What’s in a space? People marvel at the facilities we have in the Department of Dance, the good vibes in the hallway, the quality productions we present and the classes we hold in them. I wanted to highlight our spaces in a different way with these installations.
How can we challenge the potential of our facilities to transform our perspective of space?
Celebrate, interact, communicate and create an interplay with us between the moving body and the spaces in fresh, new and experimental ways. Animating an engaging dialogue between the conventional space and what is created between. Rough gems are still being refined but new ideas abound. Work that will delight, give you, give you food for thought, inspire and make you inquire.
The best part about working on these installations has been the fact that this is a Pan Faculty, interdisciplinary event with AMPD professors Don Sinclair in Computational Arts, Canada Research Chair Doug Van Nort, Gwenyth Dobie in Theatre and William Mackwood and Susan Lee in Dance. Digital Media students and the York Dance Ensemble have been our muses. Ruthann Drummond has rallied a great posse of crew from the Department of Dance to help us along our way.
My 2nd year choreography students have created small installations in the hallways to welcome you to this event. We encourage your feedback.
With your wristband you can come and go as you please. There is also a bar in the Martin Family Lounge. Enjoy.
Susan Cash
Chair Department of Dance
Artistic Director of the II project
Disrupting Solitude ponders the agency of the human in an increasingly digitally mediatized existence. Posthumanism often critically reflects on the deconstruction of the human condition through heightened isolation and the demise of virtuosity: that humanity loses self-differentiation as “technology proposes itself as the architect of our intimacies” (Turkle)
The creators of Disrupting Solitude invite participants to artistically explore the dynamic relationship, tension and potential that exists between people, between people as mediated through technology and the invasive seduction by technology in contemporary life. We question the impact of a virtually mediated relationship, while your potential partner exists in the flesh across the room.
Special Thanks: The Disrupting Solitude team would like to thank the Department of Cinema and Media Arts (Larry Gilmore and Marcos Arriaga), and Theatre (James McKernan) for their support of The Incubator Project through the generous lending of equipment.
Many thanks go to the dedicated enthusiasm of 3nd year Dance student Hannah Schallert, the giving nature of the YDE dancers, Don Sinclair for lending me his camera and giving me a space to film, William Mackwood for brainstorming with me and sharing his technical wisdom and Susan Lee for preparing the YDE to work so professionally. Thank you to my crew Morgan Thorne and Katie Woodward O’Brien.
Elemental Agency is a piece concerned with an emergent gestural language that manifests across movement, sound and light. Rather than sound/light articulating movement, or movement driving media, the approach builds outward from gestural metaphors as a point of shared intersection for these phenomena. The work draws upon the metaphorical constructs of Japanese Godai and Indian Vaastu Shastra theories of five elements: earth, water, wind, fire and void/space. Working with conceptual metaphors drawn from these traditions, constraints are provided to the dancers of embodying a given element as a collective – a texture of movement, rather than a singular human entity, that manifests the non-human agency of a given element. Motivations related to world, body, motion, emotion and enaction are given: earth as stubbornness and resistance to change, wind as expansive, elusive and compassionate, fire as energetic and forceful, etc. Using machine learning methods, the sonic interaction designers seek to capture moments of gestural expression and fuse this with sounds that similarly embody a given elemental quality/profile. Negotiation between art forms leads to a collective choreography and sound design that emerges from the embodiment of the nonhuman elements and the mediation of the machine agents. Visual projection functions as both lighting and enhancement of embodied experience in space, rather than screen-oriented media experience. Spotlights both enhance elemental qualities as well as embodying behaviours that align with the constraints of the element metaphors: rigid tracking of movement within earth state, amorphous following within water state, tendency towards consumption in fire state, etc.
