BORDER CROSSINGS’ ORIGINS FESTIVAL, ɅVɅ DANCE COMPANY & b.solomon//ELECTRIC MOOSE
REMEMBRANCES
Border Crossings’ ORIGINS Festival, ɅVɅ DANCE COMPANY & b.solomon//ELECTRIC MOOSE
REMEMBRANCES Presented as part of Birmingham International Dance Festival 2022, produced by FABRIC. Commissioned as part of the Birmingham 2022 Festival, generously supported by Arts Council England, BIDF, Canada Council for the Arts and High Commission of Canada in the United Kingdom.
“My lord, I have remembrances of yours, that I have longèd long to redeliver. I pray you, now receive them.” (Hamlet 3.1. 93-95) “There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance.” (Hamlet 4.5. 172)
“Who are we now to welcome you?” As Birmingham prepares to host the Commonwealth Games, REMEMBRANCES asks how best to welcome Indigenous people as visitors to the city, the country and the land. In the time of #BlackLivesMatter, and in the face of colonial injustices, how can we o er a genuine space of welcome to First Nations people from Commonwealth countries?
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“I believe in memory not as a place of arrival, but as a point of departure - a catapult throwing you into present times, allowing you to imagine the future instead of accepting it.” (Eduardo Galeano)
1. WE WHO HOPE TO WELCOME Dancers & Creative Collaborators Eva Escrich González Amy Hollinshead Georgia Rose Thompson Choreographed by Avatâra Ayuso Dramaturgy by Michael Walling Music by Dave Carey Texts written by Michael Walling & Matthew James Weigel Texts read by Gerrard McArthur, Hannah Douglas & Matthew James Weigel
2. RED FLAG
Dancers & Creative Collaborators Marianna Medellin Canales b.solomon Choreographed by b.solomon//ELECTRIC MOOSE Red Flag installation by b.solomon//ELECTRIC MOOSE
REMEMBRANCES Conceived by Avatâra Ayuso & Michael Walling Production Manager: Ed Borgnis Marketing by Emma Townsend Press by Chloé Nelkin Consulting (0203 627 2960) Community Outreach by Lucy Dunkerley Produced for ɅVɅ DANCE COMPANY by Anna Quiney Production Assistant: Georgia Shire Filmed for streaming by: Michael Danks (Director of Photography) Joanna Cuper (Camera Operator) Steven Gill (Camera Assistant / Data Wrangler) Thanks to: Raidene Carter, Claire Birch, Louisa Davies, Will Mauchline, Fabio Thomas & all at Birmingham 2022; Lucie Mirkova, Ellen Booth, Libby Aldrich, James Mackenzie & all at BIDF; Simon Anderson & Lesley Jones at the High Commission of Canada; Jonathan Goodacre & Liam Smyth at The Audience Agency; Eleanor Brown. Lead marketing image Cottonbro via Pixels. Red Flag photo by Topher & Rae Studios.
Who are we now to welcome you? After the desecration of the sacred places After the unearthing of the children’s bodies After the cynical breakage of the binding treaties Who are we now to welcome you? After the genocide against the bu alo After the coming of the measles and the smallpox After the systematic reduction of reservation land After the demonising of spirituality, culture and language After the banning of institutional generosity Who are we now to welcome you? After the forced removal of children After the trauma of abuse After the disappearances of so many women After the rape of the land After the suppression of hunting and shing Who are we now to welcome you? After the imposition of alien governance After the wrangling over blood quantum and status After the unfettered arrogance of missionaries and teachers After the propagation of a multicultural myth After the tacit acceptance of sexual abuse Who are we now to welcome you?
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Michael Walling
I found my body yesterday for the rst time again, when the ice melted just a little, and I almost slipped. I caught myself, and I held myself in a way that only my body could. the steps I took were reconsidered and were only considered viable in relation to the water and the shape the water took beneath my feet. and every step was a new shape every shape a new step and the melting of me, which would one day come as no surprise would be a new body in this place and nowhere else a new body in this place and nowhere else. so to nd yourself, in the shape of the places you have been it is a great honour of the kind that the spruce trees know, with their roots stretching out for the ground that their grandmothers grew in, and knowing just how far the wind can carry you all while you are still forever home in this body where the earth is always patient for you showing you the memory of grass in the foot tickle in the funnel web in the breath of last year’s seeds and the welcoming chatter of the magpies listen that feeling of the earth beneath you is the echo of the willows bouncing against each other just like the plucked strings of a symphony and the wind through the hairs of your body
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Matthew James Weigel
On this land also there once were women who were wise in the ways of the waters herb lore plant lore the paths of healing across the plains of Mercia. In time they came to be known as witches and some were burned - like trees to ashes And yet they are not gone their dust is in this land that was their mother as they were mothers daughters sisters Here beneath our feet under the pavements and the parks wound around the roots of the Douglas Fir shoring the foundations of the squat Empress’s pedestal hidden but not gone from the world armaments hub The Gun Quarter Jewellery Quarter Fort Dunlop Hippodrome Bullring they are with us in the land. They whisper They murmur “Let us emerge beside you into a time of healing with ceremony, that o ers change and hope, with poetry with dance.”
