fi gratuit et d’un service de location de vélo. Le terrain idyllique au bord de l’eau donne l’impression d’une escapade dans un chalet, mais est à quinze minutes en traversier du centre- ville de Toronto.

Les artistes arriveront le dimanche 14 juin et partiront le mardi 23 juin 2015. Public Recordings dépose une demande de subvention pour payer le déplacement, l’hébergement et les repas. Les résultats de la demande devraient être connus à la fin mars 2014. Nous encourageons les participants à faire d’autres demandes de financement pour soutenir leur participation.

DATE LIMITE : 1 DÉCEMBRE 2014 Veuillez envoyer une lettre d’intérêt et une biographie récente ainsi que des extraits de votre travail pour contextualiser votre dossier. Il y a un nouveau comité de sélection chaque année et ainsi, les artistes ayant posé leur candidature pour une édition antérieure sont encouragés à le faire de nouveau. Dans la lettre, détaillez vos préoccupations chorégraphiques actuelles et précisez en quoi l’événement pourrait enrichir votre pratique. Que souhaitez-vous partager avec le groupe ? Quelle sorte d’activité aimeriez-vous diriger ? Soyez concis et ciblez vos documents d’appui dans l’optique précise de ce projet.

Nous acceptons les demandes en anglais et en français. Veuillez noter que la langue de travail sera surtout l’anglais. Envoyez votre dossier par voie électronique. Les documents d’appuis doivent être en pièces jointes ou disponibles en ligne. Le cas échéant, assurez-vous d’inclure les liens et les accès nécessaires pour les visionner. Veuillez noter que nous ne traiterons pas les demandes envoyées par la poste.
Pour plus d’information ou pour soumettre un dossier : eightdays (at) publicrecordings (dot) org  

Historique du projet 8 DAYS s’est déroulé à la B.A.R.N. à Lac Leslie dans la région du Pontiac au Québec du 16 au 24 juin 2012. 10 Gates Dancing Inc. et Public Recordings étaient hôtes et partenaires de la rencontre.
Comité de sélection : Sara Coffin, Ame Henderson, Tedd Robinson, Stephen Thompson
Participants : Justine A. Chambers, Claudia Fancello, Marie Claire Forté, Ame Henderson, Benjamin Kamino, Davida Monk, Tedd Robinson, Stephen Thompson, Michael Trent

8 DAYS II s’est déroulé à Ten Fifteen Maple et au Dance Centre à Vancouver du 10 au 18 août 2013. Justine A. Chambers et Public Recordings étaient hôtes de la rencontre, et les partenaires étaient le Conseil des Arts du Canada, Public Recordings, Ten Fifteen Maple et le Dance Centre.
Comité de sélection : Martin Bélanger, Justine A. Chambers, Benjamin Kamino, Davida Monk
Participants : Naomi Brand, Justine A. Chambers, Karine Denault, Claudia Fancello, Marie Claire Forté, Caroline Gravel, Ame Henderson, Christopher House, Davida Monk, Andrew Tay, Stephen Thompson, Michael Trent, Laurie Young

8 DAYS III s’est déroulé à Artscape Gibraltar Point du 16 au 24 juin 2014. Public Recordings était hôte de la rencontre, et les partenaires étaient le Conseil des arts du Canada, Artscape Gibraltar Point, Toronto Dance Theatre et 10 Gates Dancing Inc. Comité de sélection : Naomi Brand, Caroline Gravel, Robin Poitras, Laurie Young Participants : Martin Bélanger, Naomi Brand, Justine A. Chambers, Karine Denault, Claudia Fancello, Marie Claire Forté, Caroline Gravel, Ame Henderson, Christopher House, Benjamin Kamino, Jennifer Mascall, Freya Olafson, Bee Pallomina, Tedd Robinson, Andrew Tay, Stephen Thompson, Michael Trent, Peter Trosztmer, Katie Ward, Laurie Young

Family Dinner would like to acknowledge the support of:

The Canada Council for the Arts

British Columbia Arts Council

The Field House Residency Program

The Scotia Bank Dance Centre

Jeanne Holmes – curator  Dance in Vancouver

Mutable Subject

Olla Urban Flower Project

Without you, dinner wouldn’t have made it to the table.

