Archives des interdisciplinary — Page 2 of 3 — MAI

dreamweaver

ANACHNID is a Montreal-based multidisciplinary artist of Oji-Cree and Mi’kmaq First Nations. She explores very different musical styles from soul to electro-pop to indie trap and is the first winner of the Indigenous Songwriter Award from SOCAN. We can hear her animal totem, the spider, as she interweaves bitingly accurate political response with straight up sass in her dance floor hits before sliding into soft aching romantic tracks. ANACHNID presents an intimate concert in tandem with a DJ and VJ. Circle up and get caught in this spider’s gorgeous web.

real's fiction\dissonant_pleasures

This dance is a song we sing in order to be together. The song is intentionally simple to open access to even the most musically-timid body. The song needs us to listen to each other, to be sung in search of a semitonal-policality; “how close can we come without consolidating into one-ness?.”

This room is listening to us speak. It captures our whispers and secrets and redistributes them elsewhere and close-by. This floor invites us to lie. This work is almost real. This world we are looking for is not for us.

camille : un rendez-vous au-delà du visuel

Camille : un rendez-vous au-dela du visuel — © Laurence Gagnon Lefebvre

In this immersive work that circumvents our sense of sight, audience members follow the protagonist through a landscape of emotions and memories in which the intimate becomes tangible. This multisensory experience, developed for a visually-impaired audience, is accessible to all; we are invited, directly and delicately, into a space of discovery and encounter. Montreal-based interdisciplinary artist Audrey-Anne Bouchard has used her impairment as inspiration for developing a new artistic form. She brings together a reflection on the sensorial experience of dance, begun during her Master’s (Nice/Brussels), and the development of her practice as dramaturge.

one kind favor

With the world increasingly full of misinformation, as meaningless images of brutality bombard our retinas across all platforms, the courage to be kind is increasingly essential. Choreographed by George Stamos in collaboration with Karla Etienne and Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, ONE KIND FAVOR is an exploration of how kindness can be embodied, sometimes with grace, sometimes failing despite good intentions. ONE KIND FAVOR is an acknowledgment of those who have had the courage to be kind and impacted our lives with their generosity. Supported by The Canada Council for the Arts.

carrion

What does it mean to be human, in an era when our destructive influence over the planet is rapidly redefining the laws of nature? This magnetic solo performance by Justin Shoulder introduces the figure of Carrion: a post-human spectre that has the ability to shapeshift into multiple forms and speak multiple languages. In the throes of forced evolutionary acceleration, wandering an archaeological site, they transform: a ghost of the west, a virus, a trickster, a prehistoric bird. Combining presentational club spectacle with dramaturgy from Victoria Hunt on raw bodily exploration, Carrion draws on queer and bicultural ancestral mythologies.

strike/thru (mai + offta) / online

Bringing together two old friends, STRIKE/THRU is an interdisciplinary encounter between indigenous visual artist Nadia Myre and settler theatre artist Johanna Nutter. In videoconference, six members of the audience are invited to reconstruct a recorded conversation between culturally-mixed people while the two artists use each other to explore the identity constructs raised by the verbatim. A live impetus for conciliation and reconciliation, this work speaks to the current climate around Indigenous/Settler relations.

This project received financial support from the MAI Alliance Program (2016-2017) and this event is an excerpt of the performance that was supposed to be presented at MAI in May 2020, which was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

older & reckless - eclectik 2018

Pythia, solo de Jacqueline Van de Geer (Edgy Redux, 2015) © Valerie Sangin

Eclectik 2018 brings to a head MAI’s four year focus on the older artist and which draws inspiration from Older & Reckless, an acclaimed dance series of mature dance produced by Toronto’s MOonhORsE Dance Theatre. Âgés et déjantés featuring artists 55 years old and older of cultural and racial diversity, advocates for an increased awareness of the challenges faced by older artists. It addresses the language currently used to discuss old age and generational relevancy and/or redundancy as it relates to art, to life.

At the very centre of this initiative is, to borrow a term, lastingness, a means of resistance, of maintaining or regaining visibility. Of celebration.

room 2048

Created by interdisciplinary company Hong Kong Exile, Room 2048 slayers digital light, fog, and bombastic pop music to examine the socio-political realities of the Cantonesediaspora. The project sources themes of loss, nostalgia, and desire that reoccur within the seminal works of acclaimed Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar Wai.

Hong Kong Exile is regarded for their loud and striking digital aesthetic, tongue-in-cheek humour, and engagement with cultural politics. The title refers to 2048, the year after Hong Kong passes from its post-British-rule “transition period” to full Mainland Chinese authority. Room 2048 is a spiritual sequel to the company’s 2014 production NINEEIGH

radio iii

Radio III, by Zoë Poluch, Hanako Hoshimi-Caines and Elisa Harkins combines sculpture, music and dance. It is an indigenous futuristic concert, a dance performance, a perverse triangle of shifting power that seeks to be unfaithful to Minimalism’s recognizable aesthetic and its claim to so-called ‘neutrality’.

Elisa Harkins is a Native American (Cherokee/Muscogee) composer and artist interested in unearthing and retelling Indigenous histories.
Hanako Hoshimi-Caines is a dancer and choreographer based in Montréal. She is engaged with dance, performance-making and philosophy as a way to see, feel and love better.
Zoë Poluch, originally from Canada, is based now in Stockholm moving through different institutions and independent groupings dedicated to dancing and thinking choreography together.

seeds cast afar from our roots

Seeds cast afar from our roots is a collective doing; a manner of support and collaboration between three dance artists of Asian diasporas, each with a very different relationship to their history and culture. Angie Cheng, Winnie Ho, and Chi Long throw themselves into a process of open exploration, extrapolation, and creation that is fed by a confluence of personalities and by each of their rich individual experiences as dancers, creators, and performers.

Winnie Ho has presented her performances internationally; Chi Long has worked in particular with Marie Chouinard, George Stamos, and Virginie Brunelle; and Angie Cheng with Mélanie Demers, Lara Kramer, and the Cool Cunts collective.