Influences

Artistic Influences (public but in-progress)
Smith College - Creative Process Assignment, Fall 2013
 

I am indebted to so many artists and wonderful teachers who have helped shaped my aesthetic sensibilities and core beliefs as a dance artist. There are some key artists who I can still quickly tag as a source note and bring their specific influential thread forward with a clear integration into my own practices. There are other artists in which their influences are rooted so deep I can no longer specify their particular thread of influence, threads that are so closely knit to my own. I just intuitively know their core beliefs have helped shape my own.  

Teachers: who have influenced my movement patterning/perspective Peter Bingham, Helen Walkley, Chris Aiken, Angie Hauser  

Peter Bingham was my first teacher in Contact Improvisation (CI). It was through his teaching, and through his visiting collaborators to EDAM  that the world of contact dance was opened up to me. Specifically, aside from the wonders of the CI form and the skills that I developed through his teaching, Peter taught me how to live inside a question. Through Peter’s pedagogical practices and approach to dance making he taught me that what bears the real fruit is your relationship to your question and your ability to live inside the process of the unknown. The answer is only secondary, but it is the process of inquiry that will teach you so much more. He was the first teacher to open this door for me and since then I have developed my personal aesthetic sensibilities through this lens and have sought future teachers who share this same approach. This is a personal core value that I credit to Peter Bingham.

Peter Bingham is an improvisor, choreographer, contact improvisor and master teacher based in Vancouver, BC. He is the Artistic Director of EDAM (Experimental Dance and Music), in which he produces intimate and large-scale works annually.  

Helen Walkley: Through Helen’s teachings of the Laban/Bartenieff work and by observing her artistic practice and creative works Helen Walkley has exhibited and shared with me the purest qualities of intensity and subtlety. I remember being on the floor for an entire class practicing a particular movement pattern and researching our own habits in relation to the exercise. This is an example of her focused intensity. I also have several vivid memories of Helen observing and then cuing my body through a simple listening touch that resultant in a lasting transformation in my sense of knowing or being in my body. This is an example of her deep but knowingly direct subtlety. Helen’s intuitive approach to the Laban/Bartenieff material inspires me as a teacher. Her non-didactic but embodied understanding is transferred to her students with much curiosity and feels like poetry to the body. It was through Helen’s profound understanding of the body and her CMA lens that I was first presented with the tools to awaken my inner landscape and find my fullest potential. She has helped immensely in the broadening of my movement palette both as a dancer and as director.

Helen Walkley is a choreographer/dance artist based in Vancouver, BC. She is a master teacher with thirty years of experience in somatic based training. Helen is a certified Laban Movement Analyst and a registered Somatic Movement Educator.  

Teachers: who have influenced my pedagogical practices as a teacher Rebecca Lazier, Donna Redlick, Ballet Bob-(Robert McCollum), Darryl Tracy, and Marc Boivin.

Donna Redlick (with the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts and Dianne Jillings): I first met Donna Redlick in 2005 during my job interview, in which I was applying to teach at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts in Burnaby, BC. I am the teacher I am today via my now seven-year relationship with the Shadbolt (2005-2011) and through my extended observations, conversations and teacher training workshops led by Donna Redlick. It was through my relationship with Donna that I learned the art of breaking things down and how to facilitate embodied learning for even the youngest or most beginner students.

Donna Redlick is a certified movement analyst, a dance educator and movement artist based in Vancouver, BC.  


Collaborators/Provocateurs: Daelik- MACHiNENOiSY, Jennifer Mascall- Mascall Dance, The Holy Body Tattoo (Dana Gingras, Noam Gagnon), Claire French, Tedd Robinson, Pat Richards, Phil Thomson, Susanne Chui, Jacinte Armstrong.

Much of my professional work to date has been made through collaboration. I feel the most alive and flourish the most when in dialogue and feel blessed that I can work in this way. As I reflect the collaborators that I have worked with I am surprised to realize how difficult it is to discern or filter which collaborator has support what specifically.

