Dance Central Spring 2022

Spring 2022

Dance Central A Dance Centre Publication

Content A Conversation with

Jeanette Kotowich Page 4

Symbiotic Forms of Morrow

by Rachel Maddock

Page 15

Editor's Note Welcome to the Spring 2022 issue of Dance Central.

I am writing from Malaysia where I have been spending time with my family since January. It has been almost three years since I last saw my parents and more than a decade since I spent these many months with them after immigrating to Canada. While I start to miss my home and community in Canada, I realize how COVID has greatly shifted my priorities.

Not that I have been living life in the fast lane, but I have now slowed down a lot and taken time to appreciate the relationships in my life. It started with me taking time to tend to my house plants, to feed my fish, Gustav and to cook my own meals during the lockdown. If I had not spent the last two years working from home, I would not have taken the time to do all these things staying put in my apartment had allowed me to do. Staying in one place frees up time and space for deep connection that brings healing.

In this issue, we learn about how Indigenous dance artist Jeanette Kotowich fosters her connection to the land and her Nêhiyaw Métis heritage through her practice. Kwê, her latest research project held in collaboration with Stéphanie Cyr, Olivia Shaffer and Tamar Tabori, is interwoven with her decolonizing approach and the four Creators Laws according to the Nêhiyawak. Morrow, a cultural space run by Dumb Instrument Dance, has been bringing together artists since July 2020. Rachel Maddock talks to Rianne Svelnis about her time at Morrow as the Cultural Connector of the Symbiotic Forms project, which has created space for meaningful exchanges within and beyond the dance community.

We thank all the artists who have contributed, and we welcome new writing and project ideas at any time to make Dance Central a more vital link to the community. Please send materials by email to editor@thedancecentre.ca.

We look forward to many more conversations!

Shanny Rann, Editor

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Kwê St phanie Cyr, Olivia Shaffer, Tamar Tabori © Yasu Okada

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Decolonizing space and taking back our agency in Jeanette Kotowich’s Kwê

by Shanny Rann

We are bodies seeking sovereignty, imperfectly tethered to homelands near and far…

Containers of complex histories, tears, and joy...

We journey through liminal territories of vulnerability and strength.

We embrace multiplicity and settle into the untamed knowing of our courageous hearts.

Harnessing bravery, we weave our presence into vast futures.

Jeanette Kotowich’s work reflects Nêhiyaw/Métis cosmology within the context of contemporary dance, performance, and Indigenous futurism. Kwê is the current research project being held by Jeanette in collaboration with Stéphanie Cyr, Olivia Shaffer, Tamar Tabori and contributing artistic designers. Derived from iskwew (femme spirit) and iskotêw (fire), Kwê provides a fluid container to intentionally define and amplify iskwêwak sovereignty and dismantle dominant colonial and patriarchal narratives with vulnerability, courage and heart.

Kwê was livestreamed as part of Dance In Vancouver in November 2021 and performed in person at Scotiabank Dance Centre as part of Matriarchs Uprising in February 2022.

SR: Can you tell me about the title of your piece, Kwê?

JK: I have articulated Kwê within my work as femme spirit. In the Nêhiyaw/ Cree language, as I understand it, gender characteristics are accessible to/ by everyone. Our teachings say:

“Be Womanly” - live as a caregiver “Be Manly” - live as a provider 4

Dance Central Spring 2022

These teachings are for everyone. It is not only for men to be manly, similarly, women can have fierce courage and warrior-like strength as well. In a way, these are potential values rather than gender qualities.

SR: Gender roles are abstract. How do you translate that into choreography?

JK: I identify as she and also, they because I am animal and spirit too. I am all my relations, and my ancestors are part of me. I want to make my creative spaces inclusive to different gender expressions. Kwê, for me, has been about

Jeanette Kotowich © Yvonne Chew Dance Central Spring 2022

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Dance Central The Dance Centre Scotiabank Dance Centre Level 6, 677 Davie Street Vancouver BC V6B 2G6 T 604.606.6400 F 604.606.6401 info@thedancecentre.ca www.thedancecentre.ca

sovereignty of the femme body and marginalized voices. It is a pushback against patriarchy.