Photo by Yvonne Chew

PUBLIC RECORDINGS 8 DAYS III: CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS | DEADLINE JANUARY 15, 2014 A GATHERING OF CHOREOGRAPHERS AT ARTSCAPE GIBRALTAR POINT, TORONTO ISLAND JUNE 16-24, 2014

8 DAYS is an intensive encounter open to all Canadian choreographers. The gathering values curiosity, creative risk- taking and reflection with a fluidity around theory and practice in order to deepen choreographic work.

Selected by open call, six Canadian choreographers working in Canada or abroad will be invited to join past participants of the two previous 8 DAYS encounters. The selection committee is comprised of three past participants and a guest. Up to 20 artists will embark on a co-authored adventure influenced by its surroundings, created by those present, and guided by their overlapping and divergent experience. Participants are asked to arrive with an openness about what this encounter might be, a willingness to expose and share, and a rigour around intellectual and artistic exchange.

The ongoing 8 DAYS project addresses a need for peer-to-peer choreographic development in Canada, insisting that this mode is crucial to the continued relevance of the art form. Instigated in 2012 by Ame Henderson and Tedd Robinson, the subsequent encounters stem from the 8 DAYS and 8 DAYS II participants’ desire to continue this artistic exchange. How dance artists work is intimately related to what they create. Theory and practice, talking and making, doing and reflecting, and the systems we do and don’t rely on are understood as interwoven threads of creative development. 8 DAYS is an opportunity to collide practices to provoke, invigorate and inspire each other. 8 DAYS escapes the pressures of production-driven work to create space to reflect on one’s current practice and to envision – through dialogue and experimentation – new artistic possibilities.

Each participant is responsible for facilitating or planning a portion of the shared time. Days are primarily structured around group meals and also include sharing and exploring work and methods, reading, open discussion, as well as time for leisure and personal reflection.

It is imperative that 8 DAYS engages with the community at large. To this end, each participant will be asked to respond to the concept of documentation in order to share the experience. Participants propose and create responses specific to 8 DAYS during or immediately following the gathering. This co-authored documentation is then disseminated via a framework determined by the contributors in order to share the process and its outcomes. Logistical Details 8 DAYS will be held at Artscape Gibraltar Point on Toronto Island. Housed in a former school, Artscape Gibraltar Point, offers 35,000 square feet of multi-use space. Artists will enjoy private accommodations, bright and spacious studios, a shared kitchen and lounge, free wi-fi, and bike rentals. This idyllic beachfront property has the feeling of a remote cottage getaway but is a short fifteen-minute ferry ride from downtown Toronto. The participating artists will arrive on Monday, June 16th, and depart Tuesday, June 24th, 2014. Public Recordings has applied for funding to cover travel costs and meals. Funding results should be known by the end of March 2014. Participants are encouraged to seek further funding to support their participation.

DEADLINE: Jan 15, 2014 Please submit a letter of interest and recent biography in addition to any work samples that are relevant to contextualize your application. Previous applicants are encouraged to reapply. Detail your current choreographic concerns, address how this encounter might enrich your practice and position yourself in regard to the documentation process. Please keep your responses brief and select any support material carefully with the aim of addressing this specific opportunity.

Applications can be submitted in English or French. Please note: the working language will be primarily English. All materials must be submitted electronically. Support materials must be included as an attachment or available online. Make sure to include all necessary links and access information. Please note, applications sent by mail cannot be processed. For more information and to apply: eightdays (at) publicrecordings (dot) org

Project History 8 DAYS was held at la B.A.R.N. on Lac Leslie in the Pontiac Region of Quebec, from June 16 – 24, 2012. It was hosted and supported by 10 Gates Dancing Inc. and Public Recordings.

Selection committee: Sara Coffin, Ame Henderson, Tedd Robinson, Stephen Thompson Participants: Justine A. Chambers, Claudia Fancello, Marie Claire Forté, Ame Henderson, Benjamin Kamino, Davida Monk, Tedd Robinson, Stephen Thompson, Michael Trent

8 DAYS II was held at ten fifteen maple and The Dance Centre from August 10-18, 2013. It was hosted by Justine A. Chambers and Public Recordings, and received support from the Canada Council for the Arts, Public Recordings, The Dance Centre and ten fifteen maple.

