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FADO E-LIST (June 2010)FADO Performance Art Centre E-Bulletin SPECIAL: Mid-June 2010 Two amazing performance events are happening this weekend in Peterborough and Ottawa, and we wanted to let you know about them at length. Read on…
INDEX: 1. EVENT: Mapping Resistances Performance Event in Peterborough Date: June 17-18, 2010; Source: Wanda Nanibush 2. EVENT: Crossings: A Performance Art Exchange / Ottawa-Belfast, 2010 Dates: June 17 - 20, 2010; Source: Christine Conley
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1. EVENT: Mapping Resistances (Peterborough) Date: June 17-18, 2010; Source: Wanda Nanibush
4 performance artists + 1 painter + 2 local storytellers + 6 public spaces = action, intensity, and metamorphosis
Curated by Wanda Nanibush
SCHEDULE Friday June 18 – meet at 6 pm sharp at Confederation Park (across from City Hall) Tanya Lukin Linklater - Island across the footbridge on Rotary Trail James Luna - Confederation Park Archer Pechawis - behind "The Bridge"
Saturday June 19 - meet at 4 pm sharp at Confederation Park (across from City Hall) Leanne Simpson - Tipi at Art Gallery of Peterborough Doug Williams - Tipi at Art Gallery of Peterborough Rebecca Belmore – TBA
Mapping Resistances brings the diverse performance work of Rebecca Belmore and James Luna, both of Venice Biennale fame, as well as the internationally acclaimed Robert Houle, the political agitator Archer Pechawis, and a great imagining from Tanya Lukin-Linklater. Two creative performers of the oral word, one being Leanne Simpson will also re-map Peterborough and region from an Indigenous perspective.
2010 marks the twentieth anniversary of the Kahnesatà:ke First Nation's resistance to the town of Oka, Quebec putting a golf course on their burial grounds in 1990. The media was saturated with images of Mohawk (Kanien'kehaka) warriors and female leaders speaking on behalf of their people. What emerged was a Kanien'kehaka version of Canadian history and thus a history lesson for Canadians.
The stand that the Kanien'kehaka took in the Pines was also a traumatic event for the community and for all of us who acted in solidarity. It connects to a list of colonial traumas like "Straight tours of Saskatoon", "Ipperwash", "Burnt Church", "500 murdered and missing Aboriginal women", "Trail of Tears", "Residential Schools", and many, many more. These specific events become part of a larger collective Indigenous history of colonialism and our resistance to it.
The notion of face-to-face or body to body in contemporary performance art recalls this active resistance on the stand-off lines. A number of Aboriginal performance artists made work interrogating what happened in the summer of 1990. Their work made reference to land claims, self-determination, traditional governance systems, telling history from an Indigenous perspective and having a voice. The twentieth anniversary is an amazing opportunity to have Indigenous artists celebrate and interrogate Oka and the long histories of resistance to colonization for this year's Ode'min Giizis.
In homage to Kahnesatà:ke, the artists will perform in various public spaces around Peterborough. The artists come from many Indigenous cultures including Anishinabeg, Cree, Alutiq, and Luiseño. This diversity is important to show how the Oka crisis impacted far beyond Quebec.
Indigenous artists in Mapping Resistances reinterpret Oka from within longer histories of Indigenous resistance to colonization. Belmore brings the materiality of trauma and the power of voice to her performances. Luna channels the trickster spirit and ceremony, leaving no narrative of nation or self untouched. Pechawis rethinks the boundaries of the traditional by bringing a Cree world-view into technology and technology into performance. Lukin-Linklater uses song and movement to breathe new life into Indigenous communities and histories. Houle will remount his performance from 1990 when he blocked out the sun in his studio windows with four banners with four words on them: LONGHOUSE/ FALSE FACE/LAND CLAIM/SOVEREIGN. Leanne Simpson and one other storyteller will perform local, personal, contemporary and ancient stories of the Anishinabeg.
