tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31702662160548752522024-03-18T20:32:14.667-07:00blue ceiling dancerInterviews and musings on the intersection of ART and SCIENCE.
Saturate Incubate Illuminate Verify
The mysterious edge of discovery for artists and scientists.
Lucy Ruperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06687480416463324472noreply@blogger.comBlogger145125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170266216054875252.post-77168601527527505082024-01-15T10:25:00.000-08:002024-01-15T10:29:12.286-08:00<p><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: x-large;">MY BATTERY IS PURE LOVE</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: large;">part one</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: large;">by Lucy Rupert</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir;"><i>for D and P, always.</i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir;"><i>for Badie, David, Edan, Esperanza, Josh, Jovia, June, Patrice, and Yuki, with whom I shared time and space at the Ucross Artist Residency program in April 2023. And for Tawni, who understood the song.</i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir;">**</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I fly through utter blackness. On one of those small planes that seats 50 people, the depth of the blackness is vivid. I am passing through a portal. Who knows what is on the other side?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Well, most of the other people on the plane know. This is their daily commute.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">But for me it is flying into a myth.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">**</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I am nervous.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I am running.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I am obsolete.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I am stumbling.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I am a calculator.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I am a bird watcher.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I am perpetual motion.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I am an elevated heart rate.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I am scared that I am not enough.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I am full of love.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">**</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I am sitting in the lobby of the hotel waiting for Tawni, the Ucross Artists’ Residency Manager. I am allowing the almost nothing that is happening to be profoundly something. I eat scrambled eggs, toast, and coffee at the complimentary-breakfast nook. The coffee is good. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Last night I flew from Toronto, Ontario to Denver, Colorado, and then from Denver to Sheridan, Wyoming. It was turbulent in and out of Denver, my nerves were wrecked from the anxiousness of flying alone for the first time in years, flying to a place I’ve never been before, flying to a residency program where I would meet 9 strangers – the other artists in my cohort – and flying into a new project when my confidence is at an all-time low. From the Sheridan airport, I crawled into a hotel shuttle, and I hardly remember falling asleep around midnight, holding Fox-on-Tour against my thumping, tired chest. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi11lw4LKREk5jvSsEvBSqdppK3N14dgzwcQQ0vtDthaKptwQyuZVcEtneJ2BV51CKYktdwwvdlUKWZfVuNDvbZqiAlZZkHK_-MO4PTBhxS5gVsBHLGDhSjDq-9IFMVDI4AIOhqiGwZZqh5Fx-c5_VncInoPZU2u-qr7V2kiQwLjECiePUekhEsRAidMP37/s1024/05115130-4CAD-41A2-940A-9DC0ACADB947_1_105_c.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="769" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi11lw4LKREk5jvSsEvBSqdppK3N14dgzwcQQ0vtDthaKptwQyuZVcEtneJ2BV51CKYktdwwvdlUKWZfVuNDvbZqiAlZZkHK_-MO4PTBhxS5gVsBHLGDhSjDq-9IFMVDI4AIOhqiGwZZqh5Fx-c5_VncInoPZU2u-qr7V2kiQwLjECiePUekhEsRAidMP37/s320/05115130-4CAD-41A2-940A-9DC0ACADB947_1_105_c.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Fox-on-Tour</div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Tawni is kindness and openness from our first hello. She drives us towards the Bighorn mountains' foothills, winding and clotted with white-tailed and mule deer. This big-sky country emanates a constant, low-level rumbling. Or tumbling. Or both. Tawni tells me about the wildlife, the snow, the history of the area and of the Ucross ranch. She assures me that all bears in the area are on the other side of the Bighorn mountains. The only thing I am truly afraid of is bears. I have dreams of them climbing tall buildings to get to me.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">When we get to Ucross, she takes me on a tour of the grounds: to the main office, where I meet the staff and see the library full of books written by Ucross resident artists; past the cabins for writers, composers, and visual artists, through the art gallery featuring work by contemporary indigenous artists; and then to my workspace. It is the most beautiful studio I’ve seen. It has physical beauty, but also the beauty of no history, no attachments with me. This space doesn’t know that I have left Toronto feeling like a failure, heavy in the arms of so many rejections that I’m not sure I can continue. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">In the place where the plains meet the foothills, a wall of windows and a hardwood floor are greeting me, “Hello, what do you want to do?”</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8PQGkOw2F0Hxn1c0UZZIBicZt0W7bEfqPpsTtH9Gr-sZb1mkiFGy1xjXCmPl0Akt1GNV5ezeiNrX_EZei8eMMENMyUkZ21RO7tU-uC1Gj0XkXL5IyYdJ0xYcwaq-OZuflNSwYRP2mhgTM6mc_9bEResH7ITk0SyLfskfohuxMA3xfY-n3N5abTqPfGvZy/s1182/9A41BD5B-D27D-4872-A67E-34909A027E89_1_105_c.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1182" data-original-width="665" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8PQGkOw2F0Hxn1c0UZZIBicZt0W7bEfqPpsTtH9Gr-sZb1mkiFGy1xjXCmPl0Akt1GNV5ezeiNrX_EZei8eMMENMyUkZ21RO7tU-uC1Gj0XkXL5IyYdJ0xYcwaq-OZuflNSwYRP2mhgTM6mc_9bEResH7ITk0SyLfskfohuxMA3xfY-n3N5abTqPfGvZy/s320/9A41BD5B-D27D-4872-A67E-34909A027E89_1_105_c.jpeg" width="180" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Lauren Anderson Dance Studio at Ucross</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Later, at dinner with the other resident artists, this welcoming feeling is reinforced. No one here knows how low I’ve been, nor do I know how any of them have struggled. I assume they are all brilliant – and they are – and that they are creating fiercely – which they are. Astonishingly, I don’t feel awkward. I really have flown through a portal. Transformed at an elevation of 4085 feet, I am just Lucy, dancer-choreographer working on a new solo about many things, not the least of which are struggle, loss of self, and a search for a map of the heart.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">And robots. It is also about robots.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">**</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">The Ucross vision is a residency experience that offers retreat, reflection, and community, without pressure to be constantly productive. Create as it comes, not necessarily as you planned. Explore the landscape. Pause and daydream.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Usually in the studio, I want to use every second physically. Space and time in studios are expensive and hard to find so I dance up my time. I relegate the thinking, dreaming, wondering, and pausing to when I am running errands, or on the subway, or after the dinner and the dishes and the organizing for the next day have been done. Which means, of course, I rarely do the thinking, dreaming, wondering, and pausing. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">At Ucross, the studio is mine 24/7 if I want it. I can warm up for an hour, work for a few hours then take a 2-hour lunch: eat, make notes, walk the grounds of Ucross, birdwatch, and stare at the wild horses from the moment they come into my view until they crest a hill far in the distance and disappear. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I can make myself a midday coffee in the changeroom next to the studio, which has a couch and blankets, a coffeemaker and a view of an abandoned Great-horned owl nest. I can read the research books I brought, the field guides I borrowed from the Ucross library, and I can stare out the window at nothing. I can re-warm up before working through the afternoon into early evening. I can have another cup of coffee while I write my daily notes or stare at the sunset before I head back to the Schoolhouse to have dinner with the other artists.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjde6JlegQqP2XZDhnjAjRSu97TODOb8q4CA-zAUa0m69-3Y3Xs8aZtTapV6kowTdhjbc9yc8Cg69ushhU7-GRxp52Qko-ZD-Qi6_aZ1W6jFfpEN_Zaa9uFGd1nPxMl6zUPx9F54y7xTfPUm2mDy_87JrpB4fvHERosoarClH-0k1crUVv0QXcAcwtWA06j/s746/5DD96190-56BF-45F3-80CD-DF496A2AD130_1_105_c%20copy%202.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="746" data-original-width="560" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjde6JlegQqP2XZDhnjAjRSu97TODOb8q4CA-zAUa0m69-3Y3Xs8aZtTapV6kowTdhjbc9yc8Cg69ushhU7-GRxp52Qko-ZD-Qi6_aZ1W6jFfpEN_Zaa9uFGd1nPxMl6zUPx9F54y7xTfPUm2mDy_87JrpB4fvHERosoarClH-0k1crUVv0QXcAcwtWA06j/s320/5DD96190-56BF-45F3-80CD-DF496A2AD130_1_105_c%20copy%202.jpeg" width="240" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcBfylm1NLDI2H3_hMHmH8t0Hg74RK9eq5-JMHMzoM6mHjF9xVEM3HNGy91W-o8WMqMDnga06Z_dn8K63fLCLzfVN3E_mihesl8CfE_caMuXm9wSmDxWuuX8eUEhOIprEjEyWxll3Fm1SAnwFxwaYTb0ZwiGc0tDA6v0n-xxCMQimpgAA35Fm9ZEbRYzHY/s1024/86833F63-FD7F-4F14-8E31-92A04802E404_1_105_c.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcBfylm1NLDI2H3_hMHmH8t0Hg74RK9eq5-JMHMzoM6mHjF9xVEM3HNGy91W-o8WMqMDnga06Z_dn8K63fLCLzfVN3E_mihesl8CfE_caMuXm9wSmDxWuuX8eUEhOIprEjEyWxll3Fm1SAnwFxwaYTb0ZwiGc0tDA6v0n-xxCMQimpgAA35Fm9ZEbRYzHY/s320/86833F63-FD7F-4F14-8E31-92A04802E404_1_105_c.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>wild horses and abandoned Great-horned owl nest (probably previously belonging to a Red-tailed hawk)</div><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I was invited to Ucross to develop a new solo work, hopefully the first “full-length” solo work I make. What does “full-length” mean? I’m aiming to make 45 minutes of choreography while here. Will that be full length? How do you know when the work is full? Or over-full?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">The starting point for this new work is the evolution of robots from Greek mythology to now. I love research, and I love the erratic places research takes me. I love starting in one place and winding up in a different universe. I thrive on being a moving target. So, when I say I’m going to make a work rooted in research on the evolution of robots, I guarantee you, the resulting work will not be about robots.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I have no specific plans for these 11 days at Ucross, but I have questions. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">What is it to be programmed?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">What is it to be heartless?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">What is it to be used?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">**</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><b><i> an automated device that performs</i></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">a definition of a robot from Stanford University online, “Robotics: A Brief History”</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I love moving, I love dancing. I love rehearsing, I love two-show days. I love the process of warming up. I love piling on layers of clothing and peeling off those layers as the muscles get warm and ready. I am an automated device that performs. I am an Energizer bunny. I’ll just keep dancing until something tells me to stop.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">But….</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">When I was in graduate school at the University of Toronto, History Dept., I presented research on the possible socio-political influences on movement styles of the Bolshoi and the Kirov Ballet dancers in the 1960s. This was not my major field of research, but a side project my thesis advisor had encouraged me to develop. </span><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I was a month away from my graduation, I had completed my MA thesis, received a wonderful grade and feedback, I was first on the waitlist for the PhD program and the Chair of the Grad program had already told me it was pretty much a given that the spot would open for me.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">This was my first time presenting a paper and I picked this coffee house environment because it was casual, the stakes were low. People slouched in armchairs in the graduate lounge of the history department with Peek Freans Assorted Crème biscuits and percolator coffee. I thought my ideas might be refreshing in a department heavy on post-communist European political analysis. I shared my research, even demonstrating some movements to illustrate the ideas. As soon as I finished one professor asked me, </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">“Isn’t everything you said irrelevant because dancers are just automatons?”</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I had been introduced at this event as a graduate student and a professional dancer, so he knew the full impact of his comment, as did everyone else in the room. He was not trying to start a conversation. He was dismissing me. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">One of my favourite professors – who was a hard-core, old-school political historian but liked me because I looked like a painting by one of his favourite Polish artists—stood up and said gruffly, “I don’t think that’s how we want to proceed with discussion.”</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Despite his support, there, amidst the Peek Freans, I gave up. I went to see the Chair of the Graduate Program the next day and said “Take me off the PhD wait list. I don’t want to continue.” </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I have encountered this attitude many times, personally and professionally: the assumption that since I am a dancer, I cannot also be an intellectual, capable of original thought and action, that I just do as I am told or as I am programmed, that I can count to 8 but no further. And at this moment, all I could see in my graduate school future was more of this same conversation, in different passive-aggressive shades.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I later learned that Insult Professor was pissed about losing some of his graduate advisees to my advisor, the innovative Dr. Thomas Lahusen. By insulting me publicly, he was belittling Dr. Lahusen and his work. Thomas said to me, “Lucy, if you just want to learn, go out and do it your way. We academics spend all our time learning about the world and not being in it. Go out there, learn, explore, make your art. Forget this bullshit.”</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Professor Lahusen’s words and his work remain touchstones for me. He valued my unique perspective, encouraged me to develop it through my academic writing and through my art. Just talking with him about life was revelatory. I know I am not an automaton. And if I am an Energizer Bunny, my battery is pure love.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">**</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><b><i> sufficiently advanced technology, indistinguishable from magic</i></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"> definition of a robot by Arthur C. Clarke</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">**</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">At lunch break today I walk, and I sit, and I look. When was the last time I was someplace where I could see so far into varying landscapes in all directions? It is not a repeating expanse but a menagerie; things feel close but are not, binocular but not fractal. The details change when you magnify. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">At dinner tonight Patrice -- a screenwriter and film director in the artist cohort -- mentions that this expansiveness is playing tricks with her mind. It’s not just the landscape, it is the expansion of time. Patrice doesn’t talk a lot but when she does it is rivetingly and casually profound. I understand what she’s saying. I’m spending nearly 12 hours a day at the studio, but it is not hard to keep working. All I have to do is look out the window: epic, geological, meteorological, shifting seasons and sky. I am eating and giving space. I am filled and surrounded by space. I add time and it becomes a dance.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Choreographic notes:</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Not too fast to start.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Take time on tiny foot </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Find the right audible undercurrent.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">A robot is a way to stay young forever.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">No sound at all when trying to speak from the heart.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">**</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I’ve been called an automaton by some of the most intimate people in my life, as well as by a professor who didn’t know me. Growing up I was seen by my family as shy and emotionally messy. Classmates saw me as erratic and nerdy. My ballet and piano teachers said I was undisciplined and “expressive”. In my perceived artistic emotional-ness I became a container for the joys and the shit of others. However, in that weird sphere of “boyfriends” I was a burbling passionate fantasy with a disappointingly aloof and self-controlled reality. When I have turned out not to be some spontaneous wild woman…well, then I have been called a robot. Heartless. Rigid.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I am super-disciplined. You can’t be a freelance dancer without immense self-discipline. And I take comfort in the idea that chaos is not random but a pattern we can’t yet detect. My mind also flings itself in many directions, my emotions are always at the surface. The metaphor of “my heart on my sleeve” is not enough. I wear my heart as my skin. I feel everything. And sometimes it’s too much. Then, I develop a priority inversion problem: a high priority emotion is superseded by a low priority emotion, clogging the whole system into shutdown.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">“Does not compute.” </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">“Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.” </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">“Bleep beep beep boop beep.”</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Anything with a sense of its own body, has a sense of itself and it’s not hard to imagine that sense would evolve into a desire to be perceived and treated as more than a container for business, productivity, art or love.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Stephen Colbert once asked Cate Blanchett where she keeps her moral compass. She said, “In my vagina.”</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJQjAIEvD9KQaEuW8DvauzUjl9otpV75IM17qQPfH8-IKCKInrxQG6mDSnLrUYX67U1mxluj8ak6fI33hJgrS2EXwnJF4DaiVGwdoJTRGzOjsPIuP9oX_WLoGgM-tKu2lZyG5yzmcufcI83e9kdJ28JVTPL0_1Dti-CeHVuqphFM-mGdljSZh-kt28jOGd/s1681/Screenshot%202023-05-07%20at%2011.14.19%20AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1681" data-original-width="1547" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJQjAIEvD9KQaEuW8DvauzUjl9otpV75IM17qQPfH8-IKCKInrxQG6mDSnLrUYX67U1mxluj8ak6fI33hJgrS2EXwnJF4DaiVGwdoJTRGzOjsPIuP9oX_WLoGgM-tKu2lZyG5yzmcufcI83e9kdJ28JVTPL0_1Dti-CeHVuqphFM-mGdljSZh-kt28jOGd/s320/Screenshot%202023-05-07%20at%2011.14.19%20AM.png" width="294" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">creating at Ucross</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">**</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Why am I making this piece right now? </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Because I feel:</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">DISPOSABLE (well, I am biodegradable)</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">REPLACEABLE (I am not, nobody is)</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">OBSOLETE (I am analog, evolving into digital, but I should already be virtual by now)</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I feel like a perpetual motion machine. I keep going, I keep changing, but my atmosphere is static. Was I made to be disassembled? Shall I recycle my parts into something more practical? Am I actually a heartless thing?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Am I seriously considering leaving dance? Am I?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Josh talks about the vulnerability of his artistic materials, how by working with film, chemically treating and painting it and reeling it through old projectors, he reveals the degradation of the raw materials as part of the process and the life of his artwork. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">This is a life in dance.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">**</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">In case you doubted that I am a bird nerd.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixEn3Hal5sdloP51NBseyOSgBJVAhNpD7o09mR0rrxz8s25egfsNeGF4_KyGQPuxGwFY_adxU0qeM1cpg5ezcFO96Hjzo5Gr1Jc44-s2YfrE3OgOD-EnMakfGpLJqUnkebzzZ35D_Ge1KMCPXRrngmMnlREyzVTIrdnQeSwL7uSNpDQRAX5duUw9iY7p-0/s1024/5F1F4046-D992-4ACC-A906-D528D120869C_1_105_c.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixEn3Hal5sdloP51NBseyOSgBJVAhNpD7o09mR0rrxz8s25egfsNeGF4_KyGQPuxGwFY_adxU0qeM1cpg5ezcFO96Hjzo5Gr1Jc44-s2YfrE3OgOD-EnMakfGpLJqUnkebzzZ35D_Ge1KMCPXRrngmMnlREyzVTIrdnQeSwL7uSNpDQRAX5duUw9iY7p-0/s320/5F1F4046-D992-4ACC-A906-D528D120869C_1_105_c.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">getting ready for lunchtime birding</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><b><u>BIRD SPECIES I’VE SEEN IN WYOMING</u></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Ring-necked pheasant</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Says phoebe (LIFE BIRD!)</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Common grackle</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">European starling</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Northern flicker</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Mourning dove</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Eurasian collared dove (LIFE BIRD!)</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Bald eagle</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Golden eagle</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Osprey</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Western meadowlark (LIFE BIRD!)</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Swainson’s hawk (LIFE BIRD!)</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Great-horned owl (heard only)</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Great blue heron</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Sandhill crane</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Black-billed magpie</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">American robin</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Song sparrow</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Chickadee</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Mallard</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">American kestrel</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Turkey vulture</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Belted kingfisher</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Common merganser</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Wild turkey</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Killdeer</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Tree swallow</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Red-winged black bird</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">American crow</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Wilson’s snipe (LIFE BIRD!)