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Michael Walling
REMEMBRANCES I am grateful to share this space with you and everyone here at Border Crossings’ ORIGINS Festival, Birmingham 2022 and Birmingham International Dance Festival. My name is Matthew James Weigel. I am a Dene and Metis poet and artist, born and raised in Edmonton Alberta, Canada, and here is where I live, work, and create. I was welcomed to this project by Michael Walling, and I am especially grateful to him for my inclusion in this project working with both ɅVɅ DANCE COMPANY and b.solomon/ /ELECTRIC MOOSE. It is a great pleasure and honour to be invited to contribute my poetry. I’ve never worked with a dance company before. In fact, I rarely work collaboratively! I create both visual and lyric poetry which can be very solitary. But that being said, it has been an absolute delight to chat with everyone involved and talk about our shared goals and what sort of inspirations lift us up collectively. Some of my poems are written intentionally as spoken word pieces, and I think there is a special connection that spoken word artists share with dancers. There is an embodying process that happens, where the sounds and the stories live inside you and connect you to the world around you. These were some of the things I was thinking about speci cally when I wrote this piece for REMEMBRANCES. When we started, I wrote a piece responding to Michael’s writing, and we talked about it a little bit and chatted with Avatâra and the dancers. I was really fascinated by the process of creating choreography. There was a lot of familiarity to that process, in the sense that I could tell there was an analogous sense of vocabulary, technique, imagery and metaphor. Watching dance activates a di erent part of you from listening to poetry, but there are concepts of performance that are shared between them. You are hoping to connect with your audience and tell a story that exists in a single shared moment. During our conversation what came out was how important that connection was, not just a connection with the audience, but with the body as well. So, my next crack at the poem was to take what I had started with, which was a heavy meditation on the place that I live and the ground that supports and fuels me, and to activate the embodied experience of being here. I can genuinely say that the collaborative process allowed me to write a better piece of poetry than I had ever expected. I think that’s the beauty of collaboration, not just between artists of the same medium, but when artists collaborate across mediums. We stretch across forms to nd connections in new ways of thinking and moving in the world. And if anything, that is what art is for, it’s for helping us move through the world. I think about this a lot in my art and my writing. My work is heavily invested in my relationship with the land, and how that relationship extends through to the non-human relations around me. Because my writing is so heavily based in research, it’s important for me to centre my work in those connections and relationships. I think it would be impossible to share archival and historical materials in an e ective way without sharing my relationality to them, otherwise I feel like there would be an insurmountable distance within the work. To best tell the stories of the land around you, you have to do your best to understand the stories that brought you there. I am incredibly privileged to live where I live. The street I am on has its origins in a trail down to the river that my ancestors would have walked down. That river provides my drinking water. The clay from the river valley was formed into bricks that compose many of the buildings around me. And so, in that one set of relationships, me, the water, the buildings around me, there is a complex story of the history of me, of my family, and of the colonial history of Edmonton. I take a great deal of inspiration from what is around me. From the spruce trees, the magpies, the willows. And so, the poem that I wrote for REMEMBRANCES follows the same path my work always follows: down the old path to the river, through the trees and surrounded by the beautiful conversations of magpies. Matthew James Weigel
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Image: electric moose northern ontario studio, housed in a jailhouse built in 1886.