In Mapping Resistances, the Indigenous body becomes a storyteller who is funny as much as fierce, smart as much as stolen, and creative as much as captive.
Spaces may be chosen based on a connection to a little known Indigenous history of the town or its absence. Other spaces may be chosen for an oppressive relationship that needs to be rethought such as the courthouse or city hall. The audience can happen upon a performance or be picked up on the tour of performances. Over two days there will be a guide who will tell an Indigenous history of Peterborough. There will also be two storytellers who will perform in the Tipi at Del Crary Park. They will take their place within contemporary performance art while at the same time providing an experience of the possible linkages of performance art to oral storytelling.
The collective experience that live body art creates can knit a divisive community together. Taking art outside the institution means a freedom from the white walled cube and the constraints that it can bring. This suits performance art's aims. Many of the artists, like Luna and Belmore, prefer to work outside. Not to mention, the public spaces of Peterborough instantly become more welcoming to Aboriginal audiences.
Aboriginal performance art histories are related to the turn of the century performing 'Indians' who were part of wild west shows, world fairs, and early films. Some performers were captives, forced to perform Victorian dreams of savagery. Their resistance could be considered performance art, as Rebecca Belmore has pointed out. This tension between captivity and resistance to an audience expectations is part of Aboriginal performance. There is also a connection to Aboriginal communities and ways of knowing. Performance artist's own bodies is their medium of choice. Indigenous performance artists, in using their bodies, enact a live Indigenous subjectivity for an audience that is in stark contrast to stereotypes. They also play with those stereotypes bringing to light their absurdity. Other artists make unknown histories of oppression and little known cultural philosophies and concepts visible.
Twenty years later, what changes and strategies are available to us?
ABOUT THE CURATOR: Wanda Nanibush curates with an eye towards work that challenges audiences to rethink pre-conceived ideas of time, space, identity, history and culture. In curating an all Indigenous exhibition of performance art she always highlights the contemporaneity of Indigenous Peoples but also the complexity and diversity within. There are no easy answers to questions of land rights and sovereignty.
http://www.okw-arts.ca/odemin.html?
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2. EVENT: Crossings: A Performance Art Exchange / Ottawa-Belfast, 2010 Dates: June 17 - 20, 2010; Source: Christine Conley
Organized and presented by Galerie SAW Gallery (Ottawa) + Bbeyond (Belfast)
ARTISTS: Jackson 2bears (Victoria / Halifax) Sinéad Bhreathnach-Cashell (Belfast) Maria Hupfield (Vancouver) Sandra Johnston (Belfast) Alastair MacLennan (Belfast) Skeena Reece (Vancouver)
CURATOR Christine Conley (Ottawa)
Crossings is an international exchange and performance art residency taking place in Ottawa and Belfast, Northern Ireland. Aboriginal Canadian artists will join with members of the Belfast-based Bbeyond performance art collective for a week of exchange and collaboration. Across geographical and cultural differences, these artists share practices conditioned by the effects of colonialism and recent political history that work toward agency and social transformation through the powerful immediacy of live art. Ottawa is a significant locale for such a crossing of paths, a site of parallel and intertwined histories of Native Peoples and Irish immigration. Site-specific public performances will take place at various locations in Ottawa between June 17 and 20 as well as a free workshop with renowned artist Alastair MacLennan. The Belfast residency is planned for October 2010.
SCHEDULE
THURSDAY, JUNE 17 REINSCRIBE Sandra Johnston + Sinéad Bhreathnach-Cashell Bytown Museum (1 Canal Lane, Ottawa) 5PM - 8:30PM
2-day performance workshop with Alastair MacLennan Thursday: 10AM - 5PM, Studio B, Arts Court (2 Daly Avenue, Ottawa) Friday: 10AM - 5PM, Rehearsal Hall A, National Arts Centre (53 Elgin Street, Ottawa) [Admission is free, but space is limited to 15 participants. To register, please call (613) 236-6181.]