Selection committee: Martin Bélanger, Justine A. Chambers, Benjamin Kamino, Davida Monk Participants: Naomi Brand, Justine A. Chambers, Karine Denault, Claudia Fancello, Marie Claire Forté, Caroline Gravel, Ame Henderson, Christopher House, Davida Monk, Andrew Tay, Stephen Thompson, Michael Trent, Laurie Young

PUBLIC RECORDINGS 8 DAYS III : APPEL À PARTICIPANTS | DATE LIMITE : LE 15 JANVIER 2014 UN RASSEMBLEMENT DE CHORÉGRAPHES À ARTSCAPE GIBRALTAR POINT, TORONTO ISLAND 16 au 24 JUIN 2014

8 DAYS est une rencontre intensive ouverte à tous les chorégraphes canadiens. Le rassemblement valorise la curiosité, la prise de risque créative et la réflexion, ainsi qu’une fluidité entre théorie et pratique pour approfondir le travail chorégraphique.

À la suite d’un appel à participants, six artistes canadiens œuvrant ici ou à l’étranger seront invités à se joindre aux participants des deux éditions précédentes de 8 DAYS. Le comité de sélection est composé de trois anciens participants et d’un invité. Jusqu’à 20 artistes se réuniront pour une aventure cocréée à l’écoute du contexte, mise en œuvre par ceux présents et guidée par leurs expériences imbriquées et divergentes. Les participants sont appelés à faire preuve d’ouverture par rapport à la forme et à la nature de l’événement, de volonté de partage et de rigueur dans les échanges intellectuels et artistiques.

Le projet itératif 8 DAYS cible le besoin d’un perfectionnement chorégraphique d’égal à égal au Canada et soutient que la pertinence de la forme d’art en dépend. Ame Henderson et Tedd Robinson mettent le projet sur pied en 2012. Les rencontres subséquentes résultent du désir des participants à poursuivre le travail ensemble. Les codes de la démarche agissent intimement sur l’œuvre. Théorie et pratique, articulation et création, action et réflexion, et les systèmes desquels l’on dépend ou non s’entrecroisent autour du développement créatif. 8 DAYS est une occasion de faire dialoguer les approches pour se provoquer, se revigorer et s’inspirer entre créateurs. 8 DAYS offre une occasion de se soustraire aux impératifs de production afin de se pencher sur sa pratique et d’imaginer – par l’entremise du dialogue et de l’expérimentation – de nouvelles possibilités artistiques.

Chaque participant est responsable de guider ou de planifier une partie du temps commun. Les journées sont principalement structurées autour des repas communs, et peuvent comprendre des périodes de partage et d’échange de méthodes, de présentation formelle, de lecture, de discussion libre, ainsi que des temps de repos et de réflexion personnelle.

Il est impératif que 8 DAYS se mette en rapport avec la communauté élargie. À cette fin, chaque participant doit répondre à l’idée de la documentation et à la nécessité de partager leur expérience. Les participants proposent et créent des réponses particulières à la rencontre pendant ou après sa conclusion. La documentation cosignée sera ensuite diffusée sur une plateforme choisie par les artistes afin de partager le processus et ses résultantes.

Logistique
8 DAYS III se tiendra à Artscape Gibraltar Point à Toronto Island. L’ancienne école offre 35 000 pieds carrés d’espace à usage multiple. Les artistes profitent d’hébergement privé, de grands studios clairs, d’une cuisine partagée, d’une salle de détente, d’un réseau wi-fi gratuit et d’un service de location de vélo. Le terrain idyllique au bord de l’eau donne l’impression d’une escapade dans un chalet, mais est à quinze minutes en traversier du centre- ville de Toronto.
Les artistes arriveront le lundi 16 juin et partiront le mardi 24 juin 2014. Public Recordings a déposé une demande de subvention pour payer le déplacement, l’hébergement et les repas. Les résultats de la demande devraient être connus à la fin mars 2014. Nous encourageons les participants à faire d’autres demandes de financement pour soutenir leur participation.
DATE LIMITE : 15 janvier 2014 Veuillez envoyer une lettre d’intérêt et une biographie récente ainsi que des extraits de votre travail pour contextualiser votre dossier. Dans la lettre, détaillez vos préoccupations chorégraphiques actuelles et précisez en quoi l’événement pourrait enrichir votre pratique. Soyez concis et ciblez vos documents d’appui dans l’optique précise de ce projet.

Nous acceptons les demandes en anglais et en français. Veuillez noter que la langue de travail sera surtout l’anglais.

Veuillez soumettre le dossier par voie électronique. Les documents d’appuis doivent être en pièces jointes ou disponibles en ligne. Le cas échéant, assurez-vous d’inclure les liens et les accès nécessaires pour les visionner. Veuillez noter que nous ne traiterons pas les demandes envoyées par la poste.

