Studio Light Moves: Critical Encounter

Date:

Thu 15 Dec 2022

Time:

15:00 - 16:30

Venue:

DanceHouse

Admission:

Free. Advance Booking Required

Contexts, Opportunities and Access in Dance and Technology

In this encounter Mary Nunan (dance artist/choreographer) will lead a discussion with Jacinte Armstrong and James Forren (residency artists) and Linda Curtin (immersive technology producer).

The discussion will be anchored in (but not limited to) the specifics of Jacinte and James' current research undertaking. It will  expand to include questions about how their decision to work with AR/VR sits within their wider practice: content, context, audience.  Linda Curtin will address moving into AR/VR technologies through opportunities and training and considerations of access for participants and users.

The encounter will invite exchange with attendees as part of nurturing conversations across the dance and technology community.

There is a studio sharing from 2-3pm before this event. Read more HERE.

Register to Attend: Critical Encounter

 

ABOUT THE PANEL:

Mary Nunan is a dance artist. Her curiosity about the raw materials of dance has always been a driving force in her practice. Throughout her career she has created a substantial body of solo and ensemble choreographies that have been presented at national and international venues. Markers of time passing include: choreographer, performer with Dublin Contemporary Dance Theatre (1981-86), founder Artistic Director of Daghdha Dance Company (1988-1999), PhD Middlesex University awarded (2013), Course Director of the MA Contemporary Dance Performance, UL (1999-2016). Since 2016 she has continued to work as an independent artist: choreographer, performer, collaborator, mentor, writer. And simultaneously evolving a practice called z(ero)ing: sensing space as a surface, a ground, a dancing partner.

Linda Curtin is an award winning visual artist and filmmaker and immersive technologies producer. Her approach aims to bring ideas to life through alternative modes of visual storytelling in documentary, art film and immersive tech.  Linda co-authors VR experiences with various communities of interest, translating her skills as an award-winning filmmaker and a socially engaged artist into the immersive sphere in order to expand the possibilities for storytelling. From shooting and post-production to developing immersive training, Linda’s passion for this continually evolving medium has allowed her to demonstrate her commitment to staying agile and fresh. Her participatory film works funded in conjunction with bodies such as CREATE and the Arts Council of Ireland, have been broadcast by RTE and exhibited in galleries and festivals internationally. She holds an MFA from the Crawford College of Art & Design, a HDip in Systems Analysis from NUIG and a Degree in Business Studies with Marketing from GMIT.

Linda has designed immersive training programmes on the pulse of Ireland’s emerging immersive tech scene. Her  upcoming open-access training series FUTUREPROOF will launch in January ‘23 in conjunction with Immersive Ireland, the Cork Film Centre and Screen Ireland. Delivered in tandem with leading international immersive creators, she aims to demystify the VR production process, democratising access while facilitating new creators into this exciting and mind-bending space. 

Jacinte Armstrong (she/her) is an artist based in K’jipuktuk/Halifax, Canada. Her work explores embodied practice through performance, choreography, collaboration, and curation, communicating the experience of the body in relation to objects, materials, and people. Her practice involves questioning the ethics of movement in both performers and audience, and aims to create situations of physical comfort in which to ask uncomfortable questions. She seeks to create knowledge about the body through performance and give value to that knowledge.

Jacinte is Artistic Director and co-founder of SiNS (Sometimes in Nova Scotia) dance, and performs regularly with Mocean Dance and independently. From 2014-18 she was Artistic Director of Kinetic Studio, presenting an annual season of contemporary dance workshops and performances in Nova Scotia. In 2016, she was awarded an Established Artist Recognition Award by the Nova Scotia Arts and Culture Partnership Council, and a Masterworks Award for her work as a dancer in Mocean Dance’s “Canvas 5x5” choreographed by Tedd Robinson.

Her choreography ranges from intimate and imagistic to large-scale collaborations with architects, visual artists, radio producers, filmmakers, and musicians. As an independent artist she has worked with many choreographer/collaborators including Cory Bowles, Sara Coffin, Susanne Chui, Veronique MacKenzie, Lisa Phinney Langley, Liliona Quarmyne, Tedd Robinson, Serge Bennathan, Danièle Desnoyers, Denise Fujiwara, Sarah Chase, Liz Kinoshita, Sarah Joy Stoker, Katie Ward, Secret Theatre, and more. Since 2015, she has been part of the 8 DAYS project, an annual gathering of Canadian choreographers (www.8days8jours.ca). Jacinte received an MFA in Performance from NSCAD University in 2020, and is currently in training to become a Certified Movement Analyst through the Laban/Bartenieff Institute in New York City.

www.sinsdance.com, www.jacintearmstrong.com

James Forren is an Associate Professor of Architecture in Design and Technology at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.  He utilizes computational, fine arts, and anthropological methods in the study of new materials and material technologies in architectural contexts. His research focuses on the production of architectural components and assemblies, concrete and composite technologies, and people’s experiences with materials in industrial, design, and public contexts. His research has been published in scholarly journals and conferences including the The Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA) and The Association for Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia (CAADRIA) and Scroope: The Cambridge Architectural Journal. His exhibited work has received awards at Mongeometrija 2018 and The S.ARCH (Sustainable Architecture) 2019 and 2020. His current research is supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) New Frontiers in Research Fund Exploration (NFRF-E) program for the transdisciplinary project, “Gesture and Form: A Field-based Approach to New Methods of Architecture and Handcraft in Textiles Using Augmented Reality Technologies”; and through industry collaboration with the Canadian Precast Concrete Institute (CPCI) for the directed research project, “Soft Rock: Artificial Rock Technologies Explored as Soft Systems”. www.jamesforren.com

Gillian Seaward-Boone (Halifax, Canada) is a graduate of l'Ecole de Danse Contemporaine de Montréal (EDCM), and worked with Sinha Danse, Pigeons International and Sasha Ivanochko before joining O Vertigo Danse as a full company member under the direction of Ginette Laurin. During her time with the company, she performed and taught extensively throughout Europe, Asia, and North America. Since returning to Halifax in 2013, Gillian frequently collaborates with local artists Jacinte Armstrong, Alexis Cormier, Sarah Murphy, Lisa Phinney Langley, Liliona Quarmyne, Leah Skerry and Lydia Zimmer and is a founding member of the Home Ex Artist Collective who recently launched an artistic research partnership with IOTA Art Institute. Gillian danced with Mocean Dance for seven seasons, performing works by Serge Bennethan, Marie-Josee Chartier, Sara Coffin, Sharon Moore and Parts+Labour_Danse, and was Rehearsal Director for Danielle Desnoyers, Heidi Strauss, Sara Coffin and Lydia Zimmer. She is currently working on a new creation by celebrated artists Rebecca Lazier and Janet Echelman.

She is a faculty member of the Intensive Training Program at Halifax Dance and regularly teaches technique classes to the professional community of Halifax and beyond.