KATIE WARD — Vagabond Body

May 1 to 5, 2023 – 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. (Mon.-Fri.)
Full week rate: 85$ with Services Québec support / 140$ regular rate
*Drop-in class rate: 22$ with Service Québec / 30$ if non-eligible
Language of instruction: English
Questions can also be answered in French
Capacity : 23 people, priority for full week attendance
Open to artists of all disciplines

*Drop-ins welcome – Payment by credit card or e-transfer on site the morning of, if capacity allows (no reservations).

By registering for a workshop, you agree to cancel your participation if you have symptoms or suspect you may have COVID-19. Please read the Participant Engagement before registering. Thank you!

CONTENT
In French, the term “vagabonder” means to wander or daydream adventurously. Studies have shown that alpha brain waves associated with A-Ha! moments and creativity are present when the mind wanders.

With a warmup based in bio-mechanical, emotional, sensorial and metaphorical imagery – we will condition and strengthen imagination and proprioception – working from techniques and images lodged in the body.

We will explore hybrid practices – activating material from the body by tapping into sensation, images and traces of techniques lodged there, to produce dancing that is constantly forming and reforming.

Vagabonding practice incorporates a format for self-determination. I improvise by drawing from my body-based imagination and archive to uncover forms, intensities, techniques, traces, and vestiges of experiences. I invite others to practice with me.

Vagabond technique will be rigorous, facilitating each person’s dance interests and exploring them, through lenses of qualities and values. Participants are invited to work from their own personal desires, body archive and dance tradition.

ACCESSIBILITY
We will be standing, sitting, dancing, and lying on the ground. Participants may move within the range and amplitude that is comfortable. Participants are encouraged to move in the way that is most personally interesting and beneficial.

BIOGRAPHY
Katie Ward works from the unceded traditional territories of the Kanien’kehá:ka, Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe people. Her performance scores create conditions for reimagining what we know. Her most recent works highlight the subjective perspectives of the performer and the audience by accessing thoughts and feelings through dance and spoken word scores. She presented a solo entitled Anything Whatsoever (Festival TransAmériques, Montreal, 2021), two group works – Dream Room, a co-production with Beeldend Danstheatre Telder, The Netherlands, presented simultaneously at AXENÉ07 & Scarabee and live on YouTube, Gatineau/Arnhem – 2021, and imaginationreality (La Chapelle, Scènes Contemporaines, Montreal – 2019) as well as a spoken score performed by 12 spectators – titled Machine For Really Real Imaginaries (SappyFest, Sackville, New Brunswick – 2020) and a song series entitled Vagabond body (broadcast on Radio Hull, AXENÉ07 and Daïmon – Gatineau 2020).

Her previous choreographies include Human Synthesizer (Tangente 2017), Matière Grise (FTA, 2016), Infinity Doughnut (2014) and Rock Steady (2010). Her work has been presented in Quebec and Canada as well as at the Nottdance Festival (UK) – organized by Dance4, the Exit Festival at the Maison des Arts de Créteil and the Via Festival in Maubeuge.

Katie holds a Master’s degree in Theatre Practice from Artez University in Arnhem, The Netherlands and is also a teacher whose practice integrates choreography, dance, dramaturgy, biomechanics and experiential anatomy.