Specifics: The piece moves through short movements of distinct elements: water swells and then recedes into earth, which tectonically shifts before dispersing to the wind, dying down to invoke fire. Gestures and movement are recognized and mapped to sound and light output. A single dancer drives the sound in water, earth and wind states while the others trigger frozen sonic layers. As a moment of clear exposition of the interactivity, all dancer activity drives sound within fire state. This trends the piece towards a dissolution of the collective element-state and towards the individual gesturality of each dancer. After fire state, we move from the collective texture of mono-element to the collision and transformation between elements, passing between dancers. The pervasive aether of machine listening recognizes gestures that occurred in the four mono-elements sections, and begins to re-inject loops from these states back into the performance. The aether takes over the interactive system while re-performing its understanding of each dancer’s elemental offerings. Increased density and destabilization of dancers' elemental transformation leads to an ascendance into the void: pure energy, beyond the everyday, a distribution/suspension/expansion of presence and expression. Void is devoid of any object-hood or gestural points of reference.
The piece rests in void state during its installation period. If audience members interact (browser via laptop or mobile device) with the elemental portal, they may bring the piece back into the world of a given elemental state. The performance space then invites interaction from audience.
Murmuration is inspired by a never ending fascination with phenomena in nature.
A murmuration: hundreds to thousands of starlings flying together in a whirling, ever-changing pattern, where the connectedness reminds us of smoke or liquid.
All visuals and sound are generated and/or manipulated by computer code run live during the performance.
Thanks to theDepartment of Cinema and Media Arts (Larry Gilmore and Marcos Arriaga), and Theatre (James McKernan).
| Susan Cash (Associate Professor, Chair Department of Dance) is a contemporary dance artist. She has created choreographic work spanning many different dance genres, from theatrical works to site-specific creations, from music videos to dance films. Her choreographic research/performance work is in the area of collaborative dance processes that examine how movement can change the perspective of space. These investigations have taken her to perform in Prague, choreograph in New York, collaborate in Brazil and create commissioned work in Guatemala. In addition to her position as Chair of the Department, Susan teaches in the graduate and undergraduate programs in the areas of movement analysis, composition, repertoire, choreography, contemporary dance technique, and improvisation. She is a Laban Certified Movement Analyst (CMA) and a Gyrotonic and Gyrokinesis teacher. |
| Professor Gwenyth Dobie, a certified Alexander Technique teacher and Yoga practitioner, teaches movement for actors and devised theatre in the Department of Theatre at York University. Gwenyth is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Out of the Box Productions, a performance fusion company that creates original works integrating spoken text, dance, music and interactive technology. Her producing and directing credits include Opera Erotique, which toured in BC and was remounted in Toronto; The Third Taboo, which toured western Canada; Prior Engagement at Belfry Studio Theatre in Victoria, BC; Sound in Silence premiered at the Belfry in Victoria and the Theatre Centre in Toronto; and Bugzzz ~ A Cautionary Tale at Toronto’s Theatre Direct. Rallentando is her latest creation, presented at Hub14 in Toronto. www.gwendobie.ca www.outoftheboxproductions.ca |
| Susan Lee (Artistic Coordinator, YDE) is dance artist based in Toronto with a longstanding interest in interdisciplinary collaboration and improvisation in performance. A Dora-nominated dancer, Susan’s professional career spans over twenty years, originating roles in numerous works by established Canadian choreographers, and which have been performed across Canada, the US, Mexico, Portugal, Sweden, Singapore and Indonesia. Many of Susan’s works combine dance, live music, video and interactive new media. Susan holds a BFA (specialized honours in dance), an MFA in choreography from York University and is currently on faculty in the Department of Dance. |