</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">**</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">At dinner tonight David speaks about how scary places in parenthood have inspired some of his writing. I can’t imagine being strong enough to do that. I only once included a gesture of P’s in my choreography. I removed it later. Too close to the bone. How can we convince ourselves to be truly and consciously brave with our work? To insert a word or a gesture that is straight from our bones, without what we think is a disguise, knowing it will degrade and fade over time, we give it a kind of double mortality.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">**</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Choreographic notes:</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">A robot who can’t vocalize signs up for all the songs on karaoke night</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Dance to two rhythms at the same time and as though you have no heart</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Evolve from a wooden pigeon to a war machine</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6A-JDXE8IYzv963oI7sGR7uDyXnAs00R2Hy4-9i5IUW2IGlWuVx1ijis-4PART0a83zqQKwj7FQE-YmIljC3tm2-2lGCy4AP618yp5q7r4y_TwwPLmIXGASMgBxS-uka_4QAphs5wcTlCVwQBK3KCZCYk6eGxDIpPUE4YM8cME9b17Pq_Ihx3c_m4_9pu/s1024/BC8E333C-4405-4377-A833-2DFE8B4E4AC8_1_105_c.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6A-JDXE8IYzv963oI7sGR7uDyXnAs00R2Hy4-9i5IUW2IGlWuVx1ijis-4PART0a83zqQKwj7FQE-YmIljC3tm2-2lGCy4AP618yp5q7r4y_TwwPLmIXGASMgBxS-uka_4QAphs5wcTlCVwQBK3KCZCYk6eGxDIpPUE4YM8cME9b17Pq_Ihx3c_m4_9pu/s320/BC8E333C-4405-4377-A833-2DFE8B4E4AC8_1_105_c.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">post-lunch warm up</div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Today I make a section I call “sitting skeleton.” Working in this wide-open landscape, I feel obliged to choreograph a moment of stillness and seeing, an evaluation of one’s life. What if I could do it all again? What if I had been bolder when I was younger? What if I had chosen music instead of dance? Would I feel more grounded, more successful?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">In the large storage closet of the dance studio is baby grand piano. Every day I open the doors to the closet and stare at the piano. I want to sit down, improvise some delicate melody, sing the songs I’ve written. Between the ages of 16 and 25 I wrote over 200 songs, recorded demos and was a squeak away from a decent recording contract. But I hesitated and the moment was gone. Though I have tried to tell myself I regret it, I don’t think I ever have.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Today, I open the piano closet and dare myself to touch the keys. I play a few awkward chords, then close the lid, close the doors, and do not look at the piano again. When I was 18, I chose dance instead of music and I’ve been choosing it again and again ever since.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Changing that or any other decision I have made along the way would mean an alternate reality, with no P, and no D either. That is more terrifying than bears. A reality without my kid and my partner? Where would I put my love? It would explode inside me, and I would vanish.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">So, “sitting skeleton” is a meditation on doing it all over again the same way. Is this déjà vu? A pin-prick glimpse at yourself making the same choices again and again, unsettling and connective, like a flash of a dream.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">**</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Badie, one of the composers here, is the first artist I have ever talked to who immediately understands my approach to the art-science connection. His compositions are full of voices, human and other, though there are no actual voices in the music. We reach into pianos and string instruments to pull out cries and exclamations that are familiar. Some sounds we understand without dictionaries. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBcK4HFkNLCvC6mNGJl2PkUW44CZXkumgDFVtV5h-f2dGXiOAfM6BMqDbCgh8bP9v2lLwveZDJGot7Q8Y25zn7u-zOfmlQ_aOlKFDy_GIzi25yDw-l8Pvz8uxEJUM6OZ0qew1Iln7sDHkXTBHjNKKEWvPZvM08bKdg07n75XugJc7v59H9clRAdRF5SjES/s1024/76D87DF6-95B2-4590-8BC4-02FE5B0D9284_1_105_c.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBcK4HFkNLCvC6mNGJl2PkUW44CZXkumgDFVtV5h-f2dGXiOAfM6BMqDbCgh8bP9v2lLwveZDJGot7Q8Y25zn7u-zOfmlQ_aOlKFDy_GIzi25yDw-l8Pvz8uxEJUM6OZ0qew1Iln7sDHkXTBHjNKKEWvPZvM08bKdg07n75XugJc7v59H9clRAdRF5SjES/s320/76D87DF6-95B2-4590-8BC4-02FE5B0D9284_1_105_c.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">sunset</div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">**</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">One of the most frightening moments of my life occurred while walking from the Ucross studio back to the Schoolhouse to change out of my sweaty dance clothes and lie down in my bedroom for a few minutes before meeting the other artists for dinner. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I have seen wild turkeys countless times, I’ve frequently been up close and personal with them at Point Pelee National Park. However, I never considered what they do at night. In Wyoming, they alight in trees. They awkwardly hop-flit from branch to branch until high enough to be unreachable by coyotes or wolves.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">There is nothing like seeing a 100 foot-tall, leafless tree full of black hunching blobs, silhouetted against the dusk sky while a coyote howls and a great horned owl hoots in the distance and there is not a car on the road, not a person in the fields or on the paths. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2wEJoe5ejyWE4ouum1mxJhFlB8_nb9lvwZ8Ec3MHK6FEInp3qL40BmG-UCuRcROtsxsWxombz-Smivj165Nv_iV133v0cQTLi8T5rx94I3qsSWANM8VVKXMhCWgaUZMcN6Uvh-WXoiZ5ns9Q1Q9MzRdhJt3VwaFAXXSGetcJQlscvXiP9eGRm50QAsvPX/s1024/D926455B-A99E-4FA1-8C74-B713C37B7E30_1_105_c.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2wEJoe5ejyWE4ouum1mxJhFlB8_nb9lvwZ8Ec3MHK6FEInp3qL40BmG-UCuRcROtsxsWxombz-Smivj165Nv_iV133v0cQTLi8T5rx94I3qsSWANM8VVKXMhCWgaUZMcN6Uvh-WXoiZ5ns9Q1Q9MzRdhJt3VwaFAXXSGetcJQlscvXiP9eGRm50QAsvPX/s320/D926455B-A99E-4FA1-8C74-B713C37B7E30_1_105_c.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">not the Wild Turkey tree, I was too freaked out to think of taking that photo</div><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">**</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Jovia, another composer here, speaks about resonance and reverb as a retelling, a reclaiming of your own story, a call and response in one circuit. I think of Esperanza's stories -- from every art form, every medium, and on almost every continent. She has struggled, outwitted, and defied expectations with great beauty. Her stories strike me as forms of resonance and reverb, they resonate in the air around us and echo back our own struggles and accomplishments. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">These intense beautiful conversations each night as we wash and dry the dishes together imprint in my heart like self-assured cats walking through wet cement. I don’t feel swallowed up by my anxiety or dwarfed by the brilliance swirling around me. With these people, I feel confident saying that I don’t always understand my work, that it comes from an intuitive process, that I implicitly trust that my brain, heart and gut speak fluently with one another. Ideas make me a physical person, ideas make me move and keep questioning through movement. My choreography reflects the connection of our bodies to ideas outside ourselves, to an understanding that doesn’t have to be intellectual. There are other ways of knowing. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicifyx3hL77liK2W_c0iPmRYn1Z-tP8tBdcuuaEePXlo05RPc1kzCHYiQ5I_UFY_OjVrRdRwE5HMoMEY0IPGqRiwmP_1923NEk5-e4HavNIf1pemftR7F66lKxcZc8R-7iPO9f9rMYK4D2ZFHUEfS9Yglc6l-6YvVBR1W1VSS4dR6O7qqHvFEq-5wbnchx/s1024/08EC358A-56AD-4AD1-B012-D45A78ED2989_1_105_c.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicifyx3hL77liK2W_c0iPmRYn1Z-tP8tBdcuuaEePXlo05RPc1kzCHYiQ5I_UFY_OjVrRdRwE5HMoMEY0IPGqRiwmP_1923NEk5-e4HavNIf1pemftR7F66lKxcZc8R-7iPO9f9rMYK4D2ZFHUEfS9Yglc6l-6YvVBR1W1VSS4dR6O7qqHvFEq-5wbnchx/s320/08EC358A-56AD-4AD1-B012-D45A78ED2989_1_105_c.jpeg" width="240" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbA_3y9fwyuzmhswsi1fnGk9IWUcgV9pm2bHwg5IRfeNzm1VjpvODYTyOPqrODPv1YBAiYV9eyC1VrW-FT1U79iuEMn_Av2v8phVYhcjLqM27u_Af40ggdO01D9B2B-5x3JaRtxIQuEpFKE5G4M3mXh1Or03FN3BrJ268cAuU5YdzPyZ647d80dNnRxBt7/s1024/2E17A1B9-2171-4108-B49F-493C67BB6016_1_105_c.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbA_3y9fwyuzmhswsi1fnGk9IWUcgV9pm2bHwg5IRfeNzm1VjpvODYTyOPqrODPv1YBAiYV9eyC1VrW-FT1U79iuEMn_Av2v8phVYhcjLqM27u_Af40ggdO01D9B2B-5x3JaRtxIQuEpFKE5G4M3mXh1Or03FN3BrJ268cAuU5YdzPyZ647d80dNnRxBt7/s320/2E17A1B9-2171-4108-B49F-493C67BB6016_1_105_c.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Someone once called me a delight. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Someone once called me a shapeshifter.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Someone once called me a futuristic war machine.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Someone once called me a freak, a loser, a weirdo, a nerd, an ugly piece of shit.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I will take it and love it.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">**</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Choreographic notes: </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">climbing up the walls</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">brief awkward life</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">the slow seasons</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">wooden pigeon</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">sitting skeleton</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">neural network </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">measuring </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">FAWK</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">song</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">These are the sections I’ve made at Ucross. But one tiny thing is missing. I don’t know what it is yet.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">**</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Yuki is elusive. She is a night owl while I’m part of the dawn chorus. Sometimes Yuki and I cross paths around 6am, as she is returning to the schoolhouse to sleep and I am birdwatching my way over to the dance studio.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Her work is a contrast of precise large panels in colours creating 3-D effects and smaller sketches of vivid precision and dark, erratic clouds. It seems quite fitting: clean and geometric with a tiny, elusive current of disorder. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">**</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Half-way through my time here, I am dreading the end. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I cry over my lunch. Chef Cindy makes each artist their own lunch, to whatever dietary specifications they have, and drives throughout the grounds of Ucross to deliver them, ensuring everyone has their bagged lunch at their studio door between noon and noon-thirty. I eat Cindy’s granola for breakfast, her sandwiches and fresh cookies for lunch, her voluptuous dinners. The depth of care packed into these meals is unfathomable. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">It's not just the food that has me weepy at the half-way point. I am wondering how I can continue with this sense of purpose, structure, and nourishment in my artistic practice when I get home, where I’ve been feeling gray and sinking for the last year.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">D says this is not a small thing but it’s also not a big thing. “You don’t have to worry about holding onto it. You have breathed in the air at Ucross, you’ve changed yourself physically. It’s part of you now, so you come home with it.”</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">He’s right. My molecules are different; I am breathing different air; I have adjusted to the altitude; I have relaxed and been myself around new people; I have gathered different dirt in the soles of my shoes. I have pushed myself and saturated myself in the space, the movement, the landscape, the people. New bacteria are in my microbiome, new synapses are reaching and connecting to each other. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Choreographic notes:</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Take the time it takes.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Fall apart back to the start.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Reset the ricochet into the turn.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">The measuring in the middle should be as precise as at the beginning.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">This creature does not resent being brought into existence. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">You can’t self-administer a Turing test.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">**</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">On Sunday I decide to take the afternoon to wander the higher trails into the foothills. Though it is sunny and 15 degrees, there are still clutches of snow in the fields and up the hills. I layer-up, fill my water-bottle, pack an apple and an orange in my bag and make sure my phone is fully charged, for photos and in case a bear comes over the mountain and I need back-up.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">A dead coyote is tangled in a barbed wire fence. Sandhill cranes laugh in a nearby field. Mule deer stop eating tufts of dead grass to throw me some cut eye. A Say’s phoebe hops from fence post to fence post guiding me along the road. Black cows are very curious about me as I walk beside their enclosures. They do not recognize me. They do not trust me, not even when I say, “Hey Cow, good afternoon, how are you?” Hundreds of toads are singing. I can’t believe their volume and constancy.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPwtOo8FdUgcOmdEOAFqGG4mYOLtn-chQA4Rj1BQ5QiHUmu8gfcnCtdd76RmIDmYAhZk0q41E0olaiZ0RgvikYLHrdBnz-SCQj1tqjsvLFWvq4fjG9RKg1jaWwKZGSHmMxWFXeVyvy1i2jTncEwyd5vLSu98fX-kSk7uJUqscBVY-sNNPE0_ol1HHkXh1P/s1024/8B5E2579-5DE5-40AB-A6E4-B947B6424615_1_105_c.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPwtOo8FdUgcOmdEOAFqGG4mYOLtn-chQA4Rj1BQ5QiHUmu8gfcnCtdd76RmIDmYAhZk0q41E0olaiZ0RgvikYLHrdBnz-SCQj1tqjsvLFWvq4fjG9RKg1jaWwKZGSHmMxWFXeVyvy1i2jTncEwyd5vLSu98fX-kSk7uJUqscBVY-sNNPE0_ol1HHkXh1P/s320/8B5E2579-5DE5-40AB-A6E4-B947B6424615_1_105_c.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">discerning cattle</div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I climb over the gate which Tawni described in her directions to the best trail to take today. I haven’t climbed a gate or a fence in who knows how long. I climbed the CN Tower stairs three years in a row to raise money for the World Wildlife Fund, and while challenging, it was very civilized. Hopping over this locked gate on cattle ranch in Wyoming feels like a tiny brash and rugged act, even though no one is there to see it. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Except someone did see it. Coming down the hill is bright, blonde woman in tie-dyed sweats and sneakers. It’s Edan, a writer in the artist cohort. She is from LA, she’s cool and quirky and kind and sunny and smart, really smart.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">We both have evaded guilt and escaped our workspaces today. Edan talks about the refreshing change in starting a new work here, writing from a first-person perspective, after her last epic novel which was written in third-person from multiple characters’ views. I realize I have never considered the narrative perspective of my choreography, ever. I tell Edan, </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">“This is blowing my mind. I think I’ve never chosen a narrative perspective before and I think this solo I’m working on has to be first person.”</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">It’s so obvious, a solo is a first-person story… but is it? When abstraction enters the picture, as is usually the case in contemporary dance, the perspective can get cubist. And, in exploring robots and other “automated devices”, this creature-character I've created has been built not born: can it have a first-person perspective? does it have “personhood”? It feels radical to commit to this decision right now, that the piece is not about me, it is me: <b>an automated device, indistinguishable from magic. </b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Earlier in our stay Edan and I covered mom-anxiety and guilt, bullying, dance classes, husbands, imposter syndrome, head lamps (you need them to cross the fields between the Schoolhouse and the studios at night). I’ve teared up with her about missing my kid, worrying that my absence will cause him distress as it did when I was away for a month 7 years ago. But right now, on a trail with Edan in the foothills of the Bighorn mountains, under a huge blue sky full of clouds that look like condos for Norse gods, we bask in the sun and part ways, ready to be inspired. Edan goes back to her cabin to write and I climb higher to get a new perspective.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzjSkbUzr5iqNTzZf7kU8BhDPP7uU1mfVlK3EkPWXAePtvHYxUjw3bhcgLGPvtJDQ3f5mK-nUXK0HAiWvagAPvbMJ0nN0-GFh5-AZ3TTeyeZtUfw-ZA8J9Vjc0ZiPMQa1rwiz0yxTLSvoCxjo5SEg6xKs9krmjw0KDWTtHFtDbmLGO8CBfJlCedv_CmCMT/s1555/IMG_1922.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="848" data-original-width="1555" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzjSkbUzr5iqNTzZf7kU8BhDPP7uU1mfVlK3EkPWXAePtvHYxUjw3bhcgLGPvtJDQ3f5mK-nUXK0HAiWvagAPvbMJ0nN0-GFh5-AZ3TTeyeZtUfw-ZA8J9Vjc0ZiPMQa1rwiz0yxTLSvoCxjo5SEg6xKs9krmjw0KDWTtHFtDbmLGO8CBfJlCedv_CmCMT/s320/IMG_1922.jpg" width="320" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">**</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">From across the room, I expect that, up close, June’s paintings will look airbrushed, perfected as if by a machine. But closer, I see the texture of June’s movement as she painted. Her blacks have undertones, her blues have history, faint fossil records underlie the sharp patterns. She is telling you the story, and telling you the story of how she wrote it.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">**</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Today is my studio sharing for the other artists and the staff of Ucross. I am nervous in a way that has no name. I decide to show 15 minutes of material, and to share only a little bit about the research inspiration. I am realizing the “robot” thing may create unhelpful expectations. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I have picked 4 sections to share:</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Measuring – because it tells the story of how I wrote this story</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Neural network – because it is odd</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Wooden pigeon – because it is exhausting</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Song – because it is the most honest thing I've ever made</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Most of the artists and staff are here, sitting along the wall of windows on mats and cushions from the change room, Esperanza and June sit on the piano bench. When I finish, I can tell they all get it. They feel it. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Tawni’s interpretation of the Song section cuts to the core of everything: robots, magic, all of it. Because of her, I think I know what the name of this dance should be.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">**</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Final day. This morning we will leave the schoolhouse, some of us catching the Sheridan-Denver commuter flight and from there, our unique connecting flights. June and David are driving home, headed in opposite directions. Badie and Josh will stay for one more week. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I packed quickly last night, everything but my computer and my last clean dancewear. I get up at 6am, head over to the studio to have granola and coffee in the beautiful loft of the dance studio, staring out the high windows at the small clumps of deer and a pair of sandhill cranes, like every morning of my stay. I go down into the dance studio.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">In the far corner of the studio, a past resident artist taped a fortune cookie message to the mirror: “be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.”</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I add a message for future residents: “leave the gaps (they will surprise you later).”</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg7cIILBOPZYIbuFclwhIya6GYpwu3VnJMW7kE9Ov4ANCZhSTGcGMwnqZX_WCaHbOr3xWQoY2lmQhHaJ1XNwKOWFIfS_zg2O0h2xLKafvcYmgykrfbvVbwPOMSsbNdHEixdppFDj05itMIq3MM1Bzi2tVgaRpWTvPWUyzsTnx8Saiy7XZuu1ey1x9DRjza/s1024/39496687-50CC-4835-994B-AE181BEBC4DA_1_105_c.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg7cIILBOPZYIbuFclwhIya6GYpwu3VnJMW7kE9Ov4ANCZhSTGcGMwnqZX_WCaHbOr3xWQoY2lmQhHaJ1XNwKOWFIfS_zg2O0h2xLKafvcYmgykrfbvVbwPOMSsbNdHEixdppFDj05itMIq3MM1Bzi2tVgaRpWTvPWUyzsTnx8Saiy7XZuu1ey1x9DRjza/s320/39496687-50CC-4835-994B-AE181BEBC4DA_1_105_c.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">A gap, as choreographer Denise Fujiwara has taught me, may be a choreographic tool. A gap may be the hole I feel in my heart and in my career right now. A gap may be the space between two realities. A gap may be an artist’s residency in an unfamiliar place where the sky distracts you from who you think you are, the sandhill cranes laugh at your angst, and the open fields provide enough space for you to get out of your own way.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">I turn up the heat in the studio, put on some music and dance the deer, the light, the birds, the rising sun, the curve of the foothills, the flight of the phoebes and the osprey, the invisible support of Ucross staff and artists (thank you, thank you), the fear I arrived with and the very different fear with which I am leaving.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW93ghyYS0FijZxRQtxfo-YF_8jHwhKVpzLPhjYXyPj2q79NZEVaIfGI7ANKLgPVFn4EUn732kuDqiGtwgBo0LAVmfSHEYjcLRQLrYs_EoNAKF8CHSpj91r-I_gQ0waKJb48dU66PjfoG5b-Y6eh6JjbNXyXUauAE14QZlJ6-1XG-Yl6sIY4XOdgdo7BU7/s1024/9A596156-BFA8-4AF3-A5D9-8DA01FF325CE_1_105_c.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW93ghyYS0FijZxRQtxfo-YF_8jHwhKVpzLPhjYXyPj2q79NZEVaIfGI7ANKLgPVFn4EUn732kuDqiGtwgBo0LAVmfSHEYjcLRQLrYs_EoNAKF8CHSpj91r-I_gQ0waKJb48dU66PjfoG5b-Y6eh6JjbNXyXUauAE14QZlJ6-1XG-Yl6sIY4XOdgdo7BU7/s320/9A596156-BFA8-4AF3-A5D9-8DA01FF325CE_1_105_c.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Kindness, space, breath, community. Will I ever feel this driven, engaged, open and in love with I’m what doing again? Will I ever feel this supported again? The trick is to remain open-hearted even when the world seems to tell you, “Get mean and small.” But it would be harder to close my heart than to continue into the fray. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">**</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">Choreographic note:</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: medium;">never tell the story directly</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoVXBJiLlA-FdH-F65pkWBK-dG4DjqGgOkTUB3JeKikqyweWfe3qakiCZQgMgN_fmSMoH8F3GgZUvYfNwJtaSJhZJNZexwFW5oFKZUc_76HSHj9dp-rb9GdxhQvvQ1YODY07cZnqspX2mOlLK-tJumiFZwyf7nv8S_oN656Pnk13drV9zxan7qbpfpe1RE/s1024/334C219D-CCD0-4459-85D2-F96260D9D988_1_105_c.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoVXBJiLlA-FdH-F65pkWBK-dG4DjqGgOkTUB3JeKikqyweWfe3qakiCZQgMgN_fmSMoH8F3GgZUvYfNwJtaSJhZJNZexwFW5oFKZUc_76HSHj9dp-rb9GdxhQvvQ1YODY07cZnqspX2mOlLK-tJumiFZwyf7nv8S_oN656Pnk13drV9zxan7qbpfpe1RE/s320/334C219D-CCD0-4459-85D2-F96260D9D988_1_105_c.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Deep thanks to the Ucross Foundation</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">unattributed quotes from Lost in Space, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Wars, respectively</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b style="font-size: small;"><i>my battery is pure love</i></b><span style="font-size: small;"> was written from notes, research and reflections written by Lucy April 16-29, 2023</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">copyright Lucy Rupert, January 2024</span></div><br />Lucy Ruperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06687480416463324472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170266216054875252.post-75379811391589052092023-07-20T17:51:00.001-07:002023-07-21T12:08:50.175-07:00Empty Branches Project Interview #1: Bird Protection in the Cities with FLAP founder Michael Mesure<p>In 2024, my company Blue Ceiling dance, will be celebrating 20 years. We have lots of celebratory activities planned from the fall of 2023 through to end of 2024, and the biggest celebration will be our production of “empty branches” in early fall 2024. (Generously supported by a 3-year long-term project grant from the Toronto Arts Council as well as creation support from Canada Council for the Arts.)</p><p>"empty branches" is a four-part dance that uses the title image as an entry point to explore quantum fluctuations, regenerative neuroscience, the dynamics of forests and threats to migratory birds. Part of our creative process includes working with experts in these fields: interviews, workplace visits, and rehearsal visits. While we’re dealing with science, we’re focusing on the very human passions that fuel the science, ignite the dance and illuminate our interconnectivity with all sizes, shapes and timescales of life on Earth.</p><p>In light of our curiosities as we continue to develop “empty branches", I’m relaunching the Art-Science events and interviews (which originated in 2017), as a reminder that both science and art are really about describing, in the most personal ways, the nature of reality and our experience of it, while also stepping into never-ending, unknown territory.</p><p>Here is the first in the new wave of the Art-Science Intersection interview series: Michael Mesure, Founder and Executive Director of FLAP Canada.</p><p><b><i>FLAP (Fatal Light Awareness Program) Canada is a registered Canadian charity widely recognized as the pre-eminent authority on the bird-building collision issue.</i></b></p><p><b><i>Each year in Canada, around 25 million migratory birds die as a direct result of collisions with buildings. We can only expect that number to grow unless we all work together to help mitigate local biodiversity loss through urban development that considers wildlife species.</i></b></p><p><b><i>For almost 30 years, FLAP Canada has engaged millions of people with dozens of campaigns and initiatives with one goal: keep birds safe from deadly collisions with buildings.</i></b></p><p>(from the FLAP Canada website)</p><p>***</p><p>LUCY: It is so lovely to meet you Michael, if virtually, and thank you so much for your willingness to speak with me! I’m working on a dance creation right now that gets into the threats to migratory birds. Mark Peck, from the Royal Ontario Museum is our ornithology consultant and in our first meeting with him he spoke to us about FLAP, as he showed us some of the bird specimens in the archives at the museum. </p><p>Now I remember when I first moved to Toronto in 1996 there was a lot of buzz about FLAP. </p><p>MICHAEL: Yes, that would have been near our beginning. We started in 1993, but in 1996 we ended up in a partnership with the World Wildlife Fund of Canada which really brought our message to the forefront.</p><p>LUCY: I’m a lifelong birdwatcher, quite literally my parents started taking me to spring migration at Point Pelee National Park when I was a baby. My sister is also a birding expert and works at Point Pelee. So when I heard about FLAP, I started going out and looking for birds that had hit buildings. I remember the first bird I saw was a black-throated green warbler, dead on the sidewalk near Bay and Bloor in downtown Toronto. It was very jarring to me because up until then I had only looked for and seen warblers in woodlands and savannahs and occasionally in my back yard, not in the concrete centre of the city.</p><p>MICHAEL: It’s always a bit of a surprise to people.</p><p>LUCY: But once you know, it obvious what a ridiculous blind spot we have. </p><p>How did you come to bee one of the co-founders, and now the executive director, of FLAP? </p><p>MICHAEL: Kind of like yourself, I’ve always had a fascination with birds. I grew up in Thornhill in a beautiful home that backed onto the ravine, and the Thornhill Golf and Country club. So, I always had access to wildlife, mostly birds.</p><p>My original background is in the arts. I owned and operated a couple of art galleries. I tried to sustain a living through selling my artwork. It’s extremely challenging to try to survive in that world. It’s also not easy to survive in the not-for-profit sector which I’m in now, but….</p><p>According to my parents, the first things I ever drew, and could not stop drawing, were birds. It was just an intrinsic part of me from day one. </p><p>In 1989, a friend of mine told me about a conversation he had with a teaching colleague. During their conversation this teacher had a box, with fluttering inside it. When my friend inquired about it the teacher said, “Oh, I find these birds on the sidewalks in Toronto. I go down before daybreak, I pick them up and bring them to show to the students. Then we release them in the ravine by the school.”</p><p>When my friend told me this I thought “What are you talking about? How is this possible?” So, my friend and I went downtown before daybreak and came out a door and first thing we saw was a bird in front of a car, then one down the street. Then more and more. I just couldn’t believe this was happening.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik8DibKly6szVfg40GtBkl9SkJc9DoENUKVfY6-sqIdHFktVNTfdjavVrb1_WbLaZuozLeK_FqNXV7CWKs_Hpw75mpS_sZ_B1lcoAz5J-8YdEqwpIbBdGalcf_cJnYJcNZZQ3fdXGw_RtwcEuxvSxc-FDeWJLJrkmIo7_ScGlgoOjWaPktbQVsP-BZEnYa/s228/download.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="158" data-original-width="228" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik8DibKly6szVfg40GtBkl9SkJc9DoENUKVfY6-sqIdHFktVNTfdjavVrb1_WbLaZuozLeK_FqNXV7CWKs_Hpw75mpS_sZ_B1lcoAz5J-8YdEqwpIbBdGalcf_cJnYJcNZZQ3fdXGw_RtwcEuxvSxc-FDeWJLJrkmIo7_ScGlgoOjWaPktbQVsP-BZEnYa/s1600/download.jpg" width="228" /></a><br /><a href="https://flap.org/how-one-tiny-bird-changed-my-life-in-a-big-way/" style="text-align: left;" target="_blank">Read Michael’s “Bird Zero” story here. </a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>I found myself going downtown more and more often and the while trying to build my business which was located an hour and half drive out of Toronto.</p><p>I was getting sick, running a business all day and sometimes into the night, then getting up at 2 or 3 in the morning to drive into the city to look for birds. I just physically couldn’t handle it. I had to choose, and I chose the birds. </p><p>People started hearing about me and about the issue and a small core group formed. That was a game changer, one of the strongest influencing factors for doing this as a career. Every once in a while in our lives there are these signs that are sent out to us and it’s a matter of whether you’re prepared to listen or not. I listened, I couldn’t help but listen. It brought me to where I am today. This small core group founded FLAP.</p><p>LUCY: Now I’m going to be wracking my brain thinking: “What didn’t I listen to?” There are probably some big things I didn’t couldn't hear!</p><p>MICHAEL: Hey, me too. I’m sure there have been plenty of things that landed right in front of me and just didn’t click. But it was a really important lesson to learn – we all need to learn – we need to listen and really pay attention. These things can be game changers. I’m proud to say that FLAP has changed the world. Not just Toronto, or Canada, but it’s changed things around the world.</p><p>LUCY: That philosophy seems embedded in your organization. FLAP encourages people to pay attention to the world around them. People hear about FLAP and then they start to pay attention, they notice new details in their surroundings, and I’m sure they start thinking: how did I not see this before?</p><p>When my husband and I first started dating, we were walking through High Park and I pointed out an oriole and a red-tailed hawk and he said “I’ve walked through this park my whole life and I’ve never paid attention to these things.” And now he notices everything. This morning he spent at least 10 minutes watching squirrel behaviour in our back yard.</p><p>On the subject of noticing more....let's talk about the FLAP art installation projects that have happened at the ROM and Nathan Phillips Square. You lay out all the birds you've collected throughout a spring migratory and people can see the actual numbers of a spring collection?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhg4BJelrKkCetVy7yM7w90ID5VsmNHKonevzwc2Rj9PQYQjvOM91ahxX0h3cgcQGe_xG_4Z6kfnYTV52j3D0sxTopBGOMSFDUQxYU9QCj_zlbP-O_yOfgi7_ED4a3aF4hBqntQy4cK7rnNkFLBX0wf-uzrBWsGaiE_T_4tQCXwvyXUN9da1iW8Z6LZASP/s1920/flap_20160309_017.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhg4BJelrKkCetVy7yM7w90ID5VsmNHKonevzwc2Rj9PQYQjvOM91ahxX0h3cgcQGe_xG_4Z6kfnYTV52j3D0sxTopBGOMSFDUQxYU9QCj_zlbP-O_yOfgi7_ED4a3aF4hBqntQy4cK7rnNkFLBX0wf-uzrBWsGaiE_T_4tQCXwvyXUN9da1iW8Z6LZASP/s320/flap_20160309_017.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy9eZedWd8mA1xXG8QnmHqO9GxSDmXY0el1LYmXW0oFp2KSdiYhviI7uboIf9AlvTa4jraK6E3m-Lf2GJhmv1FZgPPFOHU-LZPQL3m82GMjUuq5HfuRoxREBU7oeBSgQ5D3sDOETolzoeK_nZOPSxfxYtoVeCOZBZ6sdGZIz2Z-x1yLtKnOkqnTDBwt2pi/s752/image.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="752" data-original-width="620" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy9eZedWd8mA1xXG8QnmHqO9GxSDmXY0el1LYmXW0oFp2KSdiYhviI7uboIf9AlvTa4jraK6E3m-Lf2GJhmv1FZgPPFOHU-LZPQL3m82GMjUuq5HfuRoxREBU7oeBSgQ5D3sDOETolzoeK_nZOPSxfxYtoVeCOZBZ6sdGZIz2Z-x1yLtKnOkqnTDBwt2pi/s320/image.jpg" width="264" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">images from FLAP Canada</div><p>MICHAEL: The sheer volume of birds that we continued to pick up was the inspiration for this project. When you start to get so many birds, it feels like a missed opportunity if we don’t use the bodies as a way to send a message. It’s not a strong arm, aggressive approach. It’s more like “come join, take a look, leave if you must but…” </p><p>It evolved. </p><p>In 2001 National Geographic did an article on this issue and they sent a photographer from Washington to take a photo of our layout – we had 5000 birds. This installation happened at Nathan Philips Square, not at the ROM. So the photographer came with a tripod and he thought he was going to sit this tripod down with the camera on it and take the shots. He was blown away. He had to go onto the second story balcony in Nathan Philips Square to get all the birds in the shot.</p><p>It went into the magazine as a double page spread. According to the editor of National Geographic at the time, they started getting complaints from Toyota, one of their major advertisers. They were angry that they weren’t informed this image would be in the magazine because they wanted the adjacent page. They knew people would be flipping back to that image because it was so powerful. </p><p>That was very telling of how these displays of the bird bodies that could grab people’s attention. So we keep doing it, every year.</p><p>LUCY: What are the major challenges you face through your work at FLAP?</p><p>MICHAEL: In the mid 90s we focused on bird-building collisions: light-induced collisions, lit structures at night. There was such a strong swell of support, interest, and fascination in this issue through the campaigns we did that it became entrenched in people’s minds that the problem was bright lights at night in the city of Toronto.</p><p>But we very quickly learned when we continued monitoring bird migration after sunrise into the morning, there was a whole other wave of birds. The daytime issue was an even bigger problem than the nighttime issue.</p><p>The big problem now is that people think if they turn the lights off at night it will address the issue. Even though most people have experienced bird collisions at their homes, their cottages, their workplaces, they are familiar with it, but they don’t understand the magnitude. The one bird that hit their window – it’s unfortunate, but they don’t realize that every home on their street, every home in their neighbourhood every building in their city is experiencing the exact same thing.</p><p>LUCY: That’s a lot of birds.</p><p>MICHAEL: There’s a minds-eye perspective that creates an obstacle, especially with commercial buildings: that it’s going to cost too much to rectify the problem and interfere with the beauty of the building. By suggesting putting markers on their windows people think we are asking them to compromise the architectural integrity of their building. These are the primary obstacles we have faced and continue to face.</p><p>The good news is that we can very quickly demonstrate that the cost is marginal, when you are dealing with a new building, and the aesthetics are quite beautiful. With the City of Toronto now having mandatory bird safety requirements in place for new buildings, the architects that once resisted are now embracing not so much because they have to, but because it’s a whole new aesthetic to explore.</p><p>LUCY: That makes me think about the theory of creativity that constraints in an artistic process can inspire more innovation.</p><p>MICHAEL: Exactly. Architects and developers are realizing that it’s the right thing to do and that it can actually be a rewarding experience.</p><p>LUCY: Is the work you do with guidelines and building bylaws and policies getting easier?</p><p>MICHAEL: It is, yes. But here’s the thing. It’s a piecemeal process. Municipality by municipality. Compared to the rate of bird decline…it’s not fast enough. A number of things have changed that are increasing the potential for this to be a more widespread approach. The law that’s now in place for the province…</p><p>LUCY: I don’t think I know about this law.</p><p>MICHAEL: It’s another a game changer. </p><p>Believe it or not it is now illegal to harm or kill a migratory bird in the province of Ontario as a result of a collision with a window. This came about in the second of two precedent-setting laws suits in 2010 and 2013. I sat as a key witness in both of those trials. In the second trial the judge piggybacked on a section of existing law in the Environmental Protection Act where anyone who emits a contaminant that harms or kills a bird can be held accountable unto the law if they don’t take action to mitigate that problem.</p><p>That’s wonderful news, but the problem was the ministry wanted nothing to do with enforcing this law. The way it’s written, everybody is breaking this law.</p><p>We had to walk them through the process and explain that it’s more about those isolated buildings that are killing large amounts of birds and that have the means to mitigate the problem but refuse to. That shrunk down the volume of structures to which the law would be applied and enforced.</p><p>So within the province of Ontario it is illegal to harm or kill a migratory bird. Federally it’s illegal to harm an at-risk migratory species of bird. A voluntary approach to this was never going to be resolved. The ministry is enforcing this on a piecemeal approach by individual complaints. The ministry hired the Canadian Standards Association to write a standard for the province and for any municipality looking to introduce mandatory requirements into their community to address the concern of bird collisions. This standard is available but voluntary.</p><p>What we’re doing is we’re trying to get the provincial building code to adopt this standard. If we’re successful, then all municipalities will have to do what Toronto is doing. With these guidelines in place new buildings will have to include these standards in their design.</p><p>LUCY: That’s fascinating. It runs in line with ideas surrounding social and political change right now: that you have to change the laws first, then change the rules and then it will filter down to change the culture. </p><p>MICHAEL: It takes a while.</p><p>LUCY: You need brave people who are willing to change the laws first, when it’s not widely supported, and who can deal with the push back. That’s hard.</p><p>MICHAEL: I was impressed by <a href="https://ecogenesisllc.com/" target="_blank">ecoGenesis</a> -- the legal team behind bringing this case in court. They had experts that were able to testify on the stand demonstrating that once daylight reflects off a surface, namely glass, it is reflected in the form of radiation. And on the list of public contaminants is….</p><p>LUCY: Radiation…</p><p>MICHAEL: Yes. That’s how it came to be law for the province.</p><p>LUCY: Brilliant. </p><p>MICHAEL: We’re really hoping that the building code will embrace this. It will change the landscape entirely.</p><p>LUCY: That’s the way in for many different problems for species at risk and habitat at risk.</p><p>MICHAEL: We have no choice. You have to make law and you have to enforce law. Bless people’s hearts, there’s a lot of people with all the best intentions, but they don’t always do something about it.</p><p>LUCY: And the people with the best intentions are not always the ones with the power to make the systemic changes.</p><p>MICHAEL: Yes.</p><p>LUCY: Have you seen any changes in the species of birds that are being found? Has that shifted a lot?</p><p>MICHAEL: When I started in 1989 the volume of birds I was encountering was far greater than those that are being encountered by the volunteers now. Now we have far more people out looking for birds and we’re still finding about the same number of birds, which means that we’re looking at a decline in the overall number of birds.</p><p>That said, it’s not about the volume but the kinds of species. Which ones are most vulnerable? This year we picked up 177 different species. 27 were at-risk species. Some of them weren’t at-risk when we first started. More and more species are on the at-risk list. </p><p>LUCY: When you say species at risk, are you talking about the provincial list? Or a more general sense of “at risk” for the species?</p><p>MICHAEL: There’s an Ontario species-at-risk list, and a federal species-at-risk category. Ontario’s list is more often than not the list we refer to. But we now have FLAP groups all over the country and North America</p><p>LUCY: I was recently comparing the federal and provincial lists. And I found it puzzling to see which species are on both lists, which are on one or the other. A species may be “at-risk” in Canada but not in specifically Ontario. Or, for instance, the barn owl is endangered in Ontario but not across Canada.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMCinpnKC30XDNfA-ELOZoS7NjDXefGa9W2Q2mD7vqbLiL2UeQTndz5Ofz7WOYrF1axz6kN6RzH7h2JUPd5aQVdhdXjG5luBsN6lO_t8S5Hs_rZwo_4ZZGQVP-jUPaw6mkv7P17P9UqK7z4YCw1mb7sateSTBYhXvtg2iI-ZLB-KdQmO33msrBeadRsF3H/s318/download-1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="318" data-original-width="318" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMCinpnKC30XDNfA-ELOZoS7NjDXefGa9W2Q2mD7vqbLiL2UeQTndz5Ofz7WOYrF1axz6kN6RzH7h2JUPd5aQVdhdXjG5luBsN6lO_t8S5Hs_rZwo_4ZZGQVP-jUPaw6mkv7P17P9UqK7z4YCw1mb7sateSTBYhXvtg2iI-ZLB-KdQmO33msrBeadRsF3H/s1600/download-1.jpg" width="318" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Barn Owl</div><p>MICHAEL: This drives me crazy. If a species is showing decline, whether it’s in Ontario or British Columbia or California, it is demonstrating that it is vulnerable in general and it shouldn’t be dealt with in a piecemeal way.</p><p>LUCY: It’s confusing conceptually. A bird in Ontario can’t just fly to British Columbia because the habitat is healthier there. Maybe the wider approach is for communities to pay attention to their local populations. That conceptually feels more meaningful and less prone to misunderstanding.</p><p>Oh, did I hear a red-bellied woodpecker calling at your place?</p><p>MICHAEL: Yes. And the other day we had a red-headed woodpecker here. This is an endangered species now.</p><p>LUCY: As a kid I saw red-headed woodpeckers all the time, never really bothered to pay attention. When I was birding the spring migration at Point Pelee this year I saw so many, pairs flying in off the lake together and landing in low branches of new trees. This is when it dawned on me I hadn't seen one in years.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhShIQz1-Jbaml3bdds_sTzPG-6Q-2brsetFGaIxtrYjhIwMywnldqATq3BeHw4Jb36-Yam7Eg-sn28dpCSU-b6hzBMYamGgjuP7gBetFwRirfYAqBY6raDTEWmSOViC8zkzQcJtOT9mRwMDT-4A8mnAe3FDbn862ZXE_OK7n7srBXkFj3ezQG_FxvO0RyP/s318/download-2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="318" data-original-width="318" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhShIQz1-Jbaml3bdds_sTzPG-6Q-2brsetFGaIxtrYjhIwMywnldqATq3BeHw4Jb36-Yam7Eg-sn28dpCSU-b6hzBMYamGgjuP7gBetFwRirfYAqBY6raDTEWmSOViC8zkzQcJtOT9mRwMDT-4A8mnAe3FDbn862ZXE_OK7n7srBXkFj3ezQG_FxvO0RyP/s1600/download-2.jpg" width="318" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Red-headed woodpecker</div><p>MICHAEL: They are beautiful.</p><p>LUCY: They really are. I feel like it’s been a good woodpecker year so far! I’ve seen so many species and individual birds just here in Toronto -- in High Park and my back yard. I even heard a Pileated woodpecker in High Park this year, but I didn’t see it. It was deep in the woods, way off trail.</p><p>I saw my first Pileated woodpecker in High Park a few years ago. I was terrified. It flew just over my head, landed on the trunk of a tree in front of me, and let out its maniacal laugh. I thought “What the hell kind of pterodactyl is that!? And is it going to eat me?”</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FJUISQbKz0Q" width="320" youtube-src-id="FJUISQbKz0Q"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Pileated woodpecker calls!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>MICHAEL: If you’re not ready it will give you a start, that’s for sure.<p></p><p>I did a cosmetic retro fit to the posts in our yard, a cedar covering to support the existing posts. The day after I did it a Pileated woodpecker just destroyed one of the posts. Pecked right through the cosmetic covering I had added.</p><p>LUCY: Since Toronto was the starting place of FLAP, I’ll ask how is Toronto doing now in comparison with other city centres that are taking on this issue?</p><p>MICHAEL: Toronto is the first city in the world to address this concern. First to introduce guidelines, an educational campaign, mandatory building requirements. First to introduce a biodiversity series based on bird conservation. And for now, Toronto continues to lead the way.