Dance Central is published quarterly by The Dance Centre for its members and for the dance community. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent Dance Central or The Dance Centre. The editor reserves the right to edit for clarity or length, or to meet house requirements.

Editor, Art Director & Layout Shanny Rann

Copy Editor Nazanin Oghanian

Design Layout Becky Wu

Dance Foundation Board Members: Chair Linda Blankstein Secretary Anndraya T Luui Treasurer Janice Wells Directors Samantha Luo, Mark Osburn, Sasha Morales,

Contributors to this issue:

SR: Would you say that as a choreographer, you have more sovereignty over what is being shown through the camera lens as opposed to a live performance?

JK: I think of Kwê as an offering of my process, not a performance. So come for the experience, where you are invited to be witness to the journey.

Andrea Benzel

Jeanette Kotowich, Rianne Svelnis

Photo credits

Dance Centre Staff: Executive Director

Front Cover: Jeanette Kotowich

Mirna Zagar

Collab © Sharai Mustatia

Programming Coordinator

Back Cover: Film still from Jeanette

Raquel Alvaro

Kotowich's research

Associate Producer Linda Blankstein

Dance Centre Board Members:

Director of Marketing

Chair

Heather Bray

Jason Wrobleski

Digital Marketing Coordinator

Vice Chair

Lindsay Curtis

Andrea Reid

Membership/Outreach Coordinator

Secretary Judith Garay

Nazanin Oghanian

Treasurer

Lead Technician

Annelie Vistica

Chengyan Boon

Directors

Comptroller

Rosario Ancer, Tin Gamboa, Linda

Elyn Dobbs

Gordon, Arash Khakpour, Anndraya T

Venue and Operations Manager

Luui, Katia Oteman, Zahra Shahab

Simran Ghesani

Founded in 1986 as a leading dance resource centre for dance professionals and the public in British Columbia, The Dance Centre is a multifaceted organization. The Dance Centre presents an exciting season of shows and events, serves a broad membership of 300 professional dance companies and individual artists, and offers a range of activities unparalleled in Canadian dance. The Dance Centre is BC's primary resource centre for the dance profession and the public. The activities of The Dance Centre are made possible bynumerous individuals. Many thanks to our members, volunteers, community peers, board of directors and the public for your ongoing commitment to dance in BC. Your suggestions and feedback are always welcome. The operations of The Dance Centre are supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Province of British Columbia, the BC Arts Council, and the City of Vancouver through the Office of Cultural Affairs.

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This particular concept of sovereignty translated really well to video because we worked with a very specific camera treatment for the livestream capture. It was also successful for live performance, because in our research process, we created conceptual containers for the material to translate between livestream and live performance.

One technique we worked with was a concept of decolonizing the space and the power dynamic between audience and performance.

I worked with the artists to give agency to their bodies by accessing the power within to command the space and audience with their presence. I am addressing the fine line between audience as witnesses to process rather than as consumers of performance.

You can see this within the livestream version of Kwê, specifically when the dancers address viewers back home with their direct gaze into the camera: “I am looking at you. I see you. I am seeing you because I am making the choice to see you, not because I have no

choice. I am choosing to see you looking at me, and I am allowing you to see me.”

SR: That's really empowering, not just for the performers as individuals, but especially for them as women.

JK: Exactly. That was the idea. I have to feel empowered.

DECOLONIZE SR: I want to unpack what you said about decolonizing. Do you find it difficult to decolonize within the performance structure of a theatre, the framework of which is colonial itself?

JK: It is difficult, for sure. Even just having decolonial intentions is already an act of decolonizing. I would say I am pretty new as a person in artistic leadership, so I have been developing my approaches. Decolonial approaches show up in the everyday practice, for example how we enter into the room as a collective for the beginning of rehearsal. I rely on my intuition and past experiences to inform my approaches. This also translates into the theatre space when we were discussing audience orientation.

