Bone Stories
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Choreography: Irèni Stamou
Dancers: Dreda Blow, Irèni Stamou
Featuring BONUS Dance Track: Tank Man by Ryan Kerr
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 16, 2021
12:30pm & 6:00pm
LOCATION: Millennium Park (131 King St, Peterborough), beginning at the green north of the Steve Chiasson Memorial Pond
PROGRAM LENGTH: 35 minutes
- Bring your own chair or borrow one of our stools.
- Note that Bone Stories moves to different locations in the park.
- We will accept walk-ups, but audience numbers are limited, so reserve in advance to be sure of a place.
Bone Stories is a series of solo dances from an intergenerational cast of women.
Irèni Stamou was an artist-in-residence with Public Energy in 2020-21. This work was created in part during the residency.
From creator Irèni Stamou:
The influence of my artistic perspective lies in the bones of my ancestors and in my bones, bones with their own lived experience as a professional dancer in Montreal; a teacher, artist in the deep, Ocean-side, jungles of Costa Rica; and as a single mother and artist in the community of Peterborough, Ontario. My Greek heritage and upbringing draw me to the figure of the ancient mask and as well as the origin of the amphitheatre and its function as a community focal-point. If we reimagine the heartbeat of the river as the rhythmic drumming of our spirits in connection with the earth, the site with its rich history and the flow of the water as it invites people of all cultures and kinds to experience mindful awareness of the present moment. Dance becomes a form of healing meditation with the natural geography acting as an interactive stage; the formation of a mini-amphitheatre in the parks’ rocks, stones, pathways, gardens, trees, and flowing water facilitate my choreographing the audience through the location. Either while moving or by standing in precisely marked spots, the dance takes place interwoven amongst the audience—currently imagined as a socially distancing safe space—where proximity to one another and our environment allow us to reimagine dance as part of an ecologically sustainable life.
Following the performances of Ireni Stamou’s Bone Stories on September 16 you can take in another short dance work: Tank Man, performed by Ryan Kerr. Created by choreographer Deborah Kelly, Tank Man is memorial to the protesters at Tiananmen Square in 1989, particularly the famous man who stood in front of the army’s tanks.
Deborah Kelly wrote this about the 
creation of Tank Man: “It was a memorial: it was for those who would remember; to give it shape, duration, experience and ritual. It’s a memorial for the protests, and for the murdered protestors, rather than for that one person, the symbolic tank man. The
work pays homage to fighting tyranny; and god knows, all our governments are bad. It hoped to bring life to history – our lives, our history. Dancing the memorial was a way to be, to act, in a city or town, to make a public sphere, to be an agent in it. It sought to diminish the distances between people in space and time, to connect us, those who struggle, and to build culture around us. To give us strength! Which is to say, to construct even the most fragile metaphorical infrastructure around: love of the collective, anti amnesia, linked autonomies. The will to resist, to remember, to make art.”
Main photo: Eryn Lidster
Click here to browse the rest of the Pivot 2.0 performances
Pivot 2.0 is presented with support from the Government of Ontario’s Reconnect Festival and Event Program, Department of Canadian Heritage’s Support for Workers in Live Arts and Music Sectors Fund, and the Peterborough Downtown BIA