</p><p>Toronto is going to meet its match soon though, as areas are jumping on board, catching up and stepping over. I hope this gets Toronto’s back up competitively! There’s still a lot of work to be done. For instance, the next step for us is to get the city to introduce mandatory requirements for existing buildings because quite frankly that’s where 99.9% of the birds are dying. The requirements for new buildings are important and a great achievement but won’t get to the crux of the problem. We need a graduated direction for existing buildings.</p><p>LUCY: A lot of new builds now have to preserve or integrate older or original buildings into new plans. I like this architecturally, but it must create additional challenges or complexity with the building requirements for bird safety, among other things.</p><p>MICHAEL: Requirements for existing buildings are and will be full of compromises. We want to make it as easy as possible for buildings to comply, by meeting certain criteria. It will be impossible to get every single-family dwelling on board. Natural areas, volume of glass, these will be the concerns and considerations for existing buildings.</p><p>LUCY: What can people in those single-family dwellings do? Where I live now is the first place I’ve lived where I have not witnessed bird hits to our windows. So I wonder are there things about my house that make it safer for birds –the kind of windows we have, the directions the windows face?</p><p>MICHAEL: What you’re saying is a common observation. Where I am I have only documented one collision. But I guarantee that so many more are happening. This is what is happening with people’s homes. We’re usually not awake at the time birds tend to collided, or no one is home when the strikes happen. So many variables explain why you haven’t seen it.</p><p>LUCY: What can we do? My house is 100 years old, and we are not able to renovate any time soon.</p><p>MICHAEL: It’s all based on what you’re willing and able to do. We developed a DIY app which allows homeowners to rate the windows of their home. Around 20 questions will give you a tiered level of concern, low to moderate to high to lethal. If you have a lethal rating, work on that first and work your way down. Make adjustments as you can.</p><p>It on our <a href="http://birdsafe.ca">birdsafe.ca</a> website. </p><p>LUCY: I’m going to do that!</p><p>MICHAEL: It helps people decide: Where’s the best bang for my buck? Where’s my effort going to reap the best results? The good thing about it is that it’s relatively easy to resolve. You don’t have to spend a single cent, you can use things you have around the home, and there’s very affordable DIY products. </p><p>LUCY: One more question, it’s a bit of a weird one. Do we want more birds coming through the city? Or do we want to encourage them to bypass cities and finding safer ways through? Could you even do that?</p><p>MICHAEL: The birds were here before we were. They’re doing what instinct tells them to do and there’s no way to guide a bird to not fly through or end up in the city. But more importantly we need to learn how to share our built environment not just with birds but with everything living, to create an environment that welcomes these forms of wildlife in the city. We can definitely all coexist. </p><p>We’re in a lot of trouble if we lose birds. Of all the forms of wildlife, I think birds are the one form that will tip the scale. They control our insect populations; they pollinate, they distribute seeds, they feed millions of dollars into the economy through the birdwatching industry. There’s a “birdwatcher” stereotype, but if you have a bird feeder, you’re a birdwatcher. Any big box store, grocery store, corner store now you find birdseed. So many people feed birds. We all have this fascination and appreciation but not at a level yet where we’re actively protecting them.</p><p>LUCY: It’s like we’re missing a link between the two ideas.</p><p>MICHAEL: We are doing it as a way to entertain ourselves not to protect them. To keep appreciating them, to keep being entertained by them, we have to start protecting.</p><p>LUCY: Michael, you have given me so much of your time, I really appreciate it. I’m off to do my window assessments now….</p><p>***</p><p>Visit <a href="http://flap.org">flap.org</a> to find out more about bird-building collision proofing your home, getting involved with FLAP activities or donating to the cause.</p><p>For bird-proofing kits and supplies visit <a href="https://www.featherfriendly.com/" target="_blank">Feather Friendly</a>.</p><p>Want to start birding or understand more about the birds in your area? Try <a href="http://www.ofo.ca/" target="_blank">Ontario Field Ornithologists</a> or the <a href="https://www.feministbirdclub.org/" target="_blank">Feminist Bird Club</a> or the <a href="http://www.torontobirding.ca/" target="_blank">Toronto Ornithological Club</a> or google search "ornithological clubs" in your area.</p><p>***</p><p><b>Stay tuned for our next "empty branches" interview....who will it be?</b></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Lucy Ruperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06687480416463324472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170266216054875252.post-47166823656278359472022-02-27T10:53:00.002-08:002022-02-27T10:53:28.417-08:00winter thought<p> Just Below Zero</p><p>written Feb 6, 2022</p><p><br /></p><p>a thaw</p><p>is an illusion</p><p>no, it's evidence of time</p><p>the thing we call</p><p>(it never comes)</p><p><br /></p><p>a few </p><p>shifting snows</p><p><br /></p><p>boots full of slush</p><p>(no gratitude for the ride home)</p><p><br /></p><p>i think of my heart</p><p>and feel it twinge a little</p><p>in my mid-life </p><p>chest</p><p>sitting up alert to being thought of</p><p>momentarily</p><p>dissolves into the cooling</p><p><br /></p><p>numb</p><p>soles of feet always</p><p>the words escape</p><p>the dreams no longer cute -- or dreamy</p><p>watch it over and over again</p><p>I don't want to write this but a written word is not a reality -- only</p><p>a snapshot</p><p>of frost before</p><p><br /></p><p>the inevitable: a thaw</p><p>is an illustration</p><p>no it's a live wire hanging</p><p>from the storm-bent tree</p><p><br /></p><p>neighbour's stupid contractor </p><p>attempts detachment</p><p>and crushes a railing, some stairs</p><p>convinced of his ability</p><p>(soles of feet cooling</p><p>words coming out in</p><p>the wrong order).</p><p><br /></p><p>fear tactics thaw the gills</p><p>hidden behind</p><p>that emboldened heart</p><p><br /></p><p>remember when we were....</p><p><br /></p><p>remember the water?....</p><p><br /></p><p>remember us?.....</p><p>says the slush in my boots.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Lucy Rupert</p><p>February 6, 2022</p><p>Toronto</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Lucy Ruperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06687480416463324472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170266216054875252.post-75360355507493817332021-02-03T12:38:00.000-08:002021-02-03T12:38:03.915-08:00ART + SCIENCE event online<p>We've finished our first Digital Art + Science event!</p><p>Blue Ceiling dance’s Art + Science events were originally public events at Swansea Town Hall in Toronto, bringing together work in progress from the dance company and casual presentations and discussions with local scientists about their work. We aimed to spark conversations about creativity and the processes of making art and doing science in a relaxed, fun atmosphere.</p><p>With the restrictions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, we decided to try a different way. At first we thought we would just film the same kind of things that happened in-person, but what evolved was a more impressionistic approach. The contribution of theoretical ecologist and writer Dr. Madhur Anand shaped our Art + Science Event #3, as she offered readings from her new book “This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart”, a poetic text full of science.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href=" https://vimeo.com/505798421" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1114" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjON3eLuf0wYnZmE6ReBRtNgDgaOqyhagYn1k6HhVqyGAlCKRt9VRQcRXeeSrpVch8zzhX6n_aU9Kf301bkS7cjeOy3OHA4AH7WuiPupA5HAr_BQ6uLnQJ8Db6eawSM_k1CdibT42pWI208/w640-h430/IMG_5281.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">click on photo to take you to the video</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p>Blue Ceiling dance shows excerpts from our rehearsals and research for “a tiny piece of anything” – a exploration of atomic movement, action and reaction – all filmed in the beauty of High Park (Toronto) in the autumn of 2020. Also included are video diaries from artistic director and dancer Lucy Rupert’s daily walks.</p><p>As part of our research and creation process for “a tiny piece of anything”, this digital event was supported by the Toronto Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts and the High Park Nature Centre.</p><p>The Art + Science event is part of Blue Ceiling’s HAPPYFURY PROJECT: a series of digital events available free to the public, with the call to donate to organizations supporting social and ecological justice. </p><p>To support THE HAPPYFURY PROJECT and our ART+SCIENCE EVENT please consider making a donation TO THE HIGH PARK NATURE CENTRE:</p><p><a href="https://highparknaturecentre.com/index.php/donate">https://highparknaturecentre.com/index.php/donate</a></p><p>Dancers: Tanveer Alam, Elke Schroeder and Lucy Rupert</p><p>Music: Beresford 1 by Lucy Rupert, Ripple by Jascha Narveson, Beresford 2 and Beresford 7 by Lucy Rupert</p><p>Videographer: Kendra Epik</p><p>Video editing: Blue Ceiling dance</p><p>Special thanks to additional dancers in the research process: Marie-Josée Chartier and Sky Fairchild-Waller</p><p>Blue Ceiling dance acknowledges the land we are dancing in is the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples, and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. We also acknowledge that Toronto is covered by Treaty 13 with the Mississaugas of the Credit. We are grateful to dance here, knowing and honouring that many have danced here before us. </p><p><br /></p><p>Blue Ceiling dance: <a href="http://www.blueceilingdance.com">www.blueceilingdance.com</a></p><p>Madhur Anand: <a href="https://anand-lab-globalecochange.uoguelph.ca/">https://anand-lab-globalecochange.uoguelph.ca/</a></p><p>Penguin Books: <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/authors/259994/madhur-anand">https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/authors/259994/madhur-anand</a></p><p>Jascha Narveson: <a href="http://www.jaschanarveson.com">www.jaschanarveson.com</a></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>VIMEO: <a href="https://vimeo.com/505798421">https://vimeo.com/505798421</a></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><br /><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /><p></p>Lucy Ruperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06687480416463324472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170266216054875252.post-17678834167952458742021-01-05T10:47:00.007-08:002021-10-17T05:21:29.110-07:00Madhur Anand: the complex systems of poetry and ecology<p style="text-align: justify;">Dr. Madhur Anand is a Canadian poet and a professor of theoretical ecology at the University of Guelph. Her topics of research include coupled human-environment systems and forest and forest-grassland mosaic ecosystems, and especially how sources of stress and disturbance, such as agriculture and climate change, impact these ecosystems across different spatial scales and time scales. She uses simulation modelling, statistical tools, dendrochronology, and other observational methods. Her two poetic books, "A New Index for Predicting Catastrophes" and "This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart" have been nominated for awards and included many "best books" lists. Her publications in science and poetry are too numerous to cite here, so read more about Dr. Anand here:</p><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://anand-lab-globalecochange.uoguelph.ca/">https://anand-lab-globalecochange.uoguelph.ca/</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">and here:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/259994/madhur-anand/">https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/259994/madhur-anand/</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Having read both her books since our interview in the spring of 2020, I can say with unabashed enthusiasm, that they are distinct, exquisite, beautiful and heart-ful. Please read on: the divide of science and art in schools, the mystery and necessity of art, the love of rigour and mystery required to be a good artist and a good scientist.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjpMsSS8f1Uvdwkkd3ZFFunqDDyD8I1Xw4z2ehPvcC1ZVVTUeiJRdOAlRie9IOD6dB2Vh7kXX0cUnxVMtdMvmt4KtpwMvcyDlYSZkgQjtCWzJoXU40ZQIjlnIS4-mqweVPmphkxOc1bzVR/s275/download.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjpMsSS8f1Uvdwkkd3ZFFunqDDyD8I1Xw4z2ehPvcC1ZVVTUeiJRdOAlRie9IOD6dB2Vh7kXX0cUnxVMtdMvmt4KtpwMvcyDlYSZkgQjtCWzJoXU40ZQIjlnIS4-mqweVPmphkxOc1bzVR/w266-h400/download.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">photo of Madhur Anand courtesy of Random House</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lucy: I remember last spring (2019) we happened to sit at the same table at the Wooly Pub after you attended <a href="https://www.fujiwaradance.com/" target="_blank">Fujiwara Dance Inventions'</a> performance at the <a href="https://guelphdance.ca/festival/" target="_blank">Guelph Dance Festival</a>. You and Denise (Fujiwara) were having a lively conversation. I was so tired and feeling too shy to participate. So I’ll start by saying I’m sorry I didn’t meet you properly then! Denise sent me your contact info when we got back to Toronto and said, “You should talk to her for your art and science research!”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Madhur: That was such a lovely evening.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lucy: It was. I read your book of poetry, “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/249874/a-new-index-for-predicting-catastrophes-by-madhur-anand/9780771006982#:~:text=A%20striking%20poetic%20debut%20that,and%20our%20place%20in%20it." target="_blank">A New Index for Predicting Catastrophes</a>” yesterday. I just loved it. I was like a little forest creature digging or burrowing into it. I had never heard this fantastic term before: theoretical ecology, your field in science. Maybe this is a starting point… </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I have read a lot about theoretical physics, so I have an idea as to what theoretical ecology might be. You probably work with models that simulate and predict ecological possibilities or outcomes rather than working directly with what is happening in the present.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Madhur: Yes, that’s pretty close.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lucy: So how did you get from being, let's say, a 13 year-old girl to being a theoretical ecologist?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Madhur: It’s a long story and I don’t know where to begin. But let me begin by showing you my new book which just came out. I touch on that question in the book. One side of the book is about my parents and one side is my voice, my stories.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ouHRSF6IlwiXdeq27V0f3blMujynWr49kGRMLCybaA4WxoB0p_xs5nIp91iZNlC7IxZLL5PHiLAtx2ynppjuo9N3dldgeogLi_5qTOJXt5tqsQAZHInhGRftgUcwSGvQ1fsmULmL5jQh/s2048/Anan_9780771007774_cvr_all_r6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1374" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ouHRSF6IlwiXdeq27V0f3blMujynWr49kGRMLCybaA4WxoB0p_xs5nIp91iZNlC7IxZLL5PHiLAtx2ynppjuo9N3dldgeogLi_5qTOJXt5tqsQAZHInhGRftgUcwSGvQ1fsmULmL5jQh/w269-h400/Anan_9780771007774_cvr_all_r6.jpg" width="269" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1w55xUQ19y_eCEanLQlB2SSC3CYBD6iAGqR5c5A6Ydm40PpnpJFSAEglAu39H-CPDE0EhxKQ5o7Nds1GftoFTY2BoRJ-ZGyaOTn-Wsbj-IAzM81R_MN68WJNQcQuCI5dLbUekfbXE2wFX/s275/download-1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="184" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1w55xUQ19y_eCEanLQlB2SSC3CYBD6iAGqR5c5A6Ydm40PpnpJFSAEglAu39H-CPDE0EhxKQ5o7Nds1GftoFTY2BoRJ-ZGyaOTn-Wsbj-IAzM81R_MN68WJNQcQuCI5dLbUekfbXE2wFX/w268-h400/download-1.jpg" width="268" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">photos courtesy of Random House</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So, to answer your question now. The reason I pulled the book out: the joke about being a 13 year old. I talk about being that age in the book. One of things that preoccupies me a lot is: how do things come about? How do things come to be and why? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Your question is so intimately tied with so much that I don’t even know where to begin. It is linked to these stories and this history, how I was brought up, and I would take it even further. It’s linked to my family’s history. You can read about it in the book and perhaps come to some other answer…..</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In more practical terms, I did make a decision pretty much from the advice of my parents to choose science after high school. Because our society requires you to make those choices between arts and sciences quite early and quite abruptly and quite finally. Because that’s just the way arts and science exist now in our world. They are quite separate. They didn’t used to be and I’m sure you know all about that.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lucy: I do.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Madhur: The term scientist was only coined in the late 19th century. Before that people just discovered and observed and created and there wasn’t this distinction. Basically, ever since then, they have gotten further and further apart.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Those very hard-wired pathways in society required me to make that decision. Which is all to say that I’ve always loved both. In high school I equally enjoyed math classes and physics classes and the creative writing classes. Some of my most vivid memories of high school are from my creative writing classes. Those were the classes where I felt I was really being pierced as an individual. I had these illuminations. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Being equally good in those two areas, I had to choose. I did contemplate one of the only programs at that time that didn’t ask you to choose. McMaster University had an arts and science program that was highly regarded and was for people who couldn’t choose. There was that one option that I didn’t take.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So having not taken that one, I had to choose a science undergrad. You know how it works: you start very, very generally. You take them all. Then in second year you make the first choice on the decision tree of specializing. You choose between physics, chemistry, biology and math. I chose biology. In biology, you get your basics: molecular, zoology, botany, ecology. And then you have to choose again. In 3rd year I chose ecology. In 4th year you specialize more. It was then that I took my first course in theoretical ecology. That’s when I discovered there was a thing called theoretical ecology. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And I looooved that course. I realized that there is a discipline of ecology which focused on ideas, concepts, hypotheses not yet confirmed. Really creative things. How to match our ideas of the world to the world itself. These concepts were so exciting to me. It also showed me that there was a way to be a scientist that didn’t require doing repetitive straightforward linear experimental work. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Not to say that all experimental work is like that. But up to that point my lab courses were not truly experimental – you know in undergrad lab classes: Here are a set of instructions. Follow them and see if you get the same result. To me that was the most boring thing you could do with your life. This course in theoretical ecology suggested there were other ways to be a scientist. They fit who I was a bit better.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I started my Masters degree in an area that includes, but was not limited to, ecological modelling, as you described. And I continued to do my PhD in that field. It matched my interests of exploration: exploring imaginary worlds, exploring the complex interactions, exploring surprising behaviours. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I’ve been involved in theoretical models and field work -- a lot of field work-- and I got a sense of how those worlds would eventually intersect.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As I explain this to you, I know that at the time I couldn’t know this, but saying it, everything applies completely to the art of being a writer.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lucy: I completely understand that. Finding the intersection between the concepts or ideas and the reality of life – that is crux of art making, I think. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Madhur: It is. And that was the project of my new book “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/602590/this-red-line-goes-straight-to-your-heart-by-madhur-anand/9780771007774" target="_blank">This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart</a>”. You could call this a book of theoretical ecology and not be completely wrong.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lucy: I can’t wait to read it. It’s on order and coming to me soon! </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Something I really responded to in your poetry was all the taxonomical names. I had my field guides out, trying to guess what the species were and then looking them up to see if I was right. It reminded me of a game my dad used to play with me on long car rides. He’d say “get out the field guide and tell me a Latin name for something and I’ll tell you what species it is. He was right all the time. Not because he had them all memorized, although he did know a lot that way, but because he studied Latin in university and could decipher the roots of the words and make educated guesses about the species. I was always really impressed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Madhur: How’d you get a dad like that?!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lucy: My dad was an engineer and a naturalist. He loved nature. I come by it honestly. He was passionate about it. My mom too. They would take us out of school for a week every year to birdwatch the spring migration at Point Pelee National Park. My sister has now worked there for over 20 years. We take my son every year -- except this one, of course. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What I was getting to about your poetry is that these are the details, the beautiful fine details, of life that only a scientist would notice. I found that absolutely fascinating. The little images, things that seem to be random but then aren’t at all. I don’t know if I have a question inside this….</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Madhur: That’s a great description: that they seem to be random but they’re not. I appreciate that because it is a bit difficult and if you don’t have the openness to go with it until you see the non-randomness, you just might not ever see. You might be turned off and find it too difficult or nonsensical. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lucy: I’ve spent a lot of my life writing and reading and studying poetry – not professionally, of course though in my graduate work I did a lot of historical analysis of artistic symbolism. I’m not a trained a literary scholar, I trained as an historian. But I love poetry, I love words. In your poetry, I loved seeing so many species and references to colours and textures and things that are around us all the time. Noticing them through your poetry.