My two main and longest standing collaborators have been my colleagues and friends Susanne Chui and Jacinte Armstrong. As we grow our projects have shifted from small scale ad-hoc events to now large scale productions, companies and even sustaining and withstanding the various local and national community weather. We collaborate in everything. As we grow our communication style and methods have expanded, contracted, focused, dissolved, and rejuvenated time and time again. You could say we are art sisters and are in it for the long haul. There isn’t one thing in particular that has influenced me specifically except for the longstanding commitment and support that we feed to each other. But this is pretty damn important. We express the mantra together we are better. We do not always work in a trio of minds. We disband into twos or re-gather as three depending on the project, but the supportive ear and sounding board options are always present.

In 2005 we co-founded SiNS Dance (Sometimes in Nova Scotia) to support our cross-country creative habits. SiNS is now led administratively by Jacinte Armstrong and Susanne Chui is the Artistic Director of Mocean Dance, in which I co-direct with her in my capacity as Artistic Associate.  

The Holy Body Tattoo-Noam Gagnon (Vision Impure), Dana Gingras (Animals of Distinction) My first professional gig was with the Holy Body Tattoo in 2003, (I think I even photocopied and framed my paycheck). I started off as an apprentice while in school and later after graduating became the understudy (and co-collaborator in some of the material generation) for the piece monumental. I worked with the company over the three-years of developing and touring this work and was the only understudy to last through the entire project. Monumental was the last work Dana and Noam created together before disbanding to pursue solo-led careers, but what I learned from this experience will be in my movement syntax forever. In working with this powerful duo, it was the first time I really felt how powerful movement could be. I was able to unleash the power of my thrust and I felt so at home in my body in the making and performing of this material - even with the relentless incredibly demanding nature of the movement. Dana and Noam taught me the significance of the coil; how to whip up and contain energy and then let it fly free.

Since that initial encounter, I have later worked with Dana and Noam individually as choreographic mentors. They are not afraid to ask tough questions and pull things apart, yet they do so with as much rigour as they do with generosity and care. I have felt a sense of support from each of them throughout my career either directly or indirectly from the jewels of information that I was able to capture and carry forward into my career.

Now Artistic Director of Vision Impure, Noam Gagnon is an acclaimed dance artist who, over the course of his career, has helped push Canadian dance into the forefront of international stage. Noam was a founder, co-artistic director, and choreographer of the internationally acclaimed dance company The Holy Body Tattoo from 1993-2006.

Founded in 2006, Animals of Distinction was initially formed as a satellite organization beneath the larger auspices of acclaimed company The Holy Body Tattoo, for the independent work of artistic director Dana Gingras.  

Indirect Collaborators: Thomas Lehmen (Schreibstuck)  

Artists-at-large:
Margie Gillis
Cois Ceim- David Bolger
Ultima Vez - Wim Vandekeybus
Lola Maclaughlin
Reece Terris – Visual artist
Marten Spangberg- Blog

I have seen the companies Cois Ceim (Ballads, 2000) and Ultima Vez (Porteurs du Mauvais Nouvelle, 2005) perform live and to this day these two pieces have lasted in my memory and are marked in the best of category. No other pieces have blown me away like these two have. The raw physicality, the storiness, the porousness of the performers, the simple yet brilliant production elements, all of these elements were used in perfect proportions and were revealed at the most impactful resonate moments in the work. They are etched forever in my memory as powerful, raw and incredibility crafted works.  

Crystal Pite/Kidd Pivot: I have been following the development of Crystal's work since I moved to Vancouver.  I have seen her company’s full repertoire of work since the inception of Kidd Pivot in 2002. How crystal articulates in the body and through her generous sharing of ideas and conversation is simply jaw dropping inspiring. She is Canada’s sweetheart and a prolific choreographic heroine that I am proud to have crossed paths with within the Vancouver dance scene.