Sept. 6th to 8th, 2023 – 10 am to 4 pm (Wed.-Fri.)
Full week rate : $100
Drop-in class rate : N/A
Language of instruction : English
Questions can also be asked in : English
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
Drawing from principles that animate beyond human kinships and call backwards into the future of indigiqueer brilliance and Indigenous knowledge, this workshop invites participants to expand their imaginations & deepen perceptions. Through heightened sensory awareness and body-voice activations, we attune ourselves to the intimate processes and cycles that unfold within and around us. We explore the interplay of our ancestral connections, legacies, earth relations, and imaginings, recognizing how they shape our being in the world & beyond.
This 3-day immersive workshop delves into explorations of body, voice and our perceptual selves. Drawing upon principles of Body Weather as a training and performance practice we will foster a deep awareness of the ever-evolving state of change within and around the body. Working with vocal improvisation practices that expand on perceptions of silence, breath, toning, vocal mimicry and resonating bodies, we explore our relationships to sound as a catalyst for transformative states.
In the space between ourselves and others, we discover the emergence of our identities and the deep interconnectedness that defines us. Through movement and dance, deep listening and voice, we explore how these qualities manifest and animate our existence (physical, spiritual, mental and emotional being/bodies). At its core, this workshop is a celebration of the ever-evolving nature of our beings, and how to remain fully present in each moment. We explore the instinctual body, inspired by human beings, animals, plants, stones; earth, air, fire, water, and atmospheric phenomena. We search for ways to shift one’s perspective, identity or creative expression; birth, death and renewal within terrestrial, subterranean, and cosmological frames.
ACCESSIBILITY
The workshop explores dynamic movement, vocal experimentation and challenges creative expression.
BIOGRAPHY
Weather Beings is a performance collaborative co-founded by Moe Clark and Victoria Hunt in 2019. Weather Beings was created as a site to examine the intersections of Métis wâhkôhtowin and Mâori whakapapa (kinship systems), and to assert a critical position to reclaim, restore and repatriate feminine and queer knowledge into our cultural and creative practices. As collaborators, we navigate thresholds between what is ‘known’, what is withheld or ‘unknown,’ and what is being dreamt into being, while upholding a framework of ethical co-existence and restorative co-resistance. In essence, we activate creative practices that refuse violent linearities by dreaming backwards into the future. Encoded in this dreaming are nêhiyawêwin and Te Reo Mâori languages, where old words create new worlds.
Victoria Hunt is an Indigenous-Maori artist whose creative journey encompasses a diverse range of artistic disciplines. In addition to being a dancer, choreographer and director, her artistic practice reaches into photography and filmmaking. Born on the ancestral lands of Kombumerri and Yugambeh Country in Queensland, she currently resides on the unceded Bidjigal Country in Maroubra, known as the place of Thunder, within EORA Sydney. Victoria’s ancestral affiliations include Ngati Ohomairangi-Te Arawa, Rongowhaakata, Kahungunu Maori as well as Pakeha-Irish, English, and Finnish lineages.
Victoria’s artistic practice emerges from the intersection of Indigenous epistemologies and diasporic concepts of identity formation and belonging. Her work is liminal, traversing intercultural and interdisciplinary realms whilst reclaiming the power of Indigenous creativity within the context of Rematriation. By inserting the body into frameworks of power, Victoria calls backwards in a reciprocal reimagining for future ancestors. Her practice is rooted in principles of Whakapapa, which honors the interconnectedness of kinship and genealogies. Drawing insight from Mana Atua Wahine, the feminine principle that carries sacred energy, she explores the interplay between Body Weather philosophy and IndigiQueer perspectives within the creation process. Her work is a gradual binding of collective knowledge and perceptions between artists, Elders, Tūpuna and communities.
Victoria is a founding member of the De Quincey Co, Australia’s renowned Body Weather dance company and contributed to over 40 productions. With an international presence, Victoria has collaborated with renowned artists and performed on prominent stages worldwide. Notable among these is performing in “Requiem” with MAU. With the work “Day of Invigilation”, created in collaboration with Brian Fu’ata and Barbara Campbell, they stopped right here in Montreal at Indigenous Creators Exchange/ Scène Contemporaine Autochtone at Festival TransAmeriques Arts Centre in Montreal in 2018.
âpihtawikosisâniskwêw (Métis / Norwegian / French / British) multidisciplinary artist Moe Clark is a 2Spirit singing thunderbird. She works across disciplines of vocal improvisation, sound design, spoken word poetry and performance creation to create work that centers embodied knowledge, Indigenous futurities, and creative kinship. Hailing originally from the prairies in Treaty 7, Moe has resided as a guest in Tio’tiá:ke/ Mooniyang/ Montréal for more than a decade.
Moe’s last solo album “Within” toured across North America and her collaborative video poem “nitahkôtân” won best Indigenous language music video at the ImagiNative film festival. In 2013 she directed the 10th Annual Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, highlighting Indigenous Languages, and she was named Poet of Honour at the same festival the following year.
As a composer, Moe’s music and voice have appeared in documentaries, films, theater and dance performances alike such as O’Bomsawin’s 2018 CBC documentary “Du teweikan à l’électro” alongside Shauit and Pakesso Mukash. In 2020, she was the musical director for the acclaimed “kiciweok: les 13 mots autochtones” directed by Onishka Productions, featuring artists Tomson Highway and Josephine Bacon.
Apart from performance, Moe facilitates creative workshops with Indigenous youth in lockdown facilities and remote communities and she collaborated with Land as Our Teacher project to bridge urban Indigenous youth with cultural teachers and inclusive land-based education. In 2016 Moe launched nistamîkwan: a transformational Indigenous arts organization with an emphasis on intercultural, interdisciplinary and intergenerational collaboration. The land-based nêhiyawêwin (Cree language) songwriting project with artists and knowledge keepers Cheryl L’Hirondelle and Joseph Naytowhow will be released in a full-length album in 2024. Through creative continuums of Indigenous language resurgence, sound experimentation and ceremonial practice, her work in community reinforces the roles of 2S people and intergenerational transmission.