While visiting Vancouver from New York\, the experimental choreographer Deborah Hay\, in collaboration wi th the Box Eighty Theatre Society (founded by local choreographer Helen Goo dwin)\, hosted a participatory dance event at Western Front on November 22\ , 1974. Titled Dances for Everybody\, the event has no known docum entation\, and this fact\, alongside the conceptual premise evoked by its t itle\, creates an opportunity to collectively speculate on the original per formance.
No Single Dancer references Dances f or Everybody\, and questions the possibility and potential of dance at a moment in time when we are increasingly physically\, socially and politi cally isolated from one another. What are the ways that everybody dances? H ow can we dance with\, and for\, everybody? What social potential might a d ance for everybody hold? As a form that depends on bodies and relationality \, this project asks if dance can serve as an inclusive and equitable space for all bodies.
By taking an interdisciplinary approach\, and inviting a choreographer\, writer and visual artist to explore what dan ces for everybody may be\, this project considers the potential of dance as a medium. It also attempts to expand an understanding of dance through dis cursive programming\, in which community participants can offer their own p erspectives and interpretations of dance.
The project inclu des a virtual installation by visual artist Anna Firth\, available online f rom Thursday\, June 17\; an online writing workshop with writer and art his torian Mercedes Webb on Tuesday\, June 22\; and a performance by choreograp her and dancer Justine A. Chambers on Friday\, June 25 at Western Front. Th ese related events\, as well as community submissions and writings\, will b e presented together on the web page nosingledancer.com.
No Single Dancer is curate d by Jasmine Hynes\, a candidate for the MA in Critical and Curatorial Stud ies at the University of British Columbia. The project is presented by West ern Front with support from the Killy Foundation and the Audain Endowment f or Curatorial Studies through the Department of Art History\, Visual Art an d Theory in collaboration with the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at t he University of British Columbia.
Curator Biograph y
Jasmine Hynes (she/her) is an e merging curator and cultural worker born on Mi’kmaq and Beothuk lands (Buri n\, Newfoundland)\, raised on Treaty 7 territory (Calgary\, Alberta) and no w residing on the unceded and ancestral lands of the Squamish\, Musqueam an d Tsleil-Waututh peoples (Vancouver). Hynes holds a Bachelor of Arts with D istinction in Art History and Museum and Heritage Studies from the Universi ty of Calgary. She is the Curatorial Assistant at the Craft Council of Brit ish Columbia where she is currently working on a project exploring the conn ections between\, and interpretations of\, craft materiality through the co mmunicative and ephemeral language of dance. Hynes has curated exhibitions at the AHVA Gallery (Vancouver)\, the Nickle Galleries (Calgary)\, and the Little Gallery (Calgary).
Artist Biographies
Justine A. Chambers (she/her) is a danc e 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 collabora tive creation\, close observation\, and the body as a site of a cumulative embodied archive. Privileging what is felt over what is seen\, she works wi th dances “that are already there”–the social choreographies present in the everyday. Her choreographic projects have been presented at the Nanaimo Ar t Gallery\, Artspeak (Vancouver)\, Hong Kong Arts Festival\, the Art Museum at the University of Toronto\, Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery at Haverford Coll ege\, Agora de la Danse (Montréal)\, Festival of New Dance (St. John’s)\, M ile Zero Dance Society (Edmonton)\, Dancing on the Edge (Vancouver)\, Canad a Dance Festival (Ottawa)\, Dance in Vancouver\, Western Front\, and the Va ncouver Art Gallery. She is Max Tyler-Hite’s mother.
ma̱lidi / məlidi / Mercedes Webb (they/she)
is a writer of mixed ancestry\, including Haida (Kunn Janaas) and Kwakwa̱k
a̱ʼwakw (Mama̱liliḵa̱la)\, living as a guest on Treaty 7 territory. Their w
riting aims to inform readers and generate interest in the ways art and wri
ting are intrinsically intertwined with the social contexts we are living t
hrough\, and how that informs the futures we may create. Webb’s vocals were
included on the vinyl record within the monograph Rita McKeough: Works
(2018)\, and they were the recipient of the 2019 Canadian Art Writing
Prize. They hold a BA in Art History and Communications with Distinction f
rom the University of Calgary. Currently they are learning two of their anc
estral languages\, Kwak̓wala and X̱aad Kil. Public
critique with Joyce Rosario to be held at 2pm June 28\, 2021 on Zoom