| William Mackwood is a founder and Co-Artistic Director of Out of the Box Productions. Over the last five years he has lead the design team for productions of Opera Erotique, The Third Taboo, Prior Engagement, Sound in Silence, and most recently Bugzzz, a cautionary tale. The heart of his research lies in developing meaningful stories told through a ‘performance fusion’ supported by sustainable ‘design on demand’. As a Professional Lighting Designer he has designed for, among others, Ballet Victoria (Court of Miracles, Peter Pan, Alice a Wonderland of Dance), Kaleidoscope Theatre (Little Women, Disney’s Aladdin Jr.), and Chemainus Theatre (Lost in Yonkers, South Pacific, Saint Joan). Last summer, William designed lighting for the dance creations of Holly Small, Susan Cash and Keiko Kitano at the World Dance Alliance in New York City. He was also pleased to design lighting for Krystal Cook’s Emergence at the recent Impact 11 Festival. On faculty in the Department of Dance at York University, William teaches Dance Production, Lighting Design, Dance Video and The Interactive Stage. |
| Don Sinclair’s interests and creative research encompass physical computing, wearable computing, interactive sound art, laptop performance, web art, database art, interactive dance, video projection, cycling art, sustainability, green architecture and choral singing. He has worked with choreographers and dancers to create works that explore movement-based manipulation of sound and image. His collaborators include Holly Small (a journey toward the end in the shape of air, Draw a Bicycle, Night Vision – Nyx), Susan Lee, Yves Candau/Nur Intan Murtdaza and Karen Kaeja/Diana Groenendijk (Stable Dances at Nuit Blanche 2008) and is currently working with Doug Van Nort and the National Ballet School. Don Sinclair is Chair of the Department of Computational Arts and does way too much biking. |
| Doug Van Nort (Canada Research Chair in Digital Performance) is an artist, researcher, composer and improviser who regularly presents his work internationally, appearing in festivals and invited performances at notable venues such as the Stone (NYC), Experimental Intermedia (NYC), Casa da Musica (Porto), the New Museum (NYC), Skolska28 (Prague), Liebig12 (Berlin), Quiet Cue (Berlin), SAT (Montreal), WNUR (Chicago), Studio Soto (Boston), Issue Project Room (NYC), Xfest (Holyoke), Roulette (NYC), the Guelph Jazz Festival, the Miller Theatre (NYC), EMPAC (Troy), X-Avant Festival (Toronto), Cafe OTO (London), the Red Room (Baltimore), Eyebeam (NYC) among many others; he often performs solo as well as having performed and recorded with a wide array of internationally recognized artists spanning musical styles and artistic media. In addition to Elemental Agency, current projects include interactive music composition for the National Ballet School, Genetically Sonified Organisms - a solar-powered evolving environmental installation, and compositions focused on combining gesture recognition and conducting languages for electroacoustic ensemble performance. He is the founder of the DIStributed PERformance and Sensorial immerSION (DisPerSion) Lab at York. |
| Michelle Johnson has worked as a dance teacher, rehearsal director/assistant, and choreographer for fifteen years in Illinois, Hawai‘i, and Toronto. She is in her third season as a teaching assistant for the York Dance Ensemble as she completes a PhD in Dance Studies exploring applications of movement analysis in Disney animation. |
| Hannah Schallert grew up in Toronto, and as a young dancer had the opportunity to train at the School of Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre, and Etobicoke School of the Arts. Since, she has performed in work by Julia Aplin, Meagan O'Shea, Anandam Dancetheatre, and Candice Irwin, amongst others. She has worked since 2015 with Social Growl Dance as a manager and administrator, and presented a short film at New Blue Festival of Emerging Dance in 2016. Hannah's interests within dance extend from creation and performance to dance film and photography, administration, and scholarship. All of this has influenced her to pursue a BFA in Dance from York University, where she is in her third year. |
 | Robyn Bedford is a fourth-year dance major at York, in her second season with YDE. Originally from Calgary, Alberta, Robyn began dancing at the age of three and trained predominantly at Counterpoint Dance Academy. Robyn is looking forward to emerging into the Toronto dance community to share and develop her passion for performance and choreography. |
 | Vanessa Boutin was born and raised in Iroquois Falls, Ontario where she started dancing at the age of four, training and competing with the Nancy Delmonte Academy of Dance for many years. Now in her third year of York’s dance program, she aspires to one day become part of a professional dance company. |
 | Holly Buckridge is in her third year at York in the performance/choreography stream. She specializes in Vaganova ballet with additional training in modern, contemporary and breaking. Holly has trained with Hamilton City Ballet, Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts, Toronto Dance Theatre, Alias Dance Project, Peggy Baker Dance Projects and the National Ballet of Canada. |
