April 22nd to 26th, 2024 – 9:30 am to 12:30 pm (Mon.-Fri.)
Full week rate : $85
Drop-in class rate : $25 – Only on Monday and/or Tuesday (available one month prior)
Language of instruction : English and French
Questions can also be asked in : English and French
Open to artists of all disciplines
The mask could be mandatory for some activities as an accessibility measure for our teachers or participants. For more information, click here.
CONTENT
This workshop is about practising dancing and writing as forms of invocation. In other words, as forms of expression that liberate themselves from direct signification. In other words, as fine-tuning our embodied attention. In other words, to express one of a myriad of things that can be present.
Let’s say that “invocation” means to summon what is not visible, to make it appear, to make it felt.
We will explore gesture, somatic cues, and language as tools for embodied translation. By gathering information, experiences, and sensations, we aim to create associations that inform outward expression. In this way, we can attempt to communicate the inarticulable by queering meaning.
Be ready to dig in! This process will involve in part spell-casting and other-realm-channelling (such as the intuitive and the inarticulable), and in part dance or text composition that follows their own juicy logic (the poetic and the metaphorical). When these elements are put together, they create a sense-making process that emphasizes sensory experiences over hegemonic meanings. This approach blends purpose and potential, incorporating both real and imagined elements to evoke a sense of magic. By attentively tuning into emergent sensations and infusing them with intention, we go on a journey that blends the realms of reality and imagination.
How do we do that? We will practice scores (structured exercises) that orient us to ourselves, each other, and our environment. These scores will simultaneously empower us to expand beyond the self while also fostering introspection. Each day will commence with a physical warm-up to prepare us for the day’s activities, followed by the scores of the day. Each day will built on the former, or stand alone.
The workshop is physical, playful, and contemplative at once. You can write in the language of your choice. Some scores in this workshop were adapted from the pedagogical practices of Alix Enaudi, Alice Chauchat, and Maria F. Scaroni. Others are created by Lara herself, some in a likely, leaky influence from artistico-personal exchanges with Maria Kefirova.
ACCESSIBILITY
The content of the workshop can be adapted by the participants to suit their physical and emotional ability. Several of the scores involve physical contact. Physical contact can always be modified.
BIOGRAPHY
Lara Oundjian is an interdisciplinary dance artist based in Montréal/Tiotià:ke. She trained in contemporary dance, choreography, somatic practices and practiced-based theory in various contexts of Berlin, Stockholm and Montreal. She has presented her work in Montreal at the OFFTA, Tangente, and the Phenomena festival, Summerworks, and Lots of Love. Lara was a resident artist with the Third Floor at Usine C from 2019-2021 and at La Serre from 2020-2021. Lara approaches dance as a practice of relationality, the body as dynamically entangled with its environment through attention and sensation. She researches practices of transmission between internal and external spaces. She is busy with various kinds of feminist embodied emancipation, and nerding out about both performativity and dancing.