Pour plus d’information ou pour soumettre un dossier : eightdays (at) publicrecordings (dot) org
Historique du projet 8 DAYS s’est déroulé à la B.A.R.N. à Lac Leslie dans la région du Pontiac au Québec du 16 au 24 juin 2012. 10 Gates Dancing Inc. et Public Recordings étaient hôtes et partenaires de la rencontre.
Comité de sélection : Sara Coffin, Ame Henderson, Tedd Robinson, Stephen Thompson Participants : Justine A. Chambers, Claudia Fancello, Marie Claire Forté, Ame Henderson, Benjamin Kamino, Davida Monk, Tedd Robinson, Stephen Thompson, Michael Trent

8 DAYS II s’est déroulé à ten fifteen maple et au Dance Centre à Vancouver du 10 au 18 août 2013. Justine A. Chambers et Public Recordings étaient hôtes de la rencontre, et les partenaires étaient le Conseil des Arts du Canada, Public Recordings, ten fifteen maple et le Dance Centre.
Comité de sélection : Martin Bélanger, Justine A. Chambers, Benjamin Kamino, Davida Monk Participants : Naomi Brand, Justine A. Chambers, Karine Denault, Claudia Fancello, Marie Claire Forté, Caroline Gravel, Ame Henderson, Christopher House, Davida Monk, Andrew Tay, Stephen Thompson, Michael Trent, Laurie Young

PUBLIC RECORDINGS

APPEL À PARTICIPANTS

8 DAYS II

UN RASSEMBLEMENT DE CHORÉGRAPHES À

TEN FIFTEEN MAPLE & THE DANCE CENTRE

10 au 18 AOÛT 2013

Une rencontre privilégiée de huit jours invite des chorégraphes canadiens à se pencher sur les notions de pensées et de processus chorégraphiques. Les valeurs de base du regroupement : la curiosité, la prise de risque créative et la réflexion. Une approche fluide aux principes de la théorie et de la pratique favorisera l’approfondissement de la pratique chorégraphique.

À la suite d’un appel à tous, six artistes sélectionnés seront invités à se joindre à six des participants de l’édition inaugurale de 8 DAYS. Les douze participants se réuniront pour une aventure cocréée à l’écoute du contexte, mise en œuvre par ceux présents et guidée par leurs expériences connexes de chorégraphes. Nous demandons aux participants de faire preuve d’ouverture par rapport à la forme et à la nature du rassemblement, d’une volonté de partage et de rigueur dans les échanges intellectuels et artistiques.

Le projet continu cible le besoin d’un perfectionnement chorégraphique d’égal à égal au Canada ; nous soutenons que la pertinence de notre forme d’art en dépend. Les codes de la pratique agissent intimement sur l’œuvre – théorie et pratique, articulation et création, action et réflexion s’entrecroisent autour du développement créatif. Ici, nous pourrons provoquer et revigorer la question et explorer nos pratiques en dialogue avec d’autres créateurs.

Nous suspendrons le quotidien pour un temps. 8 DAYS offre une occasion de se soustraire aux impératifs de production afin de cultiver les idées créatives et d’imaginer de nouvelles méthodes de travail. Le rassemblement offre un lieu pour réfléchir à sa pratique et sonder de nouvelles avenues artistiques par l’entremise du dialogue et de l’expérimentation.

Chaque participant sera responsable de guider ou de planifier une partie du temps commun. Chaque jour comportera différents modules organisés par les artistes. Par exemple, une journée pourrait comprendre des périodes de présentation formelle de matériau, du travail en studio et une discussion ouverte, ainsi que des repas en groupe et un temps de réflexion personnel.

8 DAYS engagera la communauté élargie grâce à la documentation et à la diffusion de celle-ci. Nous demanderons à chaque participant de répondre à l’idée de la documentation et à la nécessité de partager leur expérience avec les professionnels de danse absents de l’événement. Ainsi, les artistes créeront des propositions réflexives lors de l’événement ou immédiatement après sa conclusion. La documentation cosignée sera ensuite diffusée sur une plateforme choisie par les artistes afin de partager le processus et ses résultantes.