BIOGRAPHIES Avatâra Ayuso (Choreographer) is a choreographer, Artistic Director of AVA DANCE COMPANY, a cultural leader & activist in the dance world. Avatâra founded ɅV DANCE COMPANY in 2008 developing relationships with artists from di erent cultures & artistic disciplines. Her artistic practice aims to overcome eurocentrism, by promoting cultural exchanges among artists. In her most recent projects, she has collaborated with artists from Burkina Faso, Japan, Senegal, Chile, Taiwan, Morocco & Nunavut (Canadian Arctic). These cultural dance experiences aim to engage in dialogue, exchange knowledge & pursue collaborations with creative minds from other cultures. She is also the founder & director of the charity AWA DANCE (Advancing Women's Aspirations with Dance). For Border Crossings’ ORIGINS Festival: NO WOMAN’S LAND. Dave Carey (Music) studied Performing Arts & Music in London and New York. After many years in bands of various quality he joined the inclusive theatre company Chickenshed as a Creative Director. Since then he has written many of their most successful shows from small touring ensembles to large-scale community casts. He has written shows for children & young people all over the world from Malawi to Moscow to Shanghai. For Border Crossings: THEATRE & THE PLAGUE, MORE THAN WORDS, WHEN NOBODY RETURNS, THIS FLESH IS MINE, CONSUMED. Hannah Douglas (Actor) was recently long-listed for a BIFA for Breakthrough Performance & won Best Actress at the Buenos Aires International Film Festival for her role in feature lm LAPWING (Urban Apache Films/Bulldog Film Distribution), which is out now on major streaming platforms. Other lm & TV includes: GOING COUNTRY (BFI Network/Inceptive Films), CLOWNFACE (Hellbound Media/Amazon Prime US), MOGUE (Channel 4/Random Acts), LITTLE DORRIT (BBC) & award-winning lm U WANT ME 2 KILL HIM? (Anonymous Content/Bad Hat Harry Productions/Net ix UK). Theatre credits include PRIDE & PREJUDICE, HOPELESS ROMANTICS (both for The Courtyard Theatre); OTHELLO (TNT/ADGE International tour); ORPHEUS & EURYDICE (Insane Root Theatre Co); A Christmas Carol (UK tour); BIG BROTHER BLITZKRIEG (Bitter Pill/Kings Head); Ghosts (Sell-A-Door); A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM and THE TEMPEST (both for The Faction). For Border Crossings: THE GREAT EXPERIMENT. Eva Escrich González (Dancer) is a UK-based freelance performer, teacher, and choreographer. Originally from Barcelona, Spain, she began her dance studies at the conservatoire, Institut del Teatre. In 2013 when she moved to the UK, she continued her education at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London. After graduating she became a member of MapDance, a postgraduate company under the direction of Yael Flexer and Detta Howe. Eva began her professional career straight after graduating from Map Dance in 2018. Performing for Shobana Jeyasingh Dance in Dance in SMALL SPACES with collaborator Vidya Patel and later on in CONTAGION. She has since worked extensively as a performer and teacher for Shobana Jeyasing Dance, Ella&Co, Lilian Nejatpour, True tt Collective Dance Theatre Company, Gingerline and Eq Dance Co amongst others. Amy Hollinshead (Dancer) was born & raised in Sta ordshire & completed her professional training at Rambert School. During this time she worked with Mark Baldwin & danced Itzik Galili's A LINHA CURVA with Rambert Dance Company. Amy joined Scottish Dance Theatre in 2013, where she worked with choreographers including Jo Strongrem, Jorge Crecis, Damien Jalet, Henri Oguike, Anton Lachky, Botis Seva & Sharon Eyal. Over 5 years she performed, toured extensively & delivered education nationally & internationally. After leaving the rep company she embarked on a world tour with Janis Claxton’s Pop-Up Duets. She participated in multiple projects with James Cousins Company including WE ARE AS GODS at Battersea Arts Centre. Also danced with Scottish Opera, Extended Play Dance led by Jamaal Burkmar and Barrowland Ballet. Recently Amy has worked on lm with choreographer Alexandra Green & motion capture with Target3D. Being from the Midlands, Amy is excited to work on this project, to dig deeper into her roots & dive into the collaboration.
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Gerrard McArthur (Actor) is an actor and director; as actor at the National Theatre; at Tokyo Globe as Prospero in THE TEMPTEST; a long association with The Glasgow Citizens. He has acted and directed for Howard Barker’s ‘Wrestling School’ company, playing the protagonist Priest in the 8 hour long ‘THE ECSTATIC BIBLE at the Adelaide International Festival in 2000. He has worked with the lmmakers Derek Jarman and John Maybury. For Border Crossings: THIS FLESH IS MINE.