 | Marie-Victoria de Vera was born and raised in Toronto. She began training in Hula and Tahitian dance at the age of 3, eventually branching out into other techniques, now specializing in a range of styles including tap, jazz, contemporary, salsa and more. She has competed and toured in Italy, Spain, Portugal and the United States. |
 | Sophie Dow began her pre-professional training in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She is inspired by multi-disciplinary artistic collaboration and maintains a passion for music, traditional fire poi and travel. She has received multiple scholarships for excellence in fine arts and has appeared in Winnipeg, Toronto and Hamilton Fringes and works by various independent choreographers and theatre companies. |
 | Ashlyn Kuy was born and raised in Newmarket, Ontario. She is currently in her third year at York, where she studies ballet and modern dance in addition to her work training and performing with Dark Dance Company. Ashlyn aspires to perform and choreograph her own works in the near future. |
 | María Lucía Llano is from Colombia, where she trained on scholarship at the biggest musical theater company in the country. In 2014 she moved to Toronto to pursue her dance career, where she is now in her third year of university, aiming to become an influential dance figure in both Toronto and Colombia. |
 | Shaelynn Lobbezoo is from Port Colborne, Ontario. She began dancing at an early age and is currently a fourth-year dance major at York, earning her Specialized Honors BFA with the National Ballet School’s Teacher Training Program. Shaelynn has completed her CDTA examinations with honours. She is in her second season with the York Dance Ensemble. |
 | Lindsay McBride, born and raised in Stouffville, Ontario, has trained in dance styles including ballet, tap, modern, lyrical, contemporary, musical theatre, hip hop and Irish dancing. Lindsay now studies at York University in the performance/choreography stream in order to further her career as a professional dancer. |
 | Nina Milanovski began dancing in Kitchener, Ontario. After training and competing in ballet, jazz, tap, hip-hop and contemporary and choreographing in her high school’s dance program, she decided to continue her dance training at York. Now in her third year of the Choreography and Performance stream, she aspires to be a contemporary dancer in Toronto. |
 | Josh Murphy, a native of Corner Brook, Newfoundland, has been training in modern and contemporary technique for 6 years. In his time at York he has worked with such artists as Susan Lee, Michelle Silagy, Carol Anderson and Holly Small. This is his second season with the York Dance Ensemble. |
 | Emily Rapley is a fourth-year dance BFA. She began her 18 years of training at Jo-Ann Adams School of Dance in Simcoe, Ontario. She has worked closely with Ballet Jorgen and was in York’s The Birds in 2016. She hopes to dance in a company and choreograph and present her original works to the community. |
 | Nicole Robb is a third-year BFA Honours Dance Major in the Choreography/Performance stream. Her training started in the small town of Port Coquitlam, BC in styles including ballet, contemporary, jazz and more. She decided to make the big move in hopes of becoming a professional dancer right here in Toronto. |
 | Paige Sayles is from Calgary, Alberta, where she began dancing at the age of four. Sayles has recently performed in original works by Michelle Silagy and Holly Small. In her second season as a member of the York Dance Ensemble, she hopes to pursue a career as a dance artist. |
 | Meghan Van Der Giessen was born in Orangeville, Ontario and began dancing at the age of three at a local dance studio called Annemarie’s Dance Academy. Meghan has honed her diverse experience to focus on contemporary and modern dance as she completes her third year in York’s BFA Dance program. |
 | Teodora Vukosavljevic is a Toronto-based dance artist with training in ballet, contemporary, hip-hop, folk, jazz, Latin American and ballroom dance forms. Notable performances include working with Susan Lee, Michael Greyeyes, Carol Anderson and Allison McCaughey in YDE’s 2015 season; lead roles in CODPI Studio productions working with Akua Acheampong; and a 2014 TSN commercial. |
 | Angela Wells is a third year choreography and performance major. Originally from Toronto, she grew up in Connecticut where she studied ballet and modern at Fineline Theatre Arts with Kerry Gallagher. She hopes to teach dance and fitness classes while attending teacher’s college. |
 | Evan Winther is a contemporary dancer completing his fourth year at York after an injury in the 2015-2016 season. He has a broad range of training that began in the small community of Trochu, Alberta under Shara Dee Smith. Evan has been honored to work with dance artists such as Holly Small and Lisa Calverly. |