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In my last production with<a href="www.blueceilingdance.com" target="_blank"> Blue Ceiling dance </a>we were trying to embody the behaviour of light in space. It’s something that is there all around us, impacting us, but we don’t really fathom it at a deeper level. When science and art come together, we can illuminate those mundane-but-elusive or out-of-sight-out-of-mind things for people who are not already deeply plugged into them, and create a visceral understanding.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Madhur: I completely agree.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lucy: I had a similar experience to you in high school where I was told: you gotta pick one or the other. And once I picked arts, I was told I had to pick one art form. At 16, I loved writing and painting, and I danced and wanted to choreograph, played piano and oboe, wrote and sang my own songs. But they told me you have to choose. Even my undergraduate degree – a Joint Honours BA in Dance and Music – was not possible, I had to campaign for it, get special permission. It's the only degree of its kind ever granted at the University of Waterloo.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Madhur: I think nowadays it’s a bit better, there are a few more arts and science undergraduate programs, but it’s still hard being both. I’ve been both for quite a long time now. Both an artist and a scientist. The worlds are so different. There’s so little room for both.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lucy: To co-exist in one person….How did your career as a writer develop then? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Madhur: I had always been an avid reader. But I had no idea or ambition to do anything artistic. I had always loved language. I knew I had an aptitude for languages. In high school I took German and French. In my undergrad I did a minor in French. I took courses that were not just language instruction but literature courses, with teachers who were writers themselves. This happened naturally and organically. Language is the base of creative writing and I do think having access to more than one language is a gift, including the language of science, as you correctly identified.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I had that foot in the door, an exposure to the world of literature even while I was doing my undergrad and my PhD.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, I did not attempt to write my first poem until the final year of writing my PhD thesis. 1996. I had been spending a lot of time alone in the lab, working with some very difficult ideas in complex systems theory, in chaos theory, in dynamical systems theory and ecological modelling. They were so rich they were blowing my mind. It was philosophically rich too. All of these things created the conditions -- being alone too – so that one day I got up from my desk writing and I just couldn’t go any further with it. I was stuck. The malaise of it, feeling like I couldn’t do it. I got up from my desk and looked out the window, then I came back and I wrote my first poem. It just kind of came out of the blue.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Quite a metaphorical thing in its own sense. If I try to put a narrative on it: I was going along the scientific path, I got stuck and did not know how to go forward, but then something came at me from 90 degrees, which was poetry. It inserted itself into my life, saying, “here you go, do something with this.” I didn’t know where it came from or what I was doing. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I wrote a few more poems in those final months of writing my thesis. I told my supervisor about it, that poetry had happened to me. My supervisor said, “Oh that’s amazing, you should put those into your thesis.” And I did. I even have it right here. I’ll get it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lucy: I’d love to see it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Madhur: They are not the greatest poems ever written. But they may be the first poems, at least at the University of Western Ontario, ever included in a PhD thesis in science. Towards a Unifying Theory of Vegetation Dynamics, Anand 1997. There are seven chapters….and interludes. Those are the poems. Seven of them, one for each chapter.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That’s where it started. Then I became very fascinated about what poetry is. I educated myself. I went to the university bookstore, into the English section and perused: What poetry books were there? What were they teaching? What was contemporary Canadian poetry? I had no clue.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And then I started to read voraciously. 1996 was the year that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wis%C5%82awa_Szymborska" target="_blank">Wislawa Szymborska</a> was the Nobel Laureate of Literature.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Do you know her work?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lucy: Yes. I’ve read quite a bit by her. My Polish history professor recommended her to me!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Madhur: There are scientific elements in her work, and that was fortunate because if that year it had been Bob Dylan, I might not have connected. It was a good luck thing because I loved her work, and she was talking about probability theory in her poetry. I’m not sure if everyone sees that but I did. It was “She’s talking about probability! She’s talking about information theory! Oh my god!” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I started to see the science everywhere: ornithology, geology. I read <a href="https://canpoetry.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/sarah/index.htm" target="_blank">Robyn Sarah</a> – meticulous and logical, though not a scientist. It’s not that I was looking for it, I just realized how smart the poets were, how we can learn so much about the world through poetry. I was primed for it because I was already a fully formed scientist with all this stuff in my head. It was the perfect time to start reading poetry for me.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Then, now that I know what poetry is and can be, what I can do?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lucy: Does your poetry inform what you’re doing in your ecological research – does it play a role, or are they cruising together? Like a motorcycle with a sidecar.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Madhur: It’s a really good question that I have been asked often. I don’t have a good answer to it. I feel like being a poet is a way of being. It’s a method that is just not describable except say it involves close observation, being attuned to so many different signals. It requires a sense of adventure and risk taking and a willingness to not just accept that you don’t know, but to really go there with the objective of finding a single answer.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lucy: I know what you’re saying. There’s this idea in dance, an old-fashioned idea, that you have to sacrifice everything for dance. But I feel it is the reverse: everything comes into dance. When your body is your art form you are constantly building your instrument by observing when you don’t even realize you’re doing it. It’s conscious, subconscious, and unconscious, and constantly alive and active.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Madhur: Exactly. And is that going to affect my science? Of course it is. I just can’t say how. And that’s the unknown part. It’s like trying to describe how you write a poem. I really don’t know how it comes about. I know many things about craft, but what makes it a poem? Ultimately, who knows?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It’s so much easier, to see the science in my poetry than to see the poetry in my science because we have a much clearer picture of what science is. The language of science is specific. But the language of poetry is everything.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">You put the word “hypothesis” in a poem and there’s the science. You put the word… what word? ”sonnet”, maybe, In a scientific paper…..it doesn’t work like that. The raw material of poetry is not defined by a certain lexicon.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lucy: Something that has lately come up in my life as a dancer and as a choreographer, about finding the tools to really embody something. The language of science has been a major tool for me because I find it so intriguing. We often think of scientific language as definite and definitive. But at the base of it, science exists because of the people who do it. The language of science exists because people have chosen to put those words together.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The theory of relativity was my first inspiration for a science-based piece. Those three words are so potent for so many things. There’s a beautiful poetry to scientific language, particularly to someone who doesn’t understand the nuances of the lexicon, as you put it. Some of the combinations of words are spectacular.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Madhur: I know exactly what you mean.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lucy: Speaking of evocative, poetic words -- I wanted to specifically ask you about your work in forest ecology – why forests? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Madhur: I think the answer might not be very poetic. Even though that’s the main ecosystem I work with, I have worked with many other ecosystems. In a way, I followed ecosystems that were the dominant ones around me. Growing up in Ontario, we were not and are not dominated by forests anymore, we’ve lost over 90% of our forest to agriculture and urban spread in southern Ontario-- but for the most part Canada is a forest country. It is really very simple. That is the dominant landcover. So these were the opportunities to go and study and do field work. It’s more of a practical answer there.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Once I started, various collaborations arose. I now work in endangered forest systems in Brazil, and some other parts of the world. But theoretical ecology allows us to focus not just one ecosystem type. Even if I’m working on a forest model, a lot of the concepts about interactions and complexity and diversity of species, how it persists in a complex system: those concepts can apply to many systems. That aspect of theoretical ecology dominates my entire area of research.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lucy: Taking a set of ideas and applying it in different places or contexts?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Madhur: Yes, or seeing what commonalities emerge from different kinds of ecosystems to try to understand some of the underpinnings, and to discover how diversity arises and how it’s made. The effects of perturbations on ecosystems.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lucy: That’s fascinating. I need to do some more reading about this! I’ve read a fair bit about ecology but more from the philosophical perspective: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._O._Wilson" target="_blank">Edward O. Wilson</a> etc.….I need to swim some deeper waters.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Madhur: An interesting exercise for you me might be…..well, in “A New Index….” there are thirteen found poems that derive from scientific articles I wrote, so you might want to read the poem and then read the article as well.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lucy: I’m all over that. Yes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Madhur: To me it’s the perfect exercise because, the perfect example of the two sides of the coin. I think the poems have very little to do with the actual message or information in the scientific article, but they are still linked. They are entangled with one another. I think it would give you a neat perspective on it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lucy: Entanglement! now we're getting into the quantum world....</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I loved when I got through the poems and got to the information on some of their sources…. I added one into choreographic notes for a new piece I'm making that looks at atomic structures, the most abundant elements of the universe and the human body, what their interactions are with each other. I’m most obsessed with carbon….so when I read the end note about the correspondence of lines in the poems and carbon 13 – I got excited.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Those notes are like little keys. It’s like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunoia_(book)" target="_blank">EUNOIA</a>. (Both <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/christian-bok" target="_blank">Christian Bok'</a>s poem and Fujiwara Dance Inventions' dance inspired by it). Once the rules are explained or revealed, you become a co-conspirator.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That said, I’m glad I read your explanation/notes at the end and not at the start because if I had before I read the poems, I would have been more analytical. But as it was, the notes made me go back and read the poems again.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Madhur: That’s the thing about the poems. It shouldn’t matter that the constraints are all there, it should stand on its own regardless. You build the scaffolding and you build and build and build and then take the scaffolding away. It needs to still hold. It needs to still exist. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I think that’s maybe where art that uses science fails, because it’s too self-conscious. We have to realize that the art just has to exist.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lucy: The rules and constraints help us, as creators get there and get the audience there too. But the whole substance can’t be the constraints. Something new will come in if you let it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Madhur: If you are too conscious it tends not to work. Or it speaks only to one kind of audience. I really wanted my writing, that book to be for everybody. Not for scientists, not for poets.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A lot of people have asked me if I’m trying to communicate science through my work. It’s an issue. Many people assume that if you are using science in art it must be to communicate the messages of science. That is, unfortunately, a dominant idea out there about the intersection of art and science. That could be what it’s used for, but that’s not the main point of what I’m doing. It was important for me that everything was accurate, everything was true. If there were links to reality, they were there, but the poems had to stand alone and be works of art. That was quite a challenge.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lucy: This brings up a pair of words that keep coming up in my interviews on this subject. A broader general public might see these words as oppositional but I think they fold into each other so well in describing the process of both science and art: rigour and mystery. I think rigour is often primarily associated with science and mystery with art.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But you have to have to both. If it’s all rigour it doesn’t really go anyplace new and if it’s all mystery it’s going to have a hard time finding it’s landing place.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Madhur: It won’t hold together! It won’t hold together.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Art needs a vessel or form. Form is incredibly important in poetry, even if it’s free verse, there’s form and meter and knowledge: prosody. I have little formal training in prosody….I just learned what it meant two summers ago. I took a masterclass with <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/carl-phillips" target="_blank">Carl Phillips </a>who is a master of prosody. And I was excited to suddenly learn the terminology of poetry-- all of the meters. All I’d heard of was iambic pentameter – but there’s a host of poetic devices, patterns, diction…..</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There I was writing without that knowledge! But as I learn more about it I understand why certain poems are so good. You can assess and not know the technical stuff, that’s the beauty of poetry. But if you do know the devices and meters and all of that, you can see how brilliant they are. I mean not my own work but poetry in general. I can see the structures.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lucy: What is your favourite part about being a scientist?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Madhur: I love being a scientist….oh, I’m going to say the same things when you ask me what’s my favourite part about being a writer! </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">First of all, the word scientist is so broad. To me it means: I can imagine things, I can conjecture, I can look at the world and other people’s ideas before me. And if they spark ideas in me, I can form new hypotheses. I’m not constrained to the world as it is. I have the ability to discover new things and hopefully extend our knowledge and discovery into new areas. What is a more beautiful pursuit!?</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It’s not always like this, but these are the most beautiful parts of being a scientist. The freedom and encouragement to make fundamental discoveries about the world.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Along with that there are many other things. Being a theoretical ecologist – I’ve had some pretty wonderful interactions with the natural worlds. I certainly love that aspect of my particular science as well. To go to certain areas and study in the field, to be continuously reminded of the wonders of natures. The wonder that is tied to science: I absolutely love it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lucy: I can still ask what’s your favourite thing about being a poet, but I think we could use the same answer.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Madhur: Take the same answer and see if it works for poetry too! There are similarities. In my poetry I am discovering things about the world. It brings new truth. It’s a different kind of truth from scientific truth but it’s important and valid and that’s why I do it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I think that’s my answer.</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">*****</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Art + Science interviews have been supported by the Chalmers Family Fund Fellowship and a Professional Development Grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This interview is the first in the continuation of the project without funding. If you would like to donate to the Art + Science project of Blue Ceiling dance, contact Lucy Rupert: blueceilingdance@gmail.com</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Stay tuned for Blue Ceiling dance's first virtual Art + Science event! Dr. Madhur Anand reads some of her work, dancers share work-in-progress from Lucy's new project "a tiny piece of anything" and explore High Park with a virtual tour. Coming soon: www.blueceilingdance.com</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Lucy Ruperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06687480416463324472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170266216054875252.post-38462640430783782392020-10-10T08:19:00.003-07:002020-10-19T09:35:02.031-07:00Brian Eames and Jean-Sebastien Gauthier -- Immersive Evolution and Potency of Sci-Art<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">Based in Saskatoon, Brian Eames is an evolutionary biologist in the field of cellular development of bones. In the Eames Lab at the University of Saskatchewan, they use molecular genetics and advanced imaging techniques to understand how skeletal tissues develop and evolve. A general focus of the lab is on skeletal differentiation, particularly between bone and cartilage. </span></div><p style="text-align: justify;">Jean-Sebastien Gauthier is an artist born and raised in Saskatoon, the grandson of prominent Saskatoon sculptor Bill Epp. He grew up working and learning in his grandfather’s foundry. At Concordia University, Jean-Sebastien expanded his practice as a sculptor into multi-media and interactive arts experiences. He currently resides in Saskatoon.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Together they have created installation works of art combining scientific imaging, immersive art experiences, evolution and a strong desire to inspire people to see themselves in all living things.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioK7Kd9o7URwXqc5R8i83gKdbqtTF-CSGy39Qd_rqks52Sb6Ml4RFHnqu-1l9oXTOTmcMvFf_7CgOe87RVdp3ejDUEoTfJikowaqVrD52CfL8DeWBaWwIrIWmzdIwlXTCwsyCrNJOF5ZqT/s2048/Screen+Shot+2020-09-29+at+5.12.02+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1184" data-original-width="2048" height="370" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioK7Kd9o7URwXqc5R8i83gKdbqtTF-CSGy39Qd_rqks52Sb6Ml4RFHnqu-1l9oXTOTmcMvFf_7CgOe87RVdp3ejDUEoTfJikowaqVrD52CfL8DeWBaWwIrIWmzdIwlXTCwsyCrNJOF5ZqT/w640-h370/Screen+Shot+2020-09-29+at+5.12.02+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">JS Gauthier and Brian Eames collaboration "Still Life"</div><p>We spoke over Zoom in May/June of 2020.</p><p>**</p><p>LUCY: I’ll start by just giving my little blurb about why I’m doing these interviews. I received a fellowship to explore how philosophy of poetic naturalism can be applied to contemporary dance. The philosophy comes from the physicist Sean Carroll…</p><p>BRIAN: The evolutionary biologist or physicist? </p><p>LUCY: Physicist.</p><p>BRIAN: There's a famous evolutionary biologist named Sean Carroll.</p><p>(An aside: you can listen to <a href="https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2020/10/05/117-sean-b-carroll-on-randomness-and-the-course-of-evolution/" target="_blank">Sean Carroll interviewing Sean Carroll here!</a> )</p><p>LUCY: I'll have to look him up! The physicist Sean Carroll has this idea that stories we tell about descriptions of reality, the natural laws of the universe are really important. He sees that certain approaches and certain stories can provoke us societally to cultivate a deeper responsibility and sense of care for the natural world. I’m interested in how this philosophy can bring art and science together in concept and in practice. I’m interested in the storytelling of the research process that goes on in science and art, I’m interested in how art and science intersect in terms of process, concept, and people who are actually doing the work bringing them together in new ways. </p><p>My first question to each of you is: how did you get from a being ten-year-old kid to doing what you do? I mean, what got you into your specific field? Brian, you first?</p><p>BRIAN: I was not the kind of kid who played with bugs. I was more drawn into this field because of a scientific mind, a rational and curious mind. I was trying to figure out a way that I could maintain interest in a career while learning more. When I finished high school, it was between architecture and biology. My brain was interested in those two areas. I had some mechanical engineering classes where I found it really cool that you could design things that could be realized. That's something that unifies the motivations that I have in science. Tangible outputs.