With the live performance of Kwê, I had the audience seated on two sides of the theatre.

There was a string of fairy lights on the ground that made it look like those old school music halls, containing the artists from the audience. Ideally, I would have loved to try

it without seating or chairs, so the audience could organize their own bodies in a very fluid way and adjust naturally if they needed to, but we were presented in a festival format.

I ended up having chair seating with pillows on the floor in front of them, encouraging the audience to sit on the pillows, which they did.

One of my colleagues sat on the ground, and she allowed her body to sink into gravity at the end of the piece, to breathe and just receive it all. That is what I wanted—for the audience to be able to do what they need authentically with their bodies in the space. For audiences to feel comfortable as witnesses, you need to warm people up because they are not used to that.

I think of Kwê as an offering of my process, not a performance.

So come for the experience, where you are invited to be witness to the journey.

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Kwê dancers Olivia Shaffer, Stéphanie Cyr, Tamar Tabori © Yasu Okada

SR: How does your dance practice relate to your traditional lineage?

JK: I work a lot with social dance that comes from my Métis heritage. All traditional Indigenous dance practices serve a function; there are harvest dances, wedding dances, courting dances, funeral dances etc. I am looking to create meaning from my dance and consider what my intentions are, and what functions they serve. I reference my Nehiyaw and Métis ancestry regularly to source the intentions and find the meaning.

I'm curious about blurring the lines between what's performative and what's not, particularly looking at preparation for performance. How can the preparation be treated as performance protocol and also be shared with the audience, rather than doing all 8

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the preparation backstage? I am looking at how we enter into our work. As a way to prime the audience of Kwê, we shared our warm-up, the dancers and I did jigging steps abstracted from my Métis dance practice in a clear spatial orientation. The dancers could tune themselves to the space while beginning to feel the audience in a casual way, to welcome them, make eye contact, and even smile.

We started with the spatial priming, upbeat music came on, people clapped and hooted.

The dancers were getting the adrenaline rush because they were doing something that was task-oriented, but also very joyful in a fluid, liminal way between non-performativity and performativity. I feel that allowed for the authentic performance to come through because they did not have to perform “performing”. They had already just shared an

expression that was not performative but it was at the same time.

When we completed the jigging, there was the blurring of sections, and the dancers gathered around me, we had a group hug, and then I left the space to sit in the audience. The dancers settled and began the “performance” part of it, but the performance had already begun, right?

there is a focus on celebrating. For me, that is where I find agency—to celebrate resilience.

I identify my work as futurism or Indigenous futurism because I see the strength of where we are, how far we have come through all the loss to project that we will be there in the future. This is what we have to offer.

There are a lot of Indigenous artists who create work that speaks to trauma and the loss. Those works are significant and important. My way of contributing is through sharing optimism. But that doesn’t mean it's easy. There is still struggle within the process and in my personal life, but I work it out in my practice, so that I can receive the healing.

In a way, that liminal phase was our protocol.

It was established right from the beginning our agency over the space, holding the audience's attention, and allowing the audience to know that they can engage. The dancers, having already broken the fourth wall, were able to look out into the audience and receive from those giving good energy, and reciprocate. For the livestream, we had a slightly different approach. The broadcast link went live 30 mins before beginning to open and share our workspace. If you were there, you would have seen our circle gathering of all artist, collaborators, and technical crew.

I am researching authentic protocol for my process and opening those expressions up to be shared with the audience.

Honestly, to land where I have landed in my artistic practice and in different times throughout my life, the circles that I found myself in, dance has really saved me in so many ways. Whenever I have challenges, I have a circle to go to where I am with the community and with my colleagues. I am so grateful because many times in my life, it has been the reason why I got out of bed, and I am so fortunate to be able to have that.

JOY

COURAGE

SR: That is something quite unusual! I feel decolonizing undergirds your work. The quality of joy is not something one often encounters in contemporary dance performances.

