PROJECT // Swan Song
Swan Song originated as a response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In the residency at Studio 303, together with my collaborator, performer & somatic teacher Aurora Prelevic, we will start a creative conversation with workshop participants about how dance and movement practices can help us to process trauma and grieve in community. I will do documentation and art direction, as Aurora prepares and facilitates the project. I’ve also invited research neurobiologist, and certified Dance Therapist, Rebecca Barnstaple to consult us online during the project. We’ll research and explore together, generating written and drawn materials, as well as still and moving images through documentary filmmaking. The research will culminate in a movement community archive that reflects the spectrum of the lived anxieties and hopes of people from various places living with PTSD and other mental health disabilities, people whose lives, like ours, have been affected by armed conflict and displacement.
Collaborator: Aurora Prelevic / Research supporter: Dr. Rebecca Barnstaple
BIO // Anna Semenova is a visual artist from Ukraine, based in Montreal. She has an interest in human relationships and how people deal with their traumatic experiences throughout their lives. Anna’s practical skills in photography and video editing help to reveal three main components of human nature in her artworks: the physical body, psychological behavior, and spirituality. She started taking pictures at the age of 13 and is a self-taught photographer. In 2019, she entered Minshar Art College in Tel Aviv Israel, where she studied a course in documentary film production. She took on a wide range of projects related to fashion advertisement, and film production. In 2022 started her adventure as a filmmaker with the short dance documentary Fragments of Resilience. Because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine Anna moved to Canada in November 2022. Website: www.thesameanna.com
