Hybrid Women by Vanguardia Dance Theatre
Part of Public Energy Performing Arts’ Pivot 2.0 Series
Photographer: Marcela Lucía Rojas
Dancers: Norma Araiza and Olga Barrios
Hybrid Women was originally presented at: The Nogojiwanong Indigenous Fringe Festival
Hybrid Women is an experimental dance-theatre-ritual action that departs from the pulsating of the body in connection with and response to nature and ourselves, specifically with plants, trees, water, natural environments, also taking into consideration the diverse aspects of decadency of our planet.
There are parallel encounters and disconnections between our bodies and the current events, and the course of where the world is going and the historical moment we are living in. We want to find those connections/disconnections between our actions, our rituals, our thoughts, our political points of view.
This work looks for the conversation between movement, theatre, performance, video, sound, text and plastic elements as a cross pollination that has been present in our work so far. The outcome will be a site-specific performance ritual.
Vanguardia Dance Projects, is a collective co-created by Norma Araiza and Olga Barrios based in Toronto, focused on creating, presenting, promoting, supporting works of dance artists with Latin American and indigenous backgrounds living in Canada. We support innovative artists that include other art disciplines pushing the boundaries of what is called “contemporary” as well as works that, having dance as the core, reflect a permanent search of expression through different languages. https://vanguardiadancepro.wixsite.com/vanguardia
Norma Araiza is a Mexican performer, choreographer and instructor from an Indigenous background from the Yoeme Nation in Sonora. She has studied different disciplines within the arts in order to find her own unique style that blends dance, theatre, vocals, percussion, expressive arts, with cultural and traditional themes especially from her Indigenous background. Araiza has studied with international theatre directors Jerzy Grotowski and Eugenio Barba, Butoh Master Natsu Nakajima, theatre groups Tascabile di Bergamo, Pipo Delbono Company – both from Italy, and Kei Takei from New York, among others. She has performed extensively as a professional physical theatre actor and dancer throughout Mexico, California, USA, throughout Ontario, in Montreal, Hungary and Colombia.
Olga Barrios is a multi-award winning artist who has collaborated with theatre, musical and dance companies as well as in multidisciplinary projects in Canada, USA and Colombia. She holds an MFA in dance from York University. Barrios is originally from Bogotá, Colombia and works with exchange projects between Colombia and Canada. “As a choreographer and dancer that lives in a contemporary world I explore my personal reality as a woman whose life is affected by cultural heritage but also by global information, technology and all the movement in time, space and energy.” www.olgabarrios.com
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 and the Peterborough Downtown BIA