Marianna Medellin Canales (Dancer) Mariana Medellín Canales is a mixed Indigenous & settler artist from the southern part of Turtle Island, the North Eastern part of what is currently called México (Coahuila). Her main studies are in classical ballet & contemporary performance. Mariana is an interpreter, creator, street artist, heavily in uenced by a socio-cultural understanding. She’s created art via performance, dance, installation, in the streets & venues of México, Canada, Palestine, Jordan & Germany. Her main concern is to expand the art viewer demographics & to unpack value systems in societies. Mariana has developed artistic & life-long relationships with B.Solomon/Electric Moose (Anishinaabe/Irish), Jumana Dabis (Palestinian) & The Dietrich Group (D.A. Hoskins). She has also entered the academia sector in the social sciences to expand her art practice while nding ways to imagine how to meaningfully deconstruct the processes of colonization. For Border Crossings’ ORIGINS Festival: WESTWAY SOLSTICE. b.solomon//ELECTRIC MOOSE (Choreographer & Dancer) Multi-award nominated, winner & loser, creator B. Solomon is of Anishinaabe & settler heritage, born in Shebahonaning on the North Channel of Lake Huron, Turtle Island (Canada). As a creator his work is multidisciplinary, raw, challenging & full of spirit. His commissions have ranged from community-rooted works with over 100 interpreters, solos in trees, to animated installations of land ll. His works have been presented & toured across numerous nations on Turtle Island, South America & Europe. Since he was a youth, much of Solomon's work has been committed to community activation with a focus on the unacknowledged & underserved ones across the land. He is passionate about helping people relearn the nature of their ancient bodies, & take back the space those bodies occupy as caretakers. For Border Crossings: WESTWAY SOLSTICE. Georgia Rose Thompson (Dancer) is a London based dance artist. Her training in Los Angeles & London provided a foundation on which her curiosity for storytelling, problem solving & play has grown. Her credits include works with ɅVɅ DANCE COMPANY, Taira Foo Dance Company & Walker Movement Company. Since completing her Master’s, her dance company GRITT (Gesture Rooted In Today’s Truth) made their debut with a piece title AN INCOMPLETE SENTENCE… touring summer 2021 as 1/3 of the triple bill commissioned by Creative Academy’s MA program. Georgia is excited and looking forward to a future full of rewarding problem solving! Michael Walling (Dramaturgy) is Artistic Director of Border Crossings, Director of the ORIGINS Festival, &Visiting Professor at Rose Bruford College. He has directed numerous productions across four continents, winning awards for TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA in the US & PAUL & VIRGINIE in Mauritius. Opera includes THE RING (ENO). Matthew James Weigel (Poet) is a Dene and Métis poet & artist born & raised in Edmonton. Currently pursuing a PhD in English at the University of Alberta, he holds a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences. He is the designer for Moon Jelly House press & his words & art have been published by people like Arc Poetry Magazine, Book*Hug, The Polyglot, &The Mamawi Project. Matthew is a National Magazine Award nalist, Nelson Ball Prize nalist, Cécile E. Mactaggart award winner, & winner of both the 2020 Vallum Chapbook Award & 2021 bpNichol Chapbook Award for his chapbook "It Was Treaty / It Was Me". His debut full-length collection “Whitemud Walking” recently won the Alcuin Society Award for book design, & is available now from Coach House Books. Matthew was part of ORIGINS Writers in 2021. Border Crossings creates new intercultural, multi-media theatre in response to the contemporary globalised world. The company works across the borders between cultures & art forms, & between nations and peoples. Since 1995, Border Crossings has collaborated with artists & companies from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Croatia, France, Germany, Ghana, Hungary, India, Ireland, Lebanon, Mauritius, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Palestine, Sweden, the USA & Zimbabwe, as well as the diverse communities of the UK. Since 2009, Border Crossings has run the ORIGINS Festival of First Nations, engaging with Indigenous artists and activists at the cutting edge of cultural resistance, environmentalism & spiritual tradition. bordercrossings.org.uk originsfestival.com ɅVɅ DANCE COMPANY is an independent Midlands-based dance company created in 2008 as a dance laboratory to ful l the artistic vision of choreographer Avatâra Ayuso. The company creates high-quality contemporary dance works, with collaborators from a range of cultures & artistic disciplines. Productions include: THE PROTOCOL (2020), LIMBO (2019-20), SUNRISE MASS (2019). AVA DANCE COMPANY rst collaborated with Border Crossings to present NO WOMAN’S LAND in the 2019 ORIGINS Festival, at The Place. The piece was a duet between Avatâra Ayuso and a Canadian Inuk Elder, Naulaq LeDrew. For this production, Avatâra was nominated for Best Contemporary Female Dancer at the 2020 National Dance Awards. avadancecompany.com
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electric moose is the creative umbrella for the work of b.solomon. electricmoose.ca
REMEMBRANCES
Programme illustrations by Matthew James Weigel. Instagram @spongepoet Programme edited & designed by Michael Walling.
Border Crossings Registered Charity No. 1048836. Company Limited by Guarantee Registered in England No. 3015984. VAT No. 690 7714 09.