We are pleased to invite you to witness new performance works by Ursula Johnson in collaboration with Cheryl L’Hirondelle, and Maria Hupfield on February 3, 2016.
MONOMYTHS (performance series)
Presented by FADO Performance Art Centre in the context of the Progress Festival
February 3–7, 2016
STAGE 1: THE ORDINARY WORLD
Wednesday February 5, 2016
4:00pm-8:30pm
Durational performance by Ursula Johnson with Cheryl L’Hirondelle*; followed by a performance panel by Maria Hupfield
*Audience is invited to come and go throughout the 4 hours
Nikamon Ochi Askiy (Ke’tapekiaq Ma’qimikew): The Land Sings is an audio-based endurance performance by Ursula Johnson created in collaboration with Cheryl L’Hirondelle, and is offered as an apology to the land for the ways in which our human impact has shifted and shaped the landscape, displacing the voices of many First Nations. Following The Land Sings, Maria Hupfield presents a hybrid performance and conversation with Ursula Johnson and Cheryl L’Hirondelle on how revitalization, collaboration, and the act of refusal are used in performance art to shape current dialogue on Reconciliation.
Ursula Johnson and Maria Hupfield’s works are presented in conjunction with #callresponse, a Canada Council {Re}Conciliation initiative project. #callresponse positions the work of First Nations, Inuit and Métis women and artists as central to the strength and healing of their communities. This socially engaged project focuses on the “act of doing” through performative actions, highlighting the responsibility of voice and necessity of communal dialogue practiced by Indigenous Peoples. #callresponse is a multifaceted project which brings together five site-specific art commissions that invite collaboration with individuals, communities, lands and institutions, culminating in an exhibition in October 2016 at grunt gallery in Vancouver, BC. The The fifth visitation of Ke’tapekiaq Ma’qimikew: The Land Sings will be a part of this exhibition.
#callresponce: http://canadacouncil.ca/aboriginal-arts-office/reconciliation
Facebook event: www.facebook.com/events/544705889023767
ADMISSION / ATTENDANCE
This performance (like all the stages of the MONOMYTHS series) are offered to the audience on a donation basis. To reserve a seat for this performance, please go to Eventbrite and register (link: http://www.eventbrite.ca/e/monomyths-ursula-johnson-cheryl-lhirondelle-maria-hupfield-stage-1-tickets-20105888253?ref=ebtn) When you arrive to the theatre, you give your name to the box office or show them your printed paper tickets and you will be asked if you would like to make a donation. You don’t have to make a reservation–it is also possible and okay to just walk up–but reservations are suggested.
ABOUT MONOMYTHS
Curated by Jess Dobkin and Shannon Cochrane, MONOMYTHS invites a diverse collection of artists, scholars, and activists to revise Joseph Campbell’s conception of the hero’s journey through performance art, lectures, workshops, and other offerings. This new assemblage of non-linear un-narratives proposes a cultural, political and social feminist re-visioning of the world. The MONOMYTHS perception of the universal journey dispels the notion of the lone patriarchal figure on a conquest to vanquish his demons–both inner and outer–in consideration of community, collectivity, and collaboration.
Joseph Campbell’s influential book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces(1949) prescribes a common pattern to all of the world’s mythic narratives. According to this fundamental structure, the archetypal hero is challenged to embark on a monumental quest. Over the course of the hero’s journey, trials and obstacles must be overcome until a victory is won and the hero returns home with new knowledge about himself and the world. Campbell’s concept of the monomyth (‘one myth’) is a recognizable motif in both ancient mythology and contemporary culture, including film, music, literature, sports, and advertising. A current trend in popular visual culture replaces the male character with a female one, in spite of the fact that our heroine–from the get-go–would make different choices if the conditions, and conditioning, allowed.
The year-long MONOMYTHS project is presented in three sections. Radically interpreted by artists from First Nations, Canada, Mexico and the USA, part one of MONOMYTHS at Progress presents the first five stages of the journey: The Ordinary World/Call to Adventure, Refusal of the Call, Meeting of the Mentor, Crossing the Threshold, and Belly of the Whale. While each MONOMYTHS stage stands alone, the work of each presenting artist is interdependent and connected. These independent visions, when stitched together through the audience’s collective presence, form an exquisite corpse of a larger experimental narrative.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:
Maria Hupfield (Anishinaabe/Canada/USA
)
Ursula Johnson (Mi’kmaw) and Cheryl L’Hirondelle (Cree/Métis/German)
Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan (Winnipeg, Canada)
Feminist Art Gallery (Toronto, Canada)
Armando Minjarez (Mexico/USA)
Jefferson Pinder (USA)
For more information about the whole project, please go to our website: http://www.performanceart.ca/index.php?m=program&id=297
Hope to see you there. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.