Performance | Global Dance Connections series
Raven Spirit Dance | Vanguardia Dance Projects & Aanmitaagzi
Double Bill: Spine of the Mother | Conversations: Hidden Stories
A double-bill evening tracing stories, memories, and connection across landscapes and generations. Raven Spirit Dance presents Spine of the Mother, exploring the body as landscape and our kinetic connection to the Andean mountain range Elders call the “Spine of Mother Earth,” linking North and South across the continents. Sharing the program, Vanguardia Dance Projects and Aanmitaagzi bring Conversations: Hidden Stories, a collaboration between artists from both companies exploring the land, people, culture, and stories that connect them. Through soil, fabric, land, and water, this work journeys through displacement and erasure to reaffirm a sovereign right to ancestral memory, connection, and future.
Post-show artist talkback December 5
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Spine of the Mother
Tracing the inner terrain of our bodies as women through breath, impulse and memory unlocks kinetic energy creating ritual, which spans the spine of the mountain range we have shared for millennia. The metaphor of the “Spine of Mother Earth” is a name given by Indigenous Elders in South America to the Andean mountain range that spans from the base in Argentina, through the Americas and ends at the tip of Alaska. Our bodies become the landscape like the mountain ranges that connect the North and South (the Eagle and the Condor) and through this we find our kinetic connection to others that transmits impulse, breath and spirit.
Conversations: Hidden Stories
Conversations: Hidden Stories was inspired by the investigation of “body and territory” by the Colombian-Canadian choreographer Olga Barrios. This work springs forth from the women of many colours that she experiences in herself and the many other voices in the world that seek connection with ideas of traces erased from history. In 2023, the artists of Vanguardia and Aanmitaagzi came together with the desire to share, investigate and explore the land, people, culture and stories we are connected to. Looking at stories of displacement and erasure, Conversations is a journey through what has separated us from ourselves and each other. Through soil, fabric, land and water, the work Conversations reaffirms a sovereign right to ancestral memory, connection and future.
Spine of the Mother Credits:
Choreography: Starr Muranko
In collaboration with and performed by Tasha Faye Evans and Marisa Gold
Past performers and artistic lineage: Andrea Patriau, Olivia Shaffer and Sarah Formosa
Original Sound Composition by: Edgardo Moreno (‘Gracias a la Vida’ sung by Daniela Andrade)
Lighting Design: Jonathan Kim
Video/Media Design: Sammy Chien
Dramaturge and Mentor: Alvin Tolentino
Mentor: Michelle Olson
Cultural Advisor: Jhaimy Alvarez-Acosta (Peru)
Additional Dramaturgy: Alejandro Ronceria
Conversations: Hidden Stories Credits:
Dancers/Creators: Norma Araiza, Olga Barrios, Animikiikwe Couchie, Penny Couchie and Lilia León.
Director & Choreographer: Olga Barrios
Composer and Sound Designer: Edgardo Moreno
Projection Designs: Alejandra Higuera and Olga Barrios
Costumes: Jennifer Kelly
Lighting Design: Trevor Schwellnus
Stage Manager: Kelsey Rulh
Photos: Colin Boyd Shafer; Chris Randle; Jason Gallop; Magda Arturo