Logistique

8 DAYS se tiendra à Ten Fifteen Maple à Vancouver, C.-B.. Situé à Hadden Park, Ten Fifteen Maple est une maison de campagne sur la plage de 850 pieds carrés, qui compte une cuisine complète et deux petits espaces de travail. Entouré de parcs publics et lové entre le Maritime Museum et Kits Beach, le lieu est actuellement partagé entre les artistes Rebecca Bayer, Justine A. Chambers, Josh Hite, Billy Marchenski et Kristen Roos. Leur recherche collective est basée en psychogéographie et en phénoménologie. Pour toute la durée de la rencontre, un grand studio de danse sera disponible au Dance Centre, facilement accessible par aqua bus.

Les artistes arriveront le samedi 10 août et partirons le dimanche 18 août. Public Recordings a déposé une demande de subvention pour payer le déplacement, l’hébergement et les repas. Les résultats de la demande devraient être connus en début mars 2013. Nous encourageons les participants à faire d’autres demandes de financement pour soutenir leur participation.

DATE LIMITE : 21 janvier 2013

Veuillez envoyer une lettre d’intérêt et une biographie récente ainsi que des extraits de votre travail pour contextualiser votre dossier. Dans la lettre, détaillez vos préoccupations chorégraphiques actuelles et précisez en quoi l’événement pourrait enrichir votre pratique. Soyez concis et ciblez vos documents d’appui dans l’optique précise de cette occasion.

Nous acceptons les demandes en anglais et en français. Veuillez noter que l’anglais sera la langue de travail.

Veuillez soumettre le dossier par voie électronique. Les documents d’appuis doivent être en pièces jointes ou disponibles en ligne. Le cas échéant, assurez-vous d’inclure les liens et les accès nécessaires pour les visionner. Veuillez noter que nous ne traiterons pas les demandes envoyées par la poste.

Pour plus d’information ou pour soumettre un dossier : eightdays (at) publicrecordings (dot) org

PUBLIC RECORDINGS

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS

8 DAYS II

A GATHERING OF CHOREOGRAPHERS AT TEN FIFTEEN MAPLE & THE DANCE CENTRE

AUGUST 10-18, 2013

Held over eight days, 8 DAYS is an intensive encounter for Canadian choreographers. The gathering values curiosity, creative risk-taking and reflection with a fluidity around the notions of theory and practice in order to engender the deepening of choreographic practice.

Selected by open call, six Canadian choreographers from across the country will be invited to join six past participants of the inaugural 8 DAYS. These 12 artists will embark on a co-authored adventure influenced by its surroundings, created by those who are present, and guided by their overlapping experience as choreographers. Participants are asked to arrive with an openness about what this encounter might be, a willingness to expose and share, and a rigour around intellectual and artistic exchange.

The ongoing 8 DAYS project addresses a need for peer-to-peer choreographic development in Canada, insisting that it is a mode that is crucial to the continued relevance of the art form. The question of how we practice is intimately related to what we create – understanding theory and practice, talking and making, doing and reflecting, as interwoven threads of creative development.  Here we can provoke and invigorate this question, and explore our practices in dialogue with other makers.

With everyday realities suspended for a time, 8 DAYS is an opportunity to escape the pressures of production-driven work in order to expand creative ideas and to imagine new ways of working. It creates space to reflect on one’s current practice and to envision – through dialogue and experimentation – new artistic possibilities.

Each participant will be responsible for facilitating and/or planning a portion of the shared time. The days will be divided between different activities, with participants responsible for the organization of modules. A typical day might include blocks for sharing work, studio-based exploration, and/or open discussion as well as shared meals and time for leisure and personal reflection.

The larger community will engage with 8 DAYS through its documentation and the subsequent dissemination of this material. Each participant will be asked to respond to the concept of documentation in order to share the experience with other dance professionals whom have not attended. To this end, each participant will create reflective responses that will be produced during or immediately following the gathering. This co-authored documentation will then be disseminated via a framework determined by the participants in order to share the process and its outcomes.

Logistical Details
8 DAYS will be held at ten fifteen maple in Vancouver, BC. Situated in Hadden Park, ten fifteen maple is an 850 sq. foot, beach-side field house outfitted with a full kitchen and two small work spaces. Surrounded by public parks and nestled between the Maritime Museum and Kits Beach, it is currently the shared studio for artists Rebecca Bayer, Justine A. Chambers, Josh Hite, Billy Marchenski and Kristen Roos whose collective research is rooted in psycho geography and phenomenology. A large dance studio will be available for the duration of the encounter at The Dance Centre, just a short aqua bus ride away.

The participating artists will arrive on Saturday, August 10th, and depart Sunday, August 18th. Public Recordings has applied for funding to cover travel costs, off-site accommodation and meals. Funding results should be known by the beginning of March 2013. Participants are encouraged to seek further funding to support their participation.