SR: Tell me more about the other values of Kwê.

JK: Joy is what is being transferred over from my Métis dance practices. It is celebratory and so uplifting. With Kwê and most of my pieces,

JK: Joy is an overarching value in my work and in my expressions, but I was focusing on bravery and courage, in particular with Kwê.

I try to access that through vulnerability, which is an interesting dynamic. It is an act of bravery to be truly authentic.

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SR: It takes a lot of strength to be vulnerable a.k.a. Brené Brown.

JK: Exactly! I have been working with these four Creators Laws according to the Nêhiyawak, which were shared with me

by Darlene Auger (passed down from Elder Carl Quinn), and I got permission to quote here:

Sâkehtok - Love one another Wîcehtok - Help one another Miyowâhtamok - Be Joyful Sôhkâtisik - Be strong Film still from Jeanette Kotowich's research

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The first two letters of these words combined, make up SâwîmiSô which means to remember where you come from.

About a year and a half ago, I started to be drawn to these four laws. We were in a pandemic, and there were all these things happening around us: the missing and murdered Indigenous women, Black Lives Matter, Every Child Matters and now we are in another experience of war happening on the other side of the world. It has been a relentless time, even down to our interpersonal relationships, families being divided because of

different politics, communities being divided because of different beliefs.

I was looking at the laws and thinking they are what we need! We need to be kind to other people. We do not know what is happening in someone else's life. The more you can be kind, the more that you can have compassion, the more that you can love and be joyful, courageous, and strong. Those are things that we really need to cultivate, not only towards others, but we also need these values for ourselves. Self compassion and love, which is something I really need to work at. That is

basically why I started working with the laws and I'm continuing to work with them. There are forty-four laws in total.

I have not even been able to move past those first four laws because I feel especially in our traditional ways, you have to really learn something before it becomes knowledge. I have been given this information, but in order to know it as knowledge, I have to really learn it. And that takes time.

SR: Yes! In my Tai Chi practice too, my master would say to me, “You are just doing the movements, but you have not let them seep into your heart.” That is the time when you truly learn something because it is as if you metabolize it before it comes out as something of your own. You have done the work of digesting it, sitting with it, contemplating it.

The Four Laws you shared will perhaps take a lifetime to learn.

JK: That is a brilliant comparison. It is the same thing as you can only become a master after committing your whole self to it. I describe my practice as a vocational practice, it is not a temporary thing, it is a constant reinvesting into the practice that extends beyond just the creative process. It is literally every day. You have to be patient and keep coming back to it.

LAND-BASED RESEARCH SR: Our conversation about learning makes me wonder how we can actually learn to acknowledge the land that we are on?

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JK: Whenever I get asked to do a land acknowledgment, I put it back on the person who asked me because it is everyone's responsibility to do land acknowledgement.

Everyone has the skills to do it. Your land acknowledgement does not look like mine. A lot of artists have asked me, and I encouraged them to have it integrated in their daily practice. Every day, I am going to the studio and I am going to acknowledge the land in some way. Maybe it is not verbal, it does not matter, but it is done in one way or another.

SR: Land acknowledgement is a collective learning for all of us, especially in Canada.

JK: The invitation is for all artists, leaders, and space holders to think:

What is my relationship to land?

What is my history with this land?

Who are my parents?

When did I arrive here?

Everyone's relationship to the land is different.

Land-based research is another key component to my decolonial practice.

Although things happen in the theatre, because we are people who come from the land, we belong to the land; all the elements of place, site, ancestry, and nature come into whatever space we are in, even if I am in a formalized institutional space like a theatre or a studio.

INTEGRATION SR: How are you integrating your practice 12

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with non-Indigenous dancers?

JK: In my solo work, obviously, I am working with an Indigenous body. With Kwê, it worked with three non-Indigenous bodies. I had to think a lot about it, especially when my work represents Indigenous culture. It is important to have an authentic representation, even when I share my knowledge and cosmology in process, so that teachings are shared in a respectful way.