SATURDAY, JUNE 19 STUD DUST Alastair MacLennan SAW Outdoor Courtyard (67 Nicholas Street, Ottawa) 9AM - 6PM
Lady Moonrider: Time Traveller Maria Hupfield Outside the Canadian War Museum (1 Vimy Place, Ottawa) 2PM - 2:30PM
Round-table discussion Speakers: Jackson 2bears, Sinéad Bhreathnach-Cashell, Maria Hupfield, Sandra Johnston, Alastair MacLennan + Skeena Reece. Moderated by Christine Conley (in English) Club SAW (67 Nicholas Street, Ottawa) 7:30PM - 8:30PM
Talk by Guy Sioui Durand (Québec) (in English and French) Club SAW 9PM - 9:30PM
Iron Tomahawks: O Kanata Jackson 2bears Club SAW 9:30PM - 10:30PM
Reception and party Music with DJ BEAR witness (Ottawa) + cash bar Club SAW 10:30PM - 2AM
SUNDAY, JUNE 20 Untitled Sinéad Bhreathnach-Cashell SAW + various locations 2PM onward
PLEA Sandra Johnston SAW + Arts Court (2 Daly Avenue, Ottawa) 4:30PM - 5:30PM
Prayer for Arrival Skeena Reece D’Arcy McGee’s Pub (44 Sparks Street, Ottawa) 8PM - 9PM
BIOGRAPHIES
Jackson 2bears is a Kanien’kehaka (Mohawk) multimedia artist based in Victoria, British Columbia; he will soon relocate to Halifax, Nova Scotia. He studied in the collaborative program at the University of Toronto at Mississauga and Sheridan College (BA 1999), and at the University of Victoria (MFA 2003). He is currently nearing completion of his PhD at the University of Victoria. He has created VJ performances for commissions and exhibitions across Canada, notably at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (Assume Nothing); the Indigenous Leadership Conference, University of Victoria; EMMEDIA, Calgary (Sonic Boom!); the Vancouver Art Gallery (How Soon is Now); InterAccess, Toronto (Electronic Shamanism), in 2009; Artengine, Ottawa (Electric Fields), in 2008; and the North American Indigenous Games, Cowichan, in 2008. He has also performed internationally in festivals and group exhibitions such as Digital Art Weeks, in Zurich, Switzerland. He is a co-founder of LiminaL Projects, an interdisciplinary artists’ collective (2002).
Sinéad Bhreathnach-Cashell is a Belfast-based artist who studied fine and applied art at the University of Ulster (BA 2007), where her dissertation was entitled “Play, Reception and Institution: Reassessing Strategies for Audiences and Practitioners through Play.” She also spent a year studying marketing, printmaking and philosophy at Centenary College, New Jersey, in the US (2006). She has participated in performance events in Belfast, Dublin, the UK, and most recently at the Open Art International Performance Festival in Beijing, China. She is the organizer and curator of “residence” with her sister Sighle in association with SHAC Housing Association, a founding member of “draw in” and Playgroup and a member of Bbeyond.
Guy Sioui Durand is Wendat (Huron) from Wendake, near Québec. A sociologist (Ph.D.) and social critic, he is active as a writer and independent curator in the field of Native art. He is co-founder of Inter, art actuel and Le Lieu, contemporary art centre (Québec).
Maria Hupfield is of Anishnaabe (Ojibway) heritage, a member of Wasauksing First Nation, in Ontario, and is based in Vancouver. She has an Honours BA in Art and Art History from the University of Toronto and Sheridan College, and an MFA in Sculpture from York University. Her practice combines performance with photography and installation. Recent performance events include Museum Quality, with Merritt Johnson, at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York, the Denver Art Museum in Denver, Colorado, and the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver (2008), and a solo performance at the Mountain Standard Time Performative Art Festival (M:ST) in Calgary (2005). Hupfield is currently Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Culture + Community at Emily Carr University, where she teaches drawing and Aboriginal approaches to visual expression.