DEADLINE: Jan 21, 2013
Please submit a letter of interest and recent biography in addition to any work samples that are relevant to contextualize your application. The letter of interest should detail your current choreographic concerns and address how participation in this encounter might enrich your practice. Please keep your responses brief and select any support material carefully with the aim of addressing this specific opportunity.

Applications can be submitted in English or French. Please note: the working language will be in English.

All materials must be submitted electronically. Support materials must be included as an attachment or available online. Make sure to include all necessary links and access information. Please note, applications sent by mail cannot be processed.

For more information and to apply: eightdays (at) publicrecordings (dot) org

November 9, 2012

8pm – 10pm

2nd floor

A Study for Enters and Exits

Performancy by: Justine A. Chambers, Alison Denham and Tiffany Tregarthen

Lighting design by: James Proudfoot

Follow the activities/musings and creations of the artists of tenfifteen maple here:
http://tenfifteenmaple.org

the artists:

rebecca bayer
justine a. chambers
josh hite
billy marchenski
kristen roos

Our projects will collaborate with the Hadden park community on works investigating psychogeographical relationships between local histories and forms of mapping. Through sound, collective recordings, temporary installations, performances, screenings, workshops, conversations and dinners, the projects will be informed by people and their activities within the park.

for the next 2 and a bit years josh hite (visual artist), billy marchenski (theatre/movement artist), rebecca bayer (architect/visual artist), kristen roos (sound artist) and i will be in residence at the hadden park field house.

here’s what the vancouver sun extrapolated from a conversation with josh hite:

http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/Vancouver+park+board+converts+seven+more+vacant+field+houses/7328260/story.html

i am performing with the 605 collective friday october 5 and saturday october 6 at the timms centre for the arts.

click here for more info: http://timmscentre.ca/

su feh writes on dance, food, drink and love

http://leesufeh.blogspot.ca/2012_09_01_archive.html

The Talking, Thinking, Dancing Body is a conversation about aesthetics, context and artistic processes. Grounded in the experience of observing dance in both performance and rehearsal, this conversation will be amplified and facilitated by battery opera’s Artistic Director Lee Su-Feh and Vancouver-based dancer, teacher, choreographer Justine Chambers – two opinionated and charismatic artists with a rich and varied dance experience to draw from.

For the logistics go to:

http://www.batteryopera.com/the-talking-thinking-dancing-body/

Join lighting designer, James Proudfoot, and I for an informal presentation of ‘enters and exits’ an installation in progress. Come see, discuss and learn a little more about my practice and current creation interests.

Friday, August 17th, 2012
7:30pm
Studio 303 – 372 Ste. Catherines Ouest.

Please note the building is not accessible after 8pm.

the fishing line corridor….in progress

July 6th and 7th
The 605 Collective – Inheritor Album
The Playhouse, 8:30pm

http://www.dancingontheedge.org/605Inheritor.php

July 12th and 13th
adelheid – this time
Studio T – SFU Woodwards, 8:30pm

http://www.dancingontheedge.org/adelheidthistime.php

In Ottawa on June 15 and 16? I’ll be performing in the works of The 605 Collective and adelheid at the Canada Dance Festival.

http://canadadance.ca/2012-artists/june15/

http://canadadance.ca/2012-artists/june-16/

Sunday May 13 @ 2:00 p.m.
Justine A. Chambers + Arts Umbrella
Roundhouse Community Arts and Rec Centre
Pay-what-you-can (children 12 and under + moms are FREE*)
Reserve tickets at EventBrite.com
 
Justine A. Chambers is a Vancouver-based contemporary dance artist. Her piece for Dance Allsorts, A Study for Enters and Exits, is an iteration of a larger in-progress work, Enters and Exits.
Established in 1985, Arts Umbrella Dance Company is a Vancouver-based repertory company for select members of the school’s professional dance program. They will perform four short pieces.
 
And remember! In honour of Mother’s Day, Mom’s will get in free! Bring your mom to the Sunday May 13th Dance Allsorts performance and she gets in FREE! Because you don’t have to spend a dime to show her that you care.

Shifting States at EDAM dance
April 11, 13, 14, 18, 20, 21, 8pm,
EDAM Studio Theatre, 303 E. 8th Ave

New work by: Justine A. Chambers, Plastic Orchid Factory, Outinnerspace Dance Theatre and EDAM  Dance

www.edamdance.org