I am very open with artists whom I work with. It goes along with what we have talked about being vulnerable, being authentic, transparent, and having the courage to do that. I struggled at different times, especially when the piece was about to be revealed.

I was thinking about what my Indigenous community might say about me working with non-Indigenous artists. At the same time, I wanted to protect the artists I selected for this work. I frequently checked in with them on how they felt about interpreting my cosmology and my intentions.

The understanding that we kept coming back to was that they never felt they were mimicking any part of my culture. They never felt they were pretending to be Indigenous or even to be a native body because my approach is that you honour the body that you have. Working with land-based images, referencing cosmology, and courage, those are values that are accessible to everyone.

I worked with each of the artists to express their uniqueness, to have their gifts and their personalities shine through. I focused a lot

on each artist's individuality. I did not try to unify their bodies, but I trusted them and gave them permission to play because they needed to earnestly feel that they had agency in their expression, to hone empowerment.

I talked a lot with the artists about what they needed to feel good as performers about beginning to work, because I care so much about our personal wellness. Above all things, we need to be well so that we can be thriving artists. If you are not well, you are not going to be able to show up the way that you want to.

Another layer is that I see my body in there, I see my body as this giant hug around the work. The overarching framework holding the space for the journey to take place. I am holding the larger container of what's being shared. Kind of like having an overarching solo but being expressed in a collective body. It is just one big expression that's coming from me, in generous collaboration and interpreted by others. I was fortunate enough to have my little sister come to my shows for both nights, and

she also watched the livestream a number of times. She spoke up during the artist talk back after my show and said, “Jeanette, you keep talking about the artists’ individuality, but all I see is you.” That is the best compliment I get when people see me in my work.

SR: Would you say it is because you have successfully transferred your body knowledge onto another body without taking the agency out of the dancers? That's a difficult thing to do, a fine line to walk, isn’t it?

JK: Exactly, the artists have expressed to me that they received deep healing from the space that was created. I know that it did bring each of them healing because it is a different way of working compared to some of our other experiences. It has been a way for me to harmonize some of the experiences I have had as an interpreter, where I did not feel honored as a dancer, interpreter and collaborator or get public credit for my work.

That is part of my decolonial approach as

Everyone's relationship to the land is different. Land-based research is another key component to my decolonial practice.

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well—to be curious about why we do things the way that we do, and to let go of structures that no longer work for us. I am so grateful to the artists for their contribution and their integrity, and all the ways that they have supported my vision and continue to support the work we have been making together.

Together, we have learned so much.

Jeanette Kotowich is a multi-disciplinary iskwew, independent dance artist, creator, choreographer and professional Auntie of Nêhiyaw Métis and mixed settler ancestry.

Originally from Treaty 4 territory Saskatchewan, she creates work that reflects Nêhiyaw/Métis cosmology within the context of contemporary dance, Indigenous performance, and Indigenous futurism. Fusing interdisciplinary collaboration, decolonial practices and embodied research methodologies; her work references protocol, ritual, relationship to the natural/spirit world and Ancestral knowledge.

Her practice is intergenerational and vocational; it is a living and lived experience. She resides as a guest on the Ancestral and unceded Sḵwx̱ wú7mesh (Squamish) Səl̓ ilw̓ ətaʔɬ/ (TsleilWaututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm (Musqueam) territories, colonially known as Vancouver.

Kwê dancers Olivia Shaffer, Sophie Dow, Stéphani Cyr © Sharai Mustatia

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Making Space for Cultural Connection at Morrow Rianne Svelnis’ sharing of cross-disciplinary practices through Symbiotic Forms

by Rachel Silver Maddock

As winter became spring and spring will inevitably turn into summer, Morrow – a cultural space opened by Dumb Instrument Dance in July 2020 – is host to a special new initiative that brings together artists in mutually beneficial, or symbiotic sharing of practices.