 | Matina Zaharatos is from Mississauga, Ontario. She began her dance training at Sean Boutilier Academy of Dance and continued to study dance at Mayfield Secondary School, travelling throughout North America to attend prestigious workshops in New York and Los Angeles. Matina is now in her third year of York’s performance and choreography stream. |
 | Yue Chen is a third year Digital Media student at York University. He is one of the digital media developers for the Murmuration performance as a part of The Space Between - Installation Incubator Project. He looks forward to having more opportunities to create different kinds of digital arts in the future. |
 | Akeem Glasgow is an undergraduate student at York University studying Digital Media , a member of the Dispersion labs team and a zealous digital artist. He is interested in the interactivity of art through technology. Applying his background in programing and exploring various technologies, Akeem uses motion capture to create sound and visual instruments. He animates media to enhance interactivity and give virtual objects unique personalities. He is looking forward to creating new instruments in the future. |
 | Rory Hoy is a 4th year Digital Media student, and is currently working on data sensing tools for the DisPerSion Lab. He is passionate about interactive performance, music, and gaming. |
 | Ian Jarvis is an artist and researcher whose work centers around the creation and performance of music afforded through digital means. Motivated by the relationship of humans and their technology his work focuses on exploring and combining various strategies that engage the computer as a musical instrument that extends and augments the performance ecosystem. These strategies include live coding (programming as performance), gesture based digital instruments, performable databases, networked performance, and machine learning. His research and creative practice are informed by human-machine agency, digital performance and posthumanism. Jarvis is currently working towards his PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies at York University. He has performed and presented his work nationally and internationally including at the conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME), the International Conference on Live Coding (ICLC), the Network Music Festival, Sonorities Festival, Vectors Festival, Subtle Technologies, and the Progress Festival. |
 | Raechel Kula is in her fourth year as an undergraduate Theatre Studies major specializing in Devised Theatre and Dramaturgy and minoring in Computational Arts and Technology. Her interests and experience vary widely from designing and building costumes, sets, lighting and projections, to devising and working with playwrights developing new works. She is involved in a number of productions (past and current) at the Toronto Fringe Festival and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in addition to her work on campus at York. |
 | Zhuoxuan Li is a third year Digital Media student attending York University. He is the creator of the rain Max patch used for the Murmuration Performance. With an interest in both photography and the digital arts, Zhuoxuan looks to combine his two passions into his future career. |
 | Kayla MacDonald is a 4th year Digital Media student studying at York University. Kayla was born and raised in Keswick, Ontario and moved to Toronto when she came to university. She hopes to continue to learn about all the amazing things one can create with technology. |
 | Kieran Maraj is a second year student in Digital Media. He is interested in exploratory art forms and processes, as well as the intersections of technology, tradition and performance. He is currently an active member of the Dispersion Lab as well as a bands Bears & Children and Aniqa Dear. |
 | Alexandra Martens is an international 3rd year Digital Media student at York University. Alexandra is fascinated by and working on developing skills of creating interactive art using digital technology, especially audio generative visuals. She worked on the development of the Butterflies visual for Murmuration project with professor Don Sinclair using the Boids algorithm to simulate flocking effect. |
 | Christina Paik is a designer of all things graphical from the magical kingdom of Toronto. |
 | Michael Palumbo (MA, BFA) is an artist and researcher whose interests include distributed creativity, human and nonhuman agents in performance, and creative computation. Selected previous works include: his archival performance piece Data Issues: Please See Attachment (2017); performance video games Recursive Writing (2015) and Stethoscope Hero (2014); electroacoustic compositions CrossTalk (2013), Soup Phase (2013) and Iron Harvest (2012), and as an executive producer of the distributed performance concerts From the Ether (2015) and Telematic Embrace: You Had Me at Hello World (2014). He is a PhD student at York University, and a researcher at the Distributed Performance and Sensorial Immersion Lab. www.palumbomichael.com |