A community performance for (hwuli’tth’um) Brunswick Point

September 24, 2022: Culture Days
Brunswick Point, Ladner – End of River Road West

Richmond Art Gallery, artist Amy-Claire Huestis, composer Omar Zubair and community partners create this site-specific piece for choir, dance, and kinship with nature.

Please join the choir for this community performance in an internationally recognized area of critical ecological importance for migratory birds in the Fraser River Estuary.

We invite you to sing and carry a poetic flag made by an artist—we perform a mytho-poetic story cycle on the beautiful dyke trail. The work celebrates kinship with birds and the interconnectedness of all things—MOTHLIKE/silvery-blue tells a story of human/more-than-human transformation; Silvery Blue is a person, a butterfly (a ghost), the shimmering colour of the land.  

Participants follow an experimental score, performing roles in dance, sound, walking, and reading. Attendees will encounter what is a delicate piece in both diffused and congregated elements. The performance culminates at sunset on September 24th, the Autumnal Equilux, with a procession from 5-7 pm.  

This project is in consultation with Hwlitsum First Nation, and is funded by Canada Council for the Arts, KPU, and Richmond Art Gallery.  It is in partnership with Birds Canada, and is concurrent with the community guided walk project, walk quietly: ts’ekw’unshun qututhun (walk with respect and care for the shoreline).

Choir brought together with coordination by BC Choral Federation Project Manager Brigid Coult:

• 50 singers for procession: 4:30 – 7:30 pm
• 20 singers for welcoming piece: 4:30 – 6:00 pm
• 10 singers: all day durational performance, 1:00 – 8:30 pm
• No rehearsal; singers are asked to prepare with YouTube-accessed recording

There is no charge for participation.
For singer registration and info, please click here.
Score and project info: www.amyhuestis.com

We humbly acknowledge that this performance takes place on the ancestral and present-day lands of the Coast Salish Peoples, including the Hul’qumi’num Mustimuhw (Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group of Seven Coast Salish Nations), scəw̓aθən (Tsawwassen), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam). 

ARTISTS

Amy-Claire Huestis (artwork) lives on the stɑl̓əw̓ (Fraser) river estuary at she-shum-qun (Canoe Pass in Ladner). In her experiential practice she suspends a state of wonder in relation to nature and its mysteries. Thinking through how we might develop kinship to other species, she makes work through ritual and deep attention to the landscape over time. Her work involves collaboration with artists and communities of scientists and conservationists. Her collaborations and partnerships have included North Pacific Cannery Museum, Aadmsteti: Stinging Nettle Net, Time Lapse Dance, Henry Andersen Elementary School, Birds Canada, UCLA Art/Science Center, and many beloved artists and individuals.  Amy-Claire is full-time faculty at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. 

Omar Zubair (music)  is a Pakistani American composer based in New York City. He has helped found composer collectives across the country in order to promote radical empathy and empower active listening. He is engaged in the process of integrating a pan-cultural musical sensibility with his work, to peer deeply into foundational empathetic resonances. Until 2020, Omar was a member of the experimental theatre company, The Wooster Group.  His work has been shown in the Pompidou Centre, Paris; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Disney Concert Hall, LA; World Stage Festival, Toronto; and National Theatre of Norway, Oslo.

Jody Sperling (dance-choreography) is New York City-based, and has created more than 45 works and pays particular attention in her practice to the Arctic and climate change. She is considered the world’s leading exponent of the style of early modern dancer and performance technologist Loïe Fuller (1862-1928). Sperling has expanded Fuller’s genre into the 21st century, deploying it in the context of contemporary and environmental performance forms. Currently, she is developing a performance practice called eco-kinetics that cultivates the relationship between the dancing body and the environment.

Rachel Harris (dance) listens to the energetic vivacity that inhabits and surrounds her in life and art. Originally from British Columbia, Rachel has collaborated, over her 30-year career in Montréal, with 30+ choreographers in the creation of 40+ works, touching a very diverse range of choreographic styles, performing around the world. Rachel also performs regularly on her great-grandparent’s farm in BC. Since 2010 she has been teaching movement workshops in women’s shelters as part of Dance Against Violence. Rachel is presently in creation with Benoît Lachambre, Aurélie Pedron and Thea Patterson. 

Brigid Coult (music) brings together a choir of individuals from the BC Choral Federation Choir for this performance project. Brigid trained and worked in England until coming to Canada in 1982. She has been directing Richmond Chorus since 1994, and in her hands the Chorus has grown both in numbers and musicianship. Currently she is Director of Music at St. Mary’s Kerrisdale Anglican Church, and Project Manager for the BC Choral Federation.