AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
i was so excited to arrive in toronto again
i need multiculturalism
everybody hates it right now but i’ll never give up on it
toronto is very special for that kind’ve thing
we arrived in toronto by bus
this is the second time i’ve been here this week
i know one part of toronto fairly well
my family lives here
there are a lot of high rises there
many more than i remember when i was younger
but the strip mall is still at the top of the road
and the roti shop is still there
it was nice to bring my work to the same place where my family is
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
We are performing another iteration of our work and treating the performance as a space to research how we can talk about the things we want to talk about. We don’t want to do any talking in the work because that appears dogmatic and I am personally adverse to any form of authoritarianism. You could go to a lecture for that. Sometimes I do lectures but it is always about understanding how to find freedoms there. I am making choreography because I am (literally) sick of dogmatism.
Toronto is deeply vibrant and its pluralism is very brash. I feel so alive here and it is leaving imprints on my body every minute. Those imprints are going to be visible on my body because we aren’t doing anything else other than working. Working through all of the things I am feeling. Working through all of the impossibilities and probabilities present/not available in the choreographic form.
I wonder what the Toronto Dance Community Love-In has in store for us and our work. I wonder how our work will land here. In any case it is research for me. I am working and that is all I know how to do.
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
we arrived in toronto with a mission
to soak it all in and to show us working
we had technical rehearsal the night we arrived
and this was not apart of the plan
i don’t know how to understand nationalism in this context and perhaps that is valuable information
i don’t know how to understand my previous life in toronto with the one that i am interacting with now being so different
i don’t know how to understand why toronto feels so good
i don’t know how to understand how we even ended up here
i don’t know how to understand how performing an iteration of our work at this stage will change it
i don’t know how to understand how little i care about that
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
we performed our work twice
on the first night it went like this:
we had a very blurry beginning
we danced
we danced for a while because there is so much there
we sometimes dance together but we aren’t interested in making a duet that is about romance/romanticism
some might say duets are always romantic but i don’t agree
it is politically dubious to say that the only two way different people can relate is through the romantic lens
its phobic and i feel that
so then we start singing a song
a ballad by justin timberlake
we only know some of the words but we keep going on
you didn’t love me enough
and then i start singing beyonce
we trail off and groan and moan and scream and shout and talk and deconstruct everything we just built
we put the synthesizer on and then we leave
we go off and out and we transform
we become folk band
i take a risk
i sing and scream “canada needs to go”
i don’t mean it and i get sad that i said it
but i also don’t understand why we identify alongside institutions and not people
i am not the country i come from or live in
i am flesh
i have blood
there are imprints, yes
but the way i handle those
it’s just more complicated than that.
i felt a little bit lost at the end of the night but the pia bouman theatre erupted with applause and i felt conflicted…satisfied…but deeply conflicted.
the second night went like this:
dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance
i preferred this i think
we are taking all of this information with us because i am nervous to go to vermont.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
sincerely yours,
easy breezy beautiful cover girl
PS: This is 420 Spadina Avenue. My Toronto home.