Symbiotic Forms, envisioned and realized by Dumb Instrument Dance, makes three artists “Cultural Connectors” between February and August this year. The artists – Rianne Svelnis, Joyce Rosario and Marisa Gold – are given the opportunity to invite other artists, educators, and activists into processes of research, dialogue, and practice sharing, supported through 100 hours of space and funding for their collaborators.

I was drawn to learn more about Symbiotic Forms because it uniquely puts the focus on the relational aspect of artmaking, rather than the creative product. This aligns with something I have felt in the slow return to “normal” this year – a new appreciation for how those in-person connections, in-studio or in passing, inform and inspire my own practice. The program is creating space for that invaluable exchange, expanding its scope outside of the dance community to reconceive of the sharing of cultural and artistic knowledge.

In my conversation with Rianne Svelnis (who completed the bulk of her time at Morrow in February and March 2022), I found myself captivated by the intricacies of each of Rianne’s different projects, from pulp painting to storytelling, and imagining each creative process layering upon the last in the space at Morrow.

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Dumb Instrument Dance from Ziyian Kwan's Choreography Made in Voyage © David Cooper

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Rachel Maddock: How did you get involved in Symbiotic Forms?

based on relationships I already had, [seeking to] understand how dance applies to other practices and what those practices can give back to dance.

Rianne Svelnis: Ziyian [Kwan, artistic director of Dumb Instrument Dance] invited me to be one of three artists in the program­with Joyce Rosario and Marisa Gold. She did the grant writing and secured the funds to support the program.

When we were first envisioning it, it was called Symbiotic Forms because of the intention to learn how different practices can be in relationship and in symbiosis, as mutually beneficial.

RM: Yes, the name reminds me of plants!

RS: Exactly! Seeing how distinct practices can strengthen one another and uplift one another is interesting.

RM: So as a Cultural Connector, you had 100 hours of space at Morrow. Could you use those hours however you wanted or how did you structure it?

RS: Ziyian was super open to how I wanted to build the program and who I chose to practice share with. The other thing it provided was some mentorship and administrative support from Ziyian; she helped me envision the larger scope of the whole program.

RM: What piqued your interest to be a part of it?

RS: I think one of the reasons Ziyian invited me is that I feel like in my life I have participation and bonds in different communities – not just the dance community. My program was three or four different practices coming together

RM: I see that you were working with Sauha Lee, Alexa Solveig Mardon, Olivia C. Davies and Romila Barryman. What practices did they bring into the space at Morrow?

RS: My first collaborator was Sauha Lee, who is a landscaper and visual artist. She makes pulp paintings out of decomposing plant material and reused scrap paper. Sauha and I have known each other since we were three years old, so we have a lifelong relationship.

Sauha’s work has been in the Morrow gallery since the original Morrow space, and she knew Ziyian from a residency called SOJOURN. Sauha and I did a practice share where I offered movement and somatic practices related to the theme of her work, which is Winter Bones, because of what is revealed when winter comes, the leaves drop, and we see the structure of plant material rather than the fruits. We did bone dances together… somatic bone dances! She’s not a dancer, so I offered parts of my practice to see how it might relate to the themes in her work.

Then we designed a workshop that was open to the public with two parts: a somatic warm up then pulp painting with Sauha, and participants brought in plant material and scrap paper. It was this question mark of what doing a somatic warm up would give to this craft, and vice versa.

It was really fun!

RM: That sounds extremely fun but also interesting.

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RS: It was brand new; we had never done that before. In the room, there were dancers, academics, landscapers—lots of communities coming together in that space. It was really cool because the landscapers knew all this shit about plants, then the dancers were really sourcing material from their body experience.

RM: I’m curious about what pulp painting has added to your practice?

RS: Something Sauha and I talked a lot about is perceiving beauty in decomposition – in rotting material, or waste material. In landscaping or gardening, the wet or dry plant material is perceived as waste and composted. But what she does is repurpose it and turn it into artwork. So that was a big learning [piece] for me: how to reperceive things in my work or in my life that I might see as ugly or useless or

In the room, there were dancers, academics, landscapers—lots of communities coming together in that space.