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjew83tA9MJYUZbNexiX-7ViB8OkCEIXNUm5KJu0EtD15pputuOS47cSA12qTD9hX_IHIauwJxuwlPFcoyMWzTEgW3sEltWsTFcKZwDwTOKyoJJg08vL0ms8lK3HbxigmFuJpgahYfEWjO7/s338/CIHR-BrianEames-9_3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="269" data-original-width="338" height="510" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjew83tA9MJYUZbNexiX-7ViB8OkCEIXNUm5KJu0EtD15pputuOS47cSA12qTD9hX_IHIauwJxuwlPFcoyMWzTEgW3sEltWsTFcKZwDwTOKyoJJg08vL0ms8lK3HbxigmFuJpgahYfEWjO7/w640-h510/CIHR-BrianEames-9_3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">photo of Brian Eames in the Eames Lab, courtesy of eameslab.ca</div><p>One of the reasons I'm really happy to know about your focus and what we're getting into here is that I think these worlds are not very far apart: art and science. There's a lot of process similarities, intangibles, the creative spark of invention. These are parallel avenues.</p><p>LUCY: Theoretical physicist Lee Smolin was my first scientist interview. He was a huge mind to interview first! In the context of art and science, he talked about novelty. It has such a specific meaning in science, but it gets used colloquially in a very different way. But Lee saw this, invention and novelty, as a commonality between art and science. It's a fascinating concept. I think the arts could do with embracing the scientific definition of "novelty" a little bit more. In arts/entertainment novelty is often thought of as your "hook", a thing that is yours and yours alone, or something unique but trivial. </p><p>But we could think of it as what's naturally evolving in our art: what novelty arises through the long arch of our work? What's emergent? What's novel?</p><p>Did you always want to go into this particular area of science?</p><p>BRIAN: I wear a lot of hats. I'm interested in a lot of things. Evolutionary biology is the framework that motivates me. I like science because of the fact-based, discovery-based observation that the scientific method requires. Physics was too esoteric. After gravity, it gets to be more like philosophy to me. Chemistry was sort of the same. They had empirically figured out how reactions can happen. But they can never really measure it at the subatomic level. </p><p>Then biology: the principles of evolution have been around for a while, but the recent advances in molecular genetic techniques, to be able to take part of a gene or part of a DNA and then manipulate it and test it in different ways.... That, I thought, was a major advance. I felt biology was a better opportunity for me to contribute something, as you said, novel, and also tangible. That was a goal. To do science that had a tangible facet.</p><p>Evolution is conceptually profound, philosophically. Working inside this idea: that's my passion. But the money is not currently in evolutionary research, so I had to find things that I was interested in related to evolution, but also related to health research, because that's where the research money is.</p><p>I became interested in bone and cartilage because of the fossil records and the evolutionary stories that have been attributed to that part of an animal. I took what I was researching there and related it to osteoarthritis. How genes have made cells that developed into bone and cartilage through evolution, and relate that to current health research.</p><p>LUCY: Is there an easy way to explain to somebody like me how the evolutionary aspect of it does get applied to current health research?</p><p>BRIAN: Yeah, sure. For instance: osteoarthritis. You have cartilage in between the bones and the features of that cartilage change in a way they're not supposed to. It's a natural process but it’s supposed to happen only in other parts of the body, not in the cartilage in between the bones.</p><p>So, what happens is osteoarthritis activates a normal program that shouldn't be activating at this point. We can look at new factors, new genes that are doing the same things by doing comparative studies in evolution. You can look at one animal that has normal cartilage and another animal with this other modified cartilage and using evolution you can trace the timing of when these different features appeared and associate that with specific genes. In principle -- this home run hasn't really happened yet -- if you use evolution to learn about the genes that turn this kind of cartilage into another kind of cartilage then you can use that information to address the problem for a modern human.</p><p>LUCY: Possibly through gene editing or some process like that.....Amazing.</p><p>So JS, can you tell me about your trajectory into art, sculpture and multi-media work?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhneOmqWF2pEwJqG4a4F97xu2cL_FxZcsCiECItXViPYPZoG3L31ehnN3Lo482ebtPFalRSXucNHKI0H2hvPu8su-vDo-vPhGwj4ERbB3j8BYyxxH19c51OKxLGbpNgQ-aAnrqG4EhF6EUq/s1533/Screen+Shot+2020-10-10+at+9.41.35+AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1021" data-original-width="1533" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhneOmqWF2pEwJqG4a4F97xu2cL_FxZcsCiECItXViPYPZoG3L31ehnN3Lo482ebtPFalRSXucNHKI0H2hvPu8su-vDo-vPhGwj4ERbB3j8BYyxxH19c51OKxLGbpNgQ-aAnrqG4EhF6EUq/w640-h426/Screen+Shot+2020-10-10+at+9.41.35+AM.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Jean-Sebastien Gauthier</div><br /><p><br /></p><p>JS: I was born and raised in Saskatoon. My father is from Quebec. My mother’s side is Mennonite, more recent settlers here in Saskatchewan. </p><p>My grandfather was a pioneering sculptor here, doing monumental bronze work, he taught sculpture at the University of Saskatchewan for about 25 years. I grew up here in a very unique setting, my grandfather’s working foundry, about 20km from the city, and his teaching at the University. I grew up embedded in the studio of a very successful mature artist who was also very dedicated to teaching. I grew up around master students and international artists. </p><p>In my early years I was being primed: “Now you’re old enough to hold this”, “Now you’re old enough to pour the metal”. I grew up in sculpture. At 14 or 15, around the time my grandfather died, I decided to become a sculptor. I worked independently in France, at a foundry where I learned the ropes. I came back and worked in Montreal, went to Concordia, got a degree in sculpture, became interested in video…. I came back to Saskatoon in 2009.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglK0IITdlr3Jcihda3TQMcphxpZjI0G5aXn-WQ-BBy1LgtD7mhiynq-gHVlyMo3vtsqCoAlqvHEW2IS6YRUd4YuVyvnZfqSHCIhUYGNVeTieDHQoUBrOihIMtVkGG0QTtTJhGlt1q0DVyv/s1541/Screen+Shot+2020-09-29+at+5.18.34+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1471" data-original-width="1541" height="610" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglK0IITdlr3Jcihda3TQMcphxpZjI0G5aXn-WQ-BBy1LgtD7mhiynq-gHVlyMo3vtsqCoAlqvHEW2IS6YRUd4YuVyvnZfqSHCIhUYGNVeTieDHQoUBrOihIMtVkGG0QTtTJhGlt1q0DVyv/w640-h610/Screen+Shot+2020-09-29+at+5.18.34+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Digital rendering of sculpture part of JS Gauthier's work Sample and Hold</div><p>My practice grew from the figurative influence of my grandfather into new spaces. I became and remain interested relationships to animals in the broadest way. The use of video and interactive work came near the end of my undergrad. I did real time interactive performances that were spatial and sort of disorienting, live video and projections. I was interested in live processing and getting people into the idea of simultaneity. That has continued in the interactive influence. </p><p>LUCY: So how did you two connect your work? </p><p>BRIAN: A scientist has to be interested in art to even think about straddling it somehow. I've always had an interested in art. I have no artistic skill, but as I've travelled, I've been around a lot of art and artists. </p><p>Before this recent collaboration I didn't have any firm way that an artist would be interested in collaborating with me. I have some friends who are artists from back when I worked in San Francisco but at that time they were establishing themselves and not really interested in collaboration with science. What happened more recently-- the Synchotron in Saskatoon, ever heard of it?</p><p>LUCY: No. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.lightsource.ca/about_the_cls.html" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="313" data-original-width="640" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmamBKFvxEqOBnGdPmq6rdvGzsnbcEEoRJAcDOGDgLe8490CxDnQcWAlF9Ic2nbq5_q0UlsYn1wiZpw3-iecr-iXue1pVfWd4Kh8y9Bf8E4k6f_iq1XcQJyqTOYWtLPGSEaeJ3mLSYO5SE/w400-h195/call+for+pro%25284%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Click image for info on the Synchotron</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p>BRIAN: It's a melting pot of engineers, biologist, physicists, chemists. So luckily, I had a foot in the door there. </p><p>LUCY: How does luck play into it?</p><p>JS: I got a tour of the Synchrotron because my sweetheart wanted to get me out of the house. Entering that space with my interest in video and sculpture, my curiosity was very much engaged. I wanted to find ways to work with others. But the Synchrotron people said, “No. This isn’t for you.” So, how I can find somebody?</p><p>Here’s the luck: someone I knew worked at the Synchotron and was there while I was doing the tour. He helped me put out a call. Local sculptor seeking collaborator. Brian sent me an email. </p><p>BRIAN: We met for coffee and really connected over evolution. The naturalist thing. </p><p>JS: I got 8 or 9 responses to my call for collaborators. I contacted a few people but Brian and I – we were just very simpatico. Some people who wrote to me, their technical language was so specific to their field. I was like, “I’ve read your website and I read your paper and I just don’t know what you’re talking about.” </p><p>Brian’s research has a lot of abstract levels for someone not trained in his discipline, but the 3D imaging of animals and specimen was really compelling to me. It meant I could at least grasp the visual fundamentals of what he was up to.</p><p>BRIAN: Through our conversation we had a real sense how our humanness, how the oneness can be shown through evolution: how similar life forms are....</p><p>We had this idea that if people had a better understanding of evolution, well, there was a better chance that people would make better decisions when it comes to environmental policy and behaviour.</p><p>LUCY: That's exactly what I'm trying to do out here. There's something that the arts have: an ability to bypass intellect and go straight to something more visceral as people are witnessing it. It's my hope to leap past that place that will rationalize its way through something –make the leap from trying to understand something to feeling it instead. We can disconnect people from the dominance of the floating head and put them back in their bodies. </p><p>BRIAN: These types of collaborations need a hook. Our ability to show, through our shared interest in imaging, how nature has been evolving and making beautiful structures was our hook. Once we've got their attention with good images, the challenge was to communicate something specific. </p><p>We challenged ourselves to create a project that highlights both the science and the art….I picture it like electromagnetism: there are waves of electrical activity and there are magnetic waves coming at an orthogonal plane. They are happening together, through each other. If there could be meaningful scientific information along one plane and meaningful artistic information along the other, then together both sides of the brain experiencing it could be happy.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVwReL-tT901P5-5HkUz4V8L1hao2kxiuaJWWNvD_HOPrlSXjziqL4fDQIXLA64PZWcImoa-2ot8Y0AqrmYAq9P8L8oFBBfi83DcgyueX2xWGxoQ1qmlS2tD11JmaSIqniC1LpUzyBI2f1/s2012/Screen+Shot+2020-10-08+at+4.32.59+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1309" data-original-width="2012" height="416" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVwReL-tT901P5-5HkUz4V8L1hao2kxiuaJWWNvD_HOPrlSXjziqL4fDQIXLA64PZWcImoa-2ot8Y0AqrmYAq9P8L8oFBBfi83DcgyueX2xWGxoQ1qmlS2tD11JmaSIqniC1LpUzyBI2f1/w640-h416/Screen+Shot+2020-10-08+at+4.32.59+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">still from JS Gauthier's Face to Face</div><p><br /></p><p>LUCY: Whether the “sides of the brain” are metaphors for different kinds of thinkers or whether it is actually stimulating both sides of the brain in a single person…..</p><p>The images I saw from Within Measure reminded me of an exhibit at the ROM years ago. This artist had collected "dead things", all of them were white objects in simple glass cases. Whatever they were, they seemed like skeletons or exposed infrastructure. Some were literally dead things, dead owls and mice, but others were things like outdated pieces of technology -- writing instruments, sewing boxes, I think even an old telephone. </p><p>I had the same kind of emotional response to the images from your exhibit as I had to this one at the ROM. It’s clear and obscure at the same time. Familiar objects presented in a disassociated context. You can’t help but see them freshly.</p><p>So....what's next?</p><p>BRIAN: One of the challenges for us is reaching an audience and grabbing their attention. JS had been an interactive artist already, working in technology-based interactive art. He knows ways to grab attention so that anyone would respond. He uses technology to do that.</p><p>Our first exhibit he used sensors so they would detect the presence of a person and it would modify the image. The last time we did it for Nuit Blanche in Saskatoon he had a Kinect from Xbox -- it could recognize the ends of limbs, sensing a stick figure and put a stick figure on the screen in an array of images and the stick figure (the interacting-viewer) could close his hand around a place in the projected image and grab it and make it bigger, throw it, spin it, change the angle of it. This interactive aspect is what JS has done to make people participate in the art, really be in it.</p><p>So, the next iteration of our collaboration will be a VR world, putting people inside the 3-D space and letting them play around with the world, grabbing different embryos like a chicken and a mouse embryo and mix and match, see the similarities. This unity of life idea is the main goal. People can have a choose-your-own-adventure in this virtual space with all these images of animals from different lineages, to see themselves in it. That's our next step.</p><p>LUCY: that's the way we should be teaching evolution. I know it's not exactly teaching evolution, but the virtual hands-on aspect.... who knows? You might have some converts.</p><p>How did you conceive your first collaboration together? Did either one of you have an idea before meeting about what the content or theme might be? </p><p>JS: After we first met for a coffee, Brian brought me to his lab and I saw the animal facility, his zebra fish. We chatted for an hour and half and from that chat were the raw nuggets of what we did. We didn’t have a specific vision for what it would be, but we had a question: hey, what if we could make something that show people how they can relate to these embryos?</p><p>BRIAN: But we knew the imaging would be the specific output. That output is still our objective. </p><p>LUCY: How has your collaboration evolve? How did you find the ways to work together? That’s a big question so…. plunge in anywhere and start swimming….</p><p>BRIAN: Through our collaboration we’ve now been put in a spotlight it’s been interesting to see how JS can talk about his work in a more academic setting. What his motivations are, his history. Drawing a seam between the events of his life and what he’s doing now. </p><p>That’s been a plus for me. To watch that evolution and having been a part of it. That’s part of our interaction, to share what I know to help his art reach farther. I don’t know that much about the specifics of the art career path, but there are certain things that I have experience with that help him – how to communicate your motivations and your work. </p><p>LUCY: I just published an interview with Amar Vutha, a physicist in Toronto, and unexpectedly we got talking about the mutual pressures of art and science to have a constant public presence. The pressure to do that can actually pull you away from what Amar called “your core content” because you are trying to frame it in a way that will grab people’s attention on social media.</p><p>It seems like this kind of collaboration eases that pressure. The collaboration speaks for itself and becomes and engages public without you pulled out of your work. </p><p>JS: I don’t do particularly well with social media. But I realized early on with SCI-ART how deep of a niche this is and how deep are the layers of obscurity within the technical language and the interests. Within art, and within science, and within art-and-science. It’s a small niche. I have only 30 followers on Twitter, but it’s a group of people actually interested in what I’m doing. </p><p>At our first exhibit, Within Measure, the curator of the Snelgrove Gallery, Marcus Miller, said “The art gallery crowd is small, you don’t need to worry about a huge outreach plan. You only really need to talk to a few people to get it out there.”</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://vimeo.com/213760557" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="1063" data-original-width="1923" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq_FjI85YqXVdNViqsSlkHJLXj20iDqNbms-BuD_sQe5pCiWspSX3KQXwOiMJS90rDePIWAVbikVx185SDLzr_3BGkGY4UXPdwwgUavSGaxrbV4aw7bfJdDWOefyPazzQlDKhC3j0G30Cf/w400-h221/Screen+Shot+2020-09-29+at+5.22.19+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p>The show ended up being the perfect example of that. It was at the university, two weeks long. The exhibition brought youth, daycare kids, academics, people different university departments. One man who attended told us he really liked the exhibit because he used to be a scientific illustrator. And it turned out to be David Geary. I had been super influenced by him in my teenage years. He had made all these socialist posters for Saskatchewan, taking old Soviet propaganda posters and adjusting them for Saskatchewan: The “Winged Red Gopher of Socialism Bounds Above the Prairies”. Things like that. </p><p>I notice when we’re with the exhibits and able to make interactions that’s a lot more valuable than when the exhibit is on its own. But I also really appreciate being able to see people at something like Nuit Blanche where people encounter it, not really knowing at all what it is. They stumble into it. Then engage with the images without being prompted.</p><p>LUCY: They put together their own understanding in a more individual way, since they haven’t had a set of expectations to begin.</p><p>It seems like the initial conception for your collaboration was, or has become, not just an idea for one project together, but more the way that your two forms could develop together over a longer period of time.</p><p>JS: Yes. William Burroughs wrote a book with Brion Gysin called the Third Mind. It’s about a different personality that develops between two collaborators working together. There are the two individuals and there’s the relationship between them: that becomes its own entity: the third mind. That is what working with Brian has been like. The collaboration has its own energy.</p><p>I’m a curious person. I have a trust your gut approach. If I’m this interested in something, it will pan out because I’m invested. I wrote a lot of proposals to try to get funding, to not just think about these ideas, but start implementing them. It was way harder than I expected. Way, way, way more complicated. It’s hard to dial it in to just one particular output sometimes.</p><p>LUCY: Because you can see how far the potential could reach, what the possibilities are?</p><p>BRIAN: Again, that’s where my training comes in. I’m a robot in terms of management and trying to get people to focus. So that helps our collaboration. The creativity, the concepts, are things you can play around with, but in both our fields, at the end of the day you have to produce something. There has to be an output. Then you can put it on your CV and use it get more funding.</p><p>We are complementary skill sets with a shared vision.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ5FixTHcB40yXwU4_msN1dVkUwPH3yuqk14Grwnfs2vFfKRK62sS0ig-SbPRTDRHgLo-BQKJ2Idf2dDlZ6hkz9LvsKkwwk3GWBZ4_8nWay5snisdV21D08pYgBJg2GMuUY-cs4wHR9-IM/s1467/Screen+Shot+2020-09-29+at+5.30.22+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1467" data-original-width="1171" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ5FixTHcB40yXwU4_msN1dVkUwPH3yuqk14Grwnfs2vFfKRK62sS0ig-SbPRTDRHgLo-BQKJ2Idf2dDlZ6hkz9LvsKkwwk3GWBZ4_8nWay5snisdV21D08pYgBJg2GMuUY-cs4wHR9-IM/w319-h400/Screen+Shot+2020-09-29+at+5.30.22+PM.png" width="319" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Still image from "Our Glass" collaboration of JS Gauthier and Brian Eames</div><p>LUCY: In collaborating it’s very easy to get seduced by another’s intellect or artistry without having a deeper conversation about how the two collaborators can have a shared aim or intention that goes beyond “this performance”, or “this exhibit”. Of course, there is nothing wrong with that approach, but when two collaborators’ skills and aims fold into each other’s something important has the opportunity to emerge.</p><p>I think it’s quite special to find that. Not easy, but fortuitous that this made itself apparent to you both so quickly.</p><p>JS: There’s a lot of super blazing luck. Especially my end. Starting with the Synchotron. And at the first exhibit, when somebody came right up to me and gave me a hug and said “Right on, great job!” I didn’t know who she was, then she walked off and I said to Brian. “She’s really nice.”</p><p>Brian said, “Oh that’s the Vice President of Research”. And she followed up and offered us some funding to continue. It made a really big difference to push through the imaging of new species.</p><p>LUCY: Kudos to her for knowing. A lot of people in those kinds of positions aren’t intuitive enough to recognize when somebody is on to something potent. </p><p>BRIAN: The university has policies about being innovative. They have their buzz words. Interdisciplinarity is one right now. This was how she was able to tap into our exhibit, realize that what we are doing is a priority for the university right now. The Vice President of Research, Karen Chad, has a very open mind in general. We were lucky those things came together at the right time.</p><p>JS: It’s like the perfect storm.</p><p>LUCY: Sometimes I think, not in a fatalistic way, that when the right components come together it creates -- now I’m really going to sound like a dancer because we talk about energy all the time -- it creates some sort of energy. Like that third mind. Lots of things immediately bounce out of a really good idea. And lots of things get drawn to that energy.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJR7QkNx3Z3C31MuwYixfAK_TAt1LqAtJaHEBGyUN1sl7ZZSiVmIxDrx17JDV2UwTpKMWrHYnK307-h35aN-7jv4StFipIdafCrkOIC92YvFhwPzhhQlO3vMeNIHCAh8Y69I4GNOGqWMJi/s2048/Screen+Shot+2020-10-09+at+9.34.00+AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1175" data-original-width="2048" height="368" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJR7QkNx3Z3C31MuwYixfAK_TAt1LqAtJaHEBGyUN1sl7ZZSiVmIxDrx17JDV2UwTpKMWrHYnK307-h35aN-7jv4StFipIdafCrkOIC92YvFhwPzhhQlO3vMeNIHCAh8Y69I4GNOGqWMJi/w640-h368/Screen+Shot+2020-10-09+at+9.34.00+AM.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">image of JS Gauthier's Phobodrome</div><p><br /></p><p>JS: I try to align with intentions. And if a component of a project doesn’t fit with the intention, it doesn’t stay. Brian and I have a pretty clear intention to share the work. And to learn. There’s mutual respect and trust. I trust his opinion and his way of evaluating things. We are able to speak frankly about what we’re doing, then assess and direct it toward the intention.</p><p>The third mind and the intent: then the means are what they can be.</p><p>LUCY: You mean the way to make it happen becomes clear or reveals itself.</p><p>JS: Understanding the deepest intention with clarity makes room for not being caught in “it has to be this”. You find a way to match the intention and then it sparks. It’s easier for people to understand an intent and an emotional kind of thing. I think I’m able to translate data into intent with an emotional spark. It doesn’t matter what the art is about, if you can’t relate to it, it’s not a transmission.