Sandra Johnston is a Belfast-based artist who studied at the Kent Institute of Art & Design, Canterbury (BA 1991) and the University of Ulster, Belfast (MFA 1992). Since 2001 she has taught at the University of Ulster, where she is Lecturer in Time Based and Mixed Media Art. In 2007-2008 she was Guest Professor at the Bauhaus University, Weimar, in the “Public Art and New Artistic Strategies Program.” She is presently on a three-year leave to pursue a PhD project, entitled “Beyond Reasonable Doubt— A cross-disciplinary investigation into concepts of doubt and risk taking, explored through consideration of improvisational art processes and systems of legal justice.” Johnston is a founding member of Belfast’s Catalyst Arts (1993-1995), a member of Bbeyond, and AGENCY, a collaborative project initiated in 2007 with Susanne Bosch (Belfast) and Marilyn Arsem (Boston). She has participated in performance events extensively in the UK, Europe, Israel and North America, and represented Northern Ireland at the Venice Biennale in 2005.
Alastair MacLennan is a key performance practitioner in the UK, whose work has been influential nationally and internationally. He was born in Blair Atholl, Scotland, and studied at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee (diploma 1965), the College of Education, Dundee (specialist art teachers certificate 1966) and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (MFA 1968). He under- took za-zen practice under the guidance of Joshu Sasaki Roshi, a Japanese Rinzai Zen Master. After teaching in Halifax (NSCAD) and Vancouver, he accepted a lectureship in 1975 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, at what is now the School of Fine Art, University of Ulster, where he taught until 2008. MacLennan is a founding member of Belfast’s Art and Research Exchange (1977), a member of Bbeyond performance collective, Belfast (2004), and the European performance group Black Market International since 1989. He represented Northern Ireland at the Venice Biennale in 1997. He is currently Professor Emeritus, University of Ulster, an Honorary Fellow of Dartington College of Art, Devon, England, and an Honorary Associate of the National Review of Live Art, Glasgow.
Skeena Reece is a Tsimshian/Gitksan and Cree multimedia artist based in Vancouver, British Columbia. She studied art at the Northwest Community College, Prince Rupert, and Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Vancouver (2005), moving on to training at The Banff Centre and grunt gallery as a Curatorial Practices Intern. She has participated in performance events across Canada including Nuit Blanche in Toronto (2009), and at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC in Vancouver (2008) and the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC (2008); she recently took part in the Biennale of Sydney in Australia (2010). Reece is a singer and songwriter; her first collection of short stories and songs was released in 2010. She is active on the boards of groups working with Native youth through media arts (Redwire Magazine), is past director of the Indigenous Media Arts Group (2005-2007), and the founder of the Native Youth Artists Collective.
INFORMATION Crossings: A Performance Art Exchange. Ottawa-Belfast, 2010 is made possible by the support of the Aboriginal Arts Office and Visual Arts Section of the Canada Council for the Arts, the City of Ottawa, the Ontario Arts Council and the University of Ottawa’s Academic and Professional Development Fund. Partners include the Bytown Museum, the National Arts Centre, D'Arcy McGee's, Bread & Roses Bakery, Steam Whistle Brewing and SpaceMan Music.
Galerie SAW Gallery 67 Nicholas Street Ottawa, Ontario Canada K1N 7B9 Information: (613) 236-6181 sawprogramming@artengine.ca http://www.galeriesawgallery.com
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About FADO Established in 1993, FADO Performance Inc. (Performance Art Centre) is a not-for-profit artist-run centre for performance art based in Toronto, Canada. FADO exists to provide a stable, ongoing, supportive forum for creating and presenting performance art. Currently, we are the only artist-run centre in English Canada devoted specifically to this form. We present the work of local, national and international artists who have chosen performance art as a primary medium to create and communicate provocative new images and new perspectives. Thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council and the Department of Canadian Heritage for their on-going support of our endeavors.
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