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rotting and invite the possibility of repurposing those things and understanding beauty in a different way. It’s quite conceptual but it’s a really beautiful concept.

RM: After working with Sauha, you worked with Alexa?

RS: Yes, then I worked with Alexa Mardon on an ongoing project, offering movement classes for support workers. This relates to another part of my life – frontline support work and direct action. In the Downtown Eastside (DTES), I am part of some mutual aid projects. For several years, Alexa and I have been working on a class or workshop for people whose job or life puts them in high intensity or crisis situations frequently, to see how we can use our knowledge of the body that we have from dancing to apply to the nervous system in times of crisis, or to apply our understanding of choreography to social choreography if there is a crisis in a group, for instance.

We did two workshops, online and in person. It was very cool because there were professional trauma therapists, dancers and front-line workers all coming together to be in the body and talk about what tools we can practice when a crisis arises: to ground or calm the nervous system or make a connection with someone that could be supportive, or just move the body in space when a freeze response comes up.

RM: I love that. I think the type of dance we do is so much about how you are, and how you can be in the world. It is wonderful to

Workshop with Rianne Svelnis and Sauha Lee at Morrow © Ziyian Kwan

see you reaching out to the community and trying to share that knowledge. Do you feel like it was successful, like you managed to communicate that?

what language people respond to. Having a toolbox or a set of responses can be helpful – for instance if I feel like I am panicking I can feel my feet on the floor.

RS: Yes, I think there are lots of different methods of connecting to the body – this just happens to be the one Alexa and I are experts at and employed at. Because we teach and share these tools and receive them in dance class, we can share them. People could go to a yoga class for instance, or any other type of physical practice but this is the one that is available to us, because Alexa and I both have dance and front-line support practices. I do think it is successful. Over the years, we have been learning what people respond to and

RM: So those are just two of the four projects you did!

RS: I know it’s a lot of information.

RM: No, it’s great! It’s the actual substance of the work that’s the most interesting part. I can see what you mean about connecting different communities, it’s really lovely that this program provides space for that. It can feel so disparate, these communities that we have. I am curious about the other collaborators you worked with.

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Rianne and Sauha's pulp painting and somatic movement workshop at Morrow © Rianne Svelnis and Sauha Lee

Do you want to touch on your work with them?

RS: Then I worked with Olivia Davies with Matriarchs Uprising. She has a program called the DTES Grandmothers Collective. Ziyian, Sophie Dow and I joined them in their improvisational creation residency that weaves [together] cultural sharing and intergenerational knowledge. There were four DTES community artists [Dalannah Gail Bowen, Rosemary Georgeson, Savannah Walling, and Sharon Jinkerson-Brass] that are part of a storytelling collective. It was really special for me because I have a long relationship with Olivia, and existing relationships with two of the elders so there was familiarity there. That process in particular was really restorative and gentle.

We sat in a circle and experimented and shared experiences and stories. The theme of that particular group's project is Gathering

facilitator, cyber-mystic, and a new collaborator for me. We spent a week together. That was a really special opportunity because we had only ever worked together online, where we met at an SFU Community Capacity Building course in 2021. Our studio time together was a non-linear, non-cerebral way of getting to know one another, and sensing one another’s ways of perceiving through our art practices. We did a beautiful practice share that felt both embodied and ethereal, and intentionally didn’t have a showing or workshop or anything but kept it just for real time in the studio. I also had one really special day of practice share with my dear friend, Harmanie Rose. We work together with All Bodies [Dance Project] and have created and danced together a lot. So, it was like a joyful reunion where we shared what we had been working on lately, built a score, danced it together, and spent time witnessing one another.

Hope, which was really beautiful.

Then I worked with Romila, who is a writer, 2200

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RM: Overall, what was your experience of being a Cultural Connector?

RS: Especially when the pandemic hit, I was

you going to continue these kernels of ideas

thinking a lot about how I felt uncomfortable

and disseminate them in some way?

with how compartmentalized different pieces of my life felt and how the dance world

RS: I feel like a lot of what happened is relationship

felt like a closed or siloed community. And

building and understanding other people’s

sometimes what we learn about being a

practices. This is something Romila articulated

dancer is that it’s the only thing you can do, or

beautifully during our time together in the studio:

else you won’t be successful – that you have

that it is a practice unto itself, to join someone in

to be 100% devoted to dance and that’s it.

their perspective and their way of doing and way of processing the world. And so that is something

I was pushing against that a little bit and

that I will definitely continue to practice – how to

wanted to challenge that to be a whole

meet someone, how to exchange, and how to join

person with lots of different interests and

them in the way they understand the world and

practices and places where I put my energy.

process it through their art.

To move away from a scarcity mentality where I only have so many units of energy, and if I use any of them on something else then my dance practice or dance career will

RM: What was it like to have a more extended period of support for your practice and personally?

suffer. I wanted to reimagine it so that all the pieces strengthen one another instead of taking them away from one another.

RM: Do you feel like the weeks and hours you spent in Symbiotic Forms will be informing your work over the next period of time, or is it something that’s finished? Are

RS: It felt like a celebration of relationships. It was very affirming and uplifting to have support from Ziyian and Dumb Instrument Dance to support relationships and practice sharing with financial support – it is a very special and rare thing. I am feeling a lot of gratitude and reflecting on how some of the relationships were lifelong, and some

And sometimes what we learn about being a dancer is that it’s the only thing you can do, or else you won’t be successful – that you have to be 100% devoted to dance and that’s it.

Dance Central Spring 2022

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Rianne Svelnis and Sauha Lee at Morrow © Ziyian Kwan

were quite new. In some ways it is a study of how relationships form and change when we meet in artistic practice. It was beautiful to be supported and to vicariously support other artists through the program that Ziyian put together.

Symbiotic Forms continues through August with Joyce Rosario from March – July 2022 (working via Critical Response Process with Justin Calvadores, Jeanette Kotowich, June Fukumara and Natalie Gan) and Marisa Gold following from May – August 2022. More information and public participation opportunities can be found at Dumb Instrument Dance.

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Dance Central Spring 2022

Rianne Svelnis is a queer dance artist and a settler of European descent living on the lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm, Sḵwx̱ wú7mesh, and sə̓ lílwətaʔɬ people. A graduate of Modus Operandi Contemporary Dance Training Program, Rianne has since collaborated and performed in works by Ziyian Kwan, romham pàdraig gallacher, Sasha Kleinplatz, Justine Chambers, Daisy Thompson, Olivia Davies, Emmalena Fredriksson and others. She has also created new works in collaboration with Sauha Lee, Zahra Shahab, Kelly McInnes, Areli Moran, and Andrea Cownden and Layla Marcelle. Rianne co-facilitates inclusive community dance classes with All Bodies Dance Project, Movement Classes for Support Workers with Alexa Solveig Mardon and is in mentorship with Karen Jamieson Dance with the Carnegie Dance Troupe in the Downtown Eastside. Rianne is also a grateful participant in the mutual aid project Distro Disco.

Rachel Silver Maddock (she/her) is an independent dance artist, writer and choreographer living and working on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations, Vancouver and Port Moody, BC. She holds a Diploma of Dance Studies from Trinity Laban (UK) and a BA Visual Culture & Performance Studies (SFU). Since 2015, she has danced in various projects for independent artists and companies in BC including plastic orchid factory, The Body Orchestra Collective, It’s Not A Box Theatre and Deanna Peters/Mutable Subject. She has presented her work at Mascall Dance’s Bloom, Chalk It Up and The Dance Centre. Rachel writes about dance and the visual arts for publications including The Dance Current, Dance International, SAD Mag, Dance Central and the Burrard Arts Foundation.

Gathering of Hope at Morrow, courtesy of O’Dela Arts © Erik Zennström Dance Central Spring 2022

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Dance Central Spring 2022