</p><p>LUCY: Transmission between creators and witnesses or audiences?</p><p>BRIAN: It’s the iterative thing, the connection. People can get something from it aesthetically, but then the deeper questions grab them. What is it? What am I looking at? How is this made? In viewers, we see that same stepwise understanding that we went through to make it. There’s an interesting parallel.</p><p>LUCY: I’ve never considered that before, that there can be parallel artistic-scientific-witnessing processes. Lots to think about…. </p><p>BRIAN: Now, I want to know how you’re integrating science into your discipline.</p><p>LUCY: That’s another conversation…. Let’s stay in touch. Be well.</p><p>JS: Be well!</p><p>***</p><p>Learn more about Brian Eames' work at the University of Saskatchewan. </p><p>Visit <a href="http://www.eameslab.ca">www.eameslab.ca</a></p><p>Twitter @EamesLab </p><p>Instagram @Eames_lab</p><p><br /></p><p>Learn more about Jean-Sebastien Gauthier's work by visiting <a href="http://www.jsgauthier.com">www.jsgauthier.com</a></p><p><br /></p><p>This Art + Science interview was made with the generous support from the Chalmers Family Fund Fellowship, managed by the Ontario Arts Council, and from the Canada Council for the Arts Professional Development program.</p><p><br /></p>Lucy Ruperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06687480416463324472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170266216054875252.post-5522912590675065252020-08-09T13:34:00.001-07:002020-08-09T13:34:44.856-07:00in fallibility -- a second poem<p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> Another step towards sharing more concrete thoughts and discoveries from my recent Chalmers Fellowship and Professional Development grant with Canada Council for the Arts: poem #2.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I'm not sure if I'm shying away from prose because now is a time you must have an opinion, but you also must be ready to have it be torn apart. So I don my poetry dress, just as I live in a contemporary dance world where individual interpretation is the goal.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">This is also the underlying theme of the poem: do not fear mistakes. Don't hold on to them, deny them or beat yourself up about them. </span></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDimC6Dm1tCFgXmuilJVmhLQkX3BSswYTdVN1PgsLJ2JvhG1UPApY4lYhWouPvEdgQUBDUOgOT6ENn6NnzTop-4rrakT8r53xcdgC0_gc0nzIgUDMs6YSsoyBdzuD6yiTB1KcSX7PnwtMm/s3600/_MG_7288.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3600" data-original-width="2400" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDimC6Dm1tCFgXmuilJVmhLQkX3BSswYTdVN1PgsLJ2JvhG1UPApY4lYhWouPvEdgQUBDUOgOT6ENn6NnzTop-4rrakT8r53xcdgC0_gc0nzIgUDMs6YSsoyBdzuD6yiTB1KcSX7PnwtMm/w427-h640/_MG_7288.jpg" width="427" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lucy Rupert in "the animals are planning an intervention"<br />photo by Melanie Gordon<br />lighting by Michelle Ramsay</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>in fallibility</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>It is time to make mistakes.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>We don’t have to know everything<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>Who ever told us we did?<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i> </i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>Birds are flying north<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>And flies are kissing on our glass table<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>And the vines still grow fiercely<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>Despite<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>A wrong word<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>A stumbling haze that spawned<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>An error<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>You recognize it, even as it<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>falls out of your mouth<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i> </i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>It is ok.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i> </i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>Don’t wait for someone to tell you to pick it up, look it over,<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>Toss it<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i> </i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>Who told you belligerence<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>Would be your life preserver?<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i> </i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>No one ever said so<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i> </i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>You cannot bully your way<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>Out of the box you built<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>Around yourself<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>No matter how clear the walls are<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>No matter how clear the walls are<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i> </i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i> </i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>Riot softly for new oceans<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>We will all be swimming together</i></span><span style="font-family: "Avenir Book"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Avenir Book";"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Avenir Book";"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Avenir Book";"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Avenir Book";">copyright Lucy Rupert</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Avenir Book;">August 2020</span></p>Lucy Ruperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06687480416463324472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170266216054875252.post-5311434663766757132020-07-27T14:04:00.000-07:002020-07-27T14:45:31.747-07:00standing on fishes -- by Lucy RupertOver the past ten years, I have enjoyed interviewing artists and scientists so much that I have not dedicated much of this blog specifically to my own writing. I used to write quite a bit. I wrote and performed my own music at places like Graffitis and the Freetimes Cafe. I wrote poetry and short stories. Sometimes I was published.<br />
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Like many people right now, I have had a lot of time and space to reflect. I have been writing again.<br />
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This poem started as a brainstorm for a new solo dance I am creating and its title is a nod to Rainer Maria Rilke. I also acknowledge the soft, Irish nudge of the late John O'Donohue.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Lucy Rupert in <i>dead reckoning, </i>2016</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">photo by Omer Yukseker</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i><u>standing on fishes</u></i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>
a fence of slippery parts<br />
snaps into shape<br />
flat<br />
instant grounding<br />
made of lost ideas,<br />
the things that don't tether<br />
while soles hang on.<br />
<br />
the dancer hard-worked these 25 years<br />
has been waiting unknowingly<br />
unwittingly<br />
for the moment<br />
to ride<br />
for the loss of control -- here we find the<br />
centre always spoken of in descending<br />
metaphors,<br />
no single word<br />
captures everyone.<br />
not blueberry<br />
or corset<br />
or pull up<br />
or spread wide<br />
or build from the bottom<br />
or feel the opposition<br />
or suck in your gut<br />
(that one, especially, lands nowhere)<br />
<br />
I once had a dream I was walking on a floor<br />
of bones<br />
and though creepy, my dreamself found it no<br />
problem. I crossed like an elephant,<br />
my soles the trunks, scenting the bones<br />
for family<br />
ancestors<br />
roommates.<br />
<br />
(I wanted to write "lovers", but even my<br />
dreamself is aware that is too romantic<br />
and too dangerous a word for the timid<br />
creature I have been, now riding scales<br />
of invisible sea monsters<br />
who resemble nothing more horrifying than carp.)<br />
<br />
A friend once said I had smart feet.<br />
<br />
They wobble more,<br />
though they spread,<br />
as<br />
the years go by (dancing barefoot on hardwood, on marley, sometimes on concrete)<br />
<br />
Perhaps realizing the elephant bones<br />
are fishes: less stable than<br />
the past, more tangible<br />
than the future.<br />
<br />
A watery, timid creature<br />
not a swimmer exactly,<br />
I like to dip my toes, stretching to get there,<br />
to the sand at the bottom<br />
(Lake Huron, of course,<br />
or maybe the Atlantic Ocean)<br />
<br />
The core of me hurts all the time<br />
the origin of all movement, all life<br />
hurts -- all the time now<br />
smart feet try to adjust to the changing air,<br />
to the rippling floor,<br />
to the clutching in the middle.<br />
<br />
I am not afraid that two ideas,<br />
which seem contradictory, can be equally and<br />
simultaneously true --<br />
<br />
I wrote this to a beautiful dancer who jousted<br />
legitimate windmills, so quick and strong he<br />
couldn't see the fishes. And to the<br />
fishes he was a red velvet blur ---<br />
<br />
my brain can hold two<br />
at once<br />
I can track ten or twelves fishes<br />
at once<br />
when they are not beneath my feet.<br />
<br />
Infinite adjustment is a fence<br />
that grows stronger and more porous<br />
as the scales shift and<br />
the soles move.<br />
<br />
The atmosphere: clear blue ozone<br />
one plane per evening overhead<br />
my heart has never seen so far.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
July 27, 2020<br />
Toronto, ON<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>copyright Lucy Rupert</i></span>Lucy Ruperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06687480416463324472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170266216054875252.post-79711626683754145702020-07-22T07:27:00.000-07:002020-07-22T07:27:42.641-07:00Peter Chin: Cultivating a global view, building a dance centre<div class="BodyA" style="border: none; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
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<span lang="EN-US">INTERVIEW WITH PETER CHIN OCTOBER 2019<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">written and compiled by Lucy Rupert</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Peter Chin at Pre Rup temple while making dance film (2020)</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Peter Chin, artistic director of Tribal Crackling Wind, dancer, choreographer and multidisciplinary artist, has been splitting his time between Canada and Cambodia for many years. Currently he is developing a new performance work “Trillionth I”, with dancers and musicians from Cambodia, Canada, Mexico and Italy. “Trillionth I” embodies subtle influences of community hopes and fears to reveal the universal energy between us all, and the healing that is possible through transmission of that energy in live performance. Last summer Tribal Crackling Wind performed excerpts in Allen Gardens and in the fall, performed excerpts of the work in a presenters’ showcase at Fall For Dance North, and as part of Nuit Blanche, outside the Royal Ontario Museum.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Although “Trillionth I"</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> lost its planned trajectory due to the global pandemic, the work continues to deepen and take on new resonance in a time that has very dramatically shown us how simply and utterly we are all connected across the planet.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter and I sat down for this interview in October of 2019, just before he left for an extended stay in Cambodia – to build a new dance centre there, to develop “Trillionth I” with the Cambodian dancers before a planned session of work with the Toronto-based dancers back in Toronto in March 2020.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">***<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: You have been working in Cambodia for over a decade now! How did you get connected to Cambodia and these dancers? And why are you compelled to work with them? And also, this amazing centre you are creating, this beautiful possibility: why is all of this happening and how did it come to be?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Big questions, but I’m sure they have lots of depth and texture to them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">rainbow at NKK Centre garden</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: Yes, they really do; they could lead to many offshoots. I think the way I would begin to answer would be more globally than specifically about Cambodia. It’s not only my relationship to Cambodia. I am thinking of a global or world vision. Cambodia happens to be the culture via which I have most been able to understand a process of expansion from what I was, to something that involved a respectful, careful approach towards another culture and history. I feel humbled and privileged to find an openness there to include me, and through many devoted years of living in this relationship with another culture, I truly am experiencing a process of acculturation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">This submission to that process has led to discerning some fundamental strands of the human condition in state of transformation, by being first confronted with (an often pleasurable) destabilization and state of being different, and not being able to rely on being recognized and understood in a familiar and habitual way. Ultimately then, coming to terms with being an outsider in the process of moving towards being part of this other paradigm, really guided by the emotions of love, attraction, respect and curiosity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Peter Chin at Ta Phrom Temple (2020)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Of course, I am a Canadian dance artist, but these days it’s hard to imagine that I am only</span><span lang="PT"> a Canadian artist</span><span lang="EN-US">; I believe that I am a global citizen, with concerns that are transnational, planetary, human beyond only nationality, and so, if I am that global citizen, then I am certainly </span><span lang="IT">a global artist.</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">My vision artistically is about more than my western upbringing -- I was brought up and educated in Jamaica and Toronto. I was attracted to Asia because I’m ethnically Chinese and so there was exploration that had to happen there. That destiny towards Asia was very compelling. In 1990 I travelled and began research in South East Asia and East Asia, and finally, that all led to going to Cambodia for the first time in 2003 on an instinct that there was something there for me culturally, emotionally, and artistically.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: Was there something that triggered that instinct?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: Yes. There were instinctual things that I couldn’t put to words and there were things I could explain like my interest generally in South East Asia, which already included research in almost all SE Asian countries by 2003, except Cambodia. I guess Cambodia and I were saving our first encounter until I had some understanding of the region first.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The paramount inspiration for going to Cambodia was the compelling story of how the arts were recognized as essential and fundamental to the continuation of the Khmer culture, and therefore the performing arts were urgently </span><span lang="IT">resuscitated</span><span lang="EN-US"> after the war ended in the late seventies. This process faced difficult odds since up to 90% of artists were murdered or died of starvation during the war, and so much repertoire had been lost. What that has come to mean to me, as an artist in the west inquiring about the value the arts and creativity hold within </span><span lang="PT">Canadian </span><span lang="EN-US">society at large, was that there was a profound and often dark lesson or example in recent Cambodian history that was utterly engrossing and undeniable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">We grapple with the meaning of the arts sometimes, and lament that people in general don’t feel connected to it</span><span lang="FR">, don</span><span lang="EN-US">’t value creativity both in the political sphere and</span><span lang="IT"> societal</span><span lang="EN-US">ly. But here’s a story of people who fought to bring it back from the brink, who missed it in their souls and knew the ultimate value of it - what was embodied of their souls in those art forms. That was so </span><span lang="IT">compelling</span><span lang="EN-US"> to me, and so I went there and I wasn’t disappointed, let’s say.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">You can go there with a romanticized predilection, which given the history, and being a westerner there, can happen easily. I have self-observed how I regulated my responses to the whole phenomenon so as to get over any excess romance about my situation there as efficiently and quickly as possible. I think that that has helped me to come into contact sooner, with fundamental elements of the country and the culture which have engendered a longevity of interest and a sustained excitement of knowing and feeling there. Fifteen years have now passed without ever having had a year absent from Cambodia. This was completely unplanned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Peter Chin at Angkor Temple</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">So yes, there was something - that feeling of</span><span lang="PT"> desti</span><span lang="EN-US">ny with Cambodia, and now, I’m investing my future into a dance centre there. It’s something for me, yes, but I’ve got to say that now in my </span><span lang="RU">57</span><span lang="EN-US">th year, looking at a new phase of life, it has to be about sharing, and service. I believe it now, this principle which asserts that service (and sharing) is happiness. It is reassuring to feel that in my gut as true, beyond an intellectual acceptance of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Because I have a relationship that’s 15 years old with Cambodia, with Cambodians and with artists especially, this big project will be a way of contributing to the artistic milieu there, in order to facilitate a continuing flourishing of the contemporary dance movement there, which is only about 10 years old. The dance studio and sleeping quarters will be offered for dance research residencies to the worldwide dance community with priority given to Cambodians and Canadians, in a beautiful countryside setting, close to wildlife reserves and the famous Angkor temples.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Who’s going to say no to that?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: I’ve been investigating the intersection of art and science for the last couple of years and writing about their common underpinnings. I think one commonality is that you could take away any commercial value to both art and science and they would still persevere because it’s propelled by human curiosity and a desire to actually describe the reality -- the greater reality but also our personal, political, cultural reality. There’s something magnificent about that. It’s just awful that it takes horrible events such as the Khmer Rouge purge or the Cultural Revolution in China to really recognize this more broadly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">When I was working on my MA in history, I learned about the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/13/arts/think-tank-the-libraries-another-kind-of-war-victim.html" target="_blank">strategic bombing of libraries and archives in Sarajevo</a> during the Balkan wars in the 90s, in order to wipe out, not just the people, but the records of their existence. Their novels, history books, their poetry and art and records of policy and governance. Their cultural history would be gone and that is what survives time beyond human memory.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Yugoslavians who had emigrated before or during the war, started communicating through the internet, trying to rebuild what they could of the libraries and archives out of their personal libraries and copies of various relevant documents that they had.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: That’s an interesting parallel, and it’s a too often repeated strategy of violence and domination. And of course, it’s even more tragic when the campaign of annihilation is directed at the people themselves, because they are the living libraries and repositories of accumulated knowledge and culture. How viscerally painful it is to contemplate these things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">What’s invested in those pieces of paper in those libraries; it’s our soul. It’s not simply the pieces of paper or trying to fit the fragments back together. It’s what’s imbued in those papers, the paper is the material object, but there is something invisible there. That’s what my work “Transmission of the Invisible” was about.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Transmission of the Invisible photo Cylla von Tiedemann</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: I was just going to say that!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: Yes, it was about the transmission of that intangible essence. We are those libraries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: And that fabric or piece of paper embodied the invisible thing. It holds its power.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: Exactly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: So back to your arts centre. Where is it? Do you own the land? Is there a building in existence? Or are you building something?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: The land has been acquired; that’s great. The whole project is still in process. Especially since I haven’t started to fundraise. It’s an independent project but it will grow. There will be other stakeholders in the future.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">two views on NKK construction </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The perimeter wall has been put up and the land has been prepared, and some trees planted that won’t be in the way of future construction. It’s been filled in so that it doesn’t flood. The land was formerly a rice field where flooding was welcome. The location is lovely, beside a beautiful heritage lotus pond and on top of a natural aquifer. We dug a well and tested the water and it is drinkable, right out of the ground!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: What luck!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="DE">Peter: I</span><span lang="EN-US">’ve never had a well before!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I can’t take for granted getting clean, living water from the ground is a gift! It’s called NKK Dance Centre, which is an acronym for “Neang Kong Kental”. That means “the lady of the round resting mat”. That is the name of the guardian land spirit there, as was reported by the Khmer co-founder/partner of the centre, after she revealed herself to him in a dream. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: Beautiful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">the lotus pond</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: The belief in nature spirits is relatively common in Cambodia, especially outside of the larger metropolitan centre of Phnom Penh. The culture is about 90% Buddhist, and the layers underneath this include Hinduism, which locally finds its apotheosis, I suppose, in the Vishnu temple of Angkor Wat. And layered underneath the Hindu-Buddhist roots is an ancient indigenous animistic and ancestor-worship belief system that is inalienably aligned to the natural cycles and phenomena of the place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: Does that land spirit’s name refer to anything about the known topography or history of the land?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: The full name of the spirit dedicatee is ‘Neang Kong Kental Beng Mealea”. At the time of finding out the name, we didn’t know why her name included Beng Mealea. A year later we realized is best translated as ‘lotus pond’. So awesome!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The lotus pond on the land is clearly part of her and now our shared realm, and it is a feature on the landscape that perhaps has been there for hundreds of years, perhaps since the Angkor empire days. This pond and most water features in the area are protected by the archaeological authorities as possibly being a part of the ancient Angkorian irrigation and waterway management system more than a thousand years ago. The round resting mat in her name is a reed mat, which is traditionally produced in the area by local artisans. The water hyacinth reeds grow in water, usually beside the lotus plants, in the same watery environment. I just made that connection now - interesting!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Before the workers began to dig into the land and alter the natural state of the place, they said “we have to have a ceremony” to ask for permission and blessings from the land so that everything would go in a good way. I understand that this is a matter of course in practically all construction projects in Cambodia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">NKK dance centre offering ceremony before beginning construction</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: What’s being built first?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br />Peter: There will be a big studio with a wooden floor, on a raised base of columns about a metre off the ground, in order to have the floor have a fair amount of give. We don’t need a sprung floor, but this wooden floor will be perfect for contemporary dance. We are going to cover it with marley. It will be the largest marley covered dance floor in Cambodia, and only one of a handful, I believe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The guest house and the studio will reflect elements and principles of the vernacular Khmer architecture, but updated, modernized and custom-designed. This design decision was unquestionable, coming from a mindset that is respectful and appreciative of what is local; at once wanting to be a part of what is around and at the same time, wishing to stand out as something that looks forward.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">There will be a deck overlooking the lotus pond which has fish. People often come to fish there, and now dance residency participants can go fishing when they are not creating </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">dance!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Farming neighbours of NKK and rural ambiance</span> (2019)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">NKK co-founder Rasy Hul beside window under construction</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: Is it within a city’s limits or outside?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: It is within the Siem Reap area close to where the Angkor temples are. From the city centre it’s about a 10-15 minute drive. It’s special to be in this very rich archaeological zone, with so much antiquity all around, and so accessible. Also, it is just outside of the town limits, in a vegetable growing area, close to southeast Asia’s largest lake, and therefore the habitat of many birds and other wild life. It’s wonderful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: How big is Siem Reap?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: It’s really a town, around 130,000 people. For a small town, it nevertheless has all these amenities and a sophisticated food scene because of tourism. Some people think that they don’t like Siem Reap because of the tourism, believing that the authentic Khmer culture is compromised by catering to foreigners, but you could drive for 7 minutes and be in the countryside, where you would probably only see the local agrarian people, and see a lifestyle and a landscape that hasn’t changed much at all over hundreds of years. That’s why I love to be there. It’s very bucolic. Cows and haystacks, rice fields and palm trees.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The dance centre has that advantage of being around the countryside and this rich area.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: Like a Cambodian Jacob’s Pillow?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: Ha. Yes. I’ve only walked through Jacob’s Pillow – I used to have a friend there. It is beautiful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: Arts centres in rich landscapes really are a thing worldwide. These beautiful retreats into art are so important. I’m nature girl – not like rafting or mountaineering – but I grew up doing retreats into nature with my parents – birdwatching and habitat assessment. And now twenty-five years into my career as an artist and never have I been into these meccas of dance in landscape like Banff or Jacob’s Pillow!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: Dance in landscape, yes……<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: But dance in landscape makes sense, as the origin of dance for humans is likely responses to our observations of the universe. Stories to interpret the natural events around us, told through the body.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">What will be the primary purposes of your centre?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: The centre will be for me to do my work, but moreover it will be the first dedicated contemporary dance space for the public ever in Cambodia. The contemporary dance movement in Cambodian is exciting. They’ve had an interesting and rapid evolution over the last ten years or so. I find it a very dynamic and evolving-before-our-eyes kind of thing, not just dance, but the arts in general in Cambodia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: You must have been part of that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="DE">Peter: Well</span><span lang="EN-US">…yes, I’m privileged to be able to say that I have been part of that and have been embraced as a part of it, to my great honour and sense of gratitude. I am so happy to have that warm feeling of affection and belonging. It’s not to be underestimated. I could say that it is, in a way, everything.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: How would you characterize contemporary dance in Cambodia? I don’t want to ask what it looks like because I think of contemporary dance as being a mindset not a style, but certainly contemporary dance is going to look different or have different inherent characteristics depending on the cultural traditions that have come before it in any given part of the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: It’s my pleasure and my mission to talk about what contemporary dance is, in the context of what you just said, in a place like Cambodia. Because of course, we from the west have a predisposition towards a settled picture of what contemporary or modern dance is. It has been wonderful for me to be immersed for such a substantial period of time that I begin to see what contemporary dance is on its own terms in Cambodia, without automatically applying comparisons or standards from my western understanding of the term or genre.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">To me, that has been one of the gifts I’ve received from my education in places like Cambodia. It’s still unrolling in the work and my associations with artists there, how we work together, what we learn from each other, what we share.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">With contemporary dance in Cambodia, something very salient is that all of the practitioners have a classical and traditional training. Their practice as contemporary artists has been based in their traditional knowledge, and the dynamism of the friction resulting from actions and choices departing from their classical backgrounds, or even from working closely within the classical framework but in new ways. They have made the transition from what they knew classically and traditionally in their bodies and intellects, towards their own contemporary direction and knowledge. I find that interesting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">That’s not to say that there hasn’t been any western influence, recently and also historically! There has been. Cambodian classical dance in particular has been on the international stage since the beginning of the last century, (enjoying considerable renown, with famous fans, in France for instance, from Auguste Rodin to Charles De Gaulle). These experiences of internationalism and cultural exchange since the beginning of the last century until now, from the point of view of the Cambodians, has had an impact on the evolutionary trajectory of how they regard their dance and other cultural expressions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">That’s of course a bigger discussion, but what’s important here is that there has been internationalism from the perspective of Cambodia itself for a long time. They have had their own notions of what internationalism means coming from their point of view of looking out and welcoming in. In the west, again, we are often predisposed to think of internationalism as coming from our western example, into which fit these other non-western countries, always within a pre-imposed paradigm that centralizes the western value system.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Concerning contemporary dance artists in Cambodia, in the last ten years, I think that from the beginning, they have been grounded in an examination of their own culture as at least a starting point to express the present. At the same time, as the young people in the last 15 years plugged into communications media, they have been exposed and influenced by contemporary artistic expression from many cultural points on the globe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The contemporary dance artists in Cambodia have also had substantial direct experiences working with prominent artists from all over the world, often touring abroad with contemporary dance projects. They have enjoyed a widening, global understanding of dance art, and how what they do uniquely as Cambodian practitioners, fits into the phenomena worldwide, or even influences other non-Cambodian artists. They know for instance that Peter Chin, a Jamaican-Canadian dance artist, has been profoundly influenced by Cambodian dance and dancers. They are humbled and very animated by that, and other examples of international artists who are inspired by them and their art. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">It has been a relief and a sustenance to me to comprehend that ‘contemporary<span class="msoIns" style="color: teal; text-decoration-line: underline;"><ins cite="mailto:Peter%20Chin" datetime="2020-07-01T14:30">’</ins></span>, <span class="msoIns" style="color: teal; text-decoration-line: underline;"><ins cite="mailto:Peter%20Chin" datetime="2020-07-01T14:30">‘</ins></span>avant-garde<span class="msoIns" style="color: teal; text-decoration-line: underline;"><ins cite="mailto:Peter%20Chin" datetime="2020-07-01T14:30">’</ins></span> or <span class="msoIns" style="color: teal; text-decoration-line: underline;"><ins cite="mailto:Peter%20Chin" datetime="2020-07-01T14:30">‘</ins></span>experimental art<span class="msoIns" style="color: teal; text-decoration-line: underline;"><ins cite="mailto:Peter%20Chin" datetime="2020-07-01T14:30">’</ins></span> is certainly not confined to the western example.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: We, in the west I mean, definitely need more exposure to non-western contemporary and experimental art. Such exposure might help break up the residual primitivist lenses through which Westerners sometimes view art from the rest of the world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The concurrent timeline of rebuilding classical dance and the emergence of contemporary dance in Cambodia is quite a unique thing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Thinking of the trajectory of the 20<sup>th</sup> century dance in the West where it was ballet ballet ballet then rebellion against ballet that started the modern forms which then became classical forms in themselves in way. That rejection of classical form that became its own thing as modern dance, is now being rejected in some ways,<span style="color: teal;"> </span>as contemporary movement becomes less formal, or less codified, and more global. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">It seems like a natural process that has happened in many art forms all over the world, but I wonder if in Cambodia they haven’t had this cycle of rejection-formation because both<span class="msoIns" style="color: teal; text-decoration-line: underline;"><ins cite="mailto:Peter%20Chin" datetime="2020-07-01T14:31"> </ins></span>are re-emerging together…but maybe it’s also too soon to know? That process took almost a century in North America.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: It’s interesting in the Cambodian context. It’s so young --it’s 10 or 15 years old this contemporary dance movement. As far as breaking away from classical tradition in order to assert a new one: I think it did and does exist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">You know, in the 80’s and 90’s there was such an urge to bring back what was lost, by the 10% of artists who were still around -- 90% were lost! The situation was dire and grave. So, the kind of response that came from these artists was focused on bringing back the form and the essence to younger generations. In the meantime, here were these young people coming through the academies in this extraordinary ambiance, many born after the war, who were connected to the rest of the world in new and compelling ways. They were already interested in being expressive in new ways. This, combined with their devotion to the mission at hand, and the rigours of the classical ethos, resulted, I think, in a really dynamic artistic depth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">dance artists of Trillionth I performing at the Fall for Dance North International Presenters Showcase 2019 photos: SV Photography</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: You could and can see anything from around the world – dance, art, music, social movements…..Classical/traditional and experimental/contemporary….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: Yes. They wanted to explore being creative in other ways, in addition to their classical training. When new proposals were made to the old masters, their response was horror and consternation because they felt that they hadn’t yet finished their mission of bringing the traditions back. There was a clash…understandably. But as the classical forms got re-established it eased. You will talk to young people now and even in their lifetimes they can attest to the evolution of the mind-set. The masters are accepting of it now, but it was a gradual, often highly conflictive process of change.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">A lot has happened in a very short time. So, the trajectory you just talked about that took almost a century…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: ….has happened in Cambodia in less than two generations. I wonder if it has something to do with the speed of technology and sharing in a certain sense. Things that would take 200 years to develop just don’t take that long now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">It would seem that there is not a lot of critical writing about Cambodian dance, and a lot of what is out there is written, with good intentions, by Westerners. Do you see contemporary discourse about the arts also developing in Cambodia?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: Actually, in regard to writing about Khmer dance, there is a book that features many Cambodians writing about dance since the end of the war, Beyond the Apsara: Celebrating Dance in Cambodia, edited by Stephanie Burridge and Fred Frumberg, published by Routledge. I was honoured to be asked to write a chapter for it, contemplating my experience creating ‘Transmission of the Invisible’. But the preponderance of voices in the book are Khmer!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: I will try to track that one down.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br />So what’s happening first when you get to Cambodia?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span><span lang="DE">Peter: I</span><span lang="EN-US">’ve got a dance centre to build, girl.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: Just that little thing. And then you hit the beaches right?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: No…I’m from Jamaica, and I’ve had enough beach time for another life time (smiling). But seriously…I have a bunch of things. There’s festival called Arts For Peace and it’s about everything we’ve talked about, it’s about the old and the new. It’s being produced by Cambodia Living Arts, an important arts organization. There will be 14 days of presentations, symposia, shows. I’ll be attending that and networking for future presentation for “Trillionth I”. Now that there are contemporary performances coming up, we -- I say we because I’m honoured to be part of that community now – we need to build consortiums of people who are going to be able to present, collectively, the new dance. And also I’ll be doing something in Indonesia, based on megalithic art. There’s a group of people doing performance in megalithic sites.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Peter Chin at Bayon temple making dance film (2020)</span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US">Note: all of these activities were able to happen despite the pandemic. Cambodia maintained low case numbers of COVID-19 and kept those cases contained. At the time of publishing Cambodia reported 197 cases (7 in the Siem Reap province), 140 recovered and 0 deaths. Unfortunately, Peter’s work in Canada was cancelled – a technical residency at Harbourfront and mentoring work for Kickstart (CanAsian Festival).<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US">Peter remains in Cambodia, building his centre, making beautiful movement films (Check out his work included: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/323176507775006/videos/540427456641810" target="_blank">WATCH HERE</a><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="DA">Lucy: I</span><span lang="EN-US">’m curious about how you work with your dancers. It’s very personal, but you always seem to have an approach that both transcends and embraces the group you’re working with. I find this impressive. As a choreographer I’m always questioning: do I have the tools to work with my dancers in a way that is satisfying to them? Am I giving them what they need or want?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: You have set the bar very high. That’s not typical. Choreographers often see dancers 1 through 7 and they are there to execute a certain vision. That way of working doesn’t interest me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Over the years, I have become more and more interested in the souls on stage and in the studio, how they deploy their talents and training to create transcendent moments that have the capability to move us in the audience, but more importantly to move energy that begins to transform us in ways that really address ultimate questions of existence. Ya know, just that little old thing…So I have found that I enter a studio with no idea of what I will do, but with a general feeling, and from what might sound vague, there emerges movement and intentions and connections that seem to want to live through this person in this time and space.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I know that sounds entirely airy-fairy, but what evolves from those initial moments in a process, purely by intuition and openness to what wants to be, turns into something that is very, very specific, and often daunting for the dancer, not necessarily in a technical way, but in a integration-kind-of way, where the inner dance/intention/meditation, has to happen in precise ways with what is being executed on the outside.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Transmission of the Invisible's first beginnings with Phon Sopheap and Yim Savann</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: What you ask of your dancers is not necessarily something they’re trained to do. It takes time for the instructions or ideas to sink into the dancers. It’s the layer of embodiment or energy. Having watched some of the “Trillionth I” rehearsals and having assisted with “Transmission of the Invisible” back in 2009, I’ve seen when the dancers get overwhelmed by the number of details – they are physical details but ones that aren’t exactly quantifiable. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I felt that overwhelm when I started working with Denise Fujiwara. I’d come in ready to show her all the stuff I could do and she’d watch and say that’s great, but stop that, and stop that, and stop that. At first I was left doing nothing. It took me a while to trust that there was a lot of something in the “nothing” I was doing. And then, Denise would ask for the layers within that nothing. Physically and mentally exacting in a whole different way. It’s how you move the energy rather than what the form of the movement is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I’ve seen the dancers change over time with you in that way. The small energetic details you give. Like [in rehearsal for “Trillionth I” in September] when you were showing Jake (Ramos) how to get out of the chair. It was a master class in direction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: Yes, and he finally got it after a lot of trials and repetition.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: But it wasn’t a physical or technical instruction you demonstrated for him, it had to do with moving the energy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: Yes Lucy, you’re right, those things are often so difficult to convey to a dancer, especially when they have very dynamic way of moving already that is their wonderful gift, but sometimes a gift which makes it harder to discover different, small interior shifts in energy to achieve a certain quality of movement. I was glad to see the change in him. He really did get it beautifully.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: He did. I remember giving notes to one of your dancers when I assisted you with “Transmission of the Invisible” in 2009 -- it was someone new to the cast, learning a role for the remount. You had given me about 8 notes for a small passage of choreography and as I approached the dancer, it was clear they were overwhelmed and in that moment that I realized you knew they could do it. So I said that to the dancer: Peter is giving these 8 things to you because he sees that it’s possible for you to do them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I’m not sure it helped in the moment, but I hope it did. As a dancer who is super self-critical, I tend to go really negative any time I get a note. I always feel them as corrections and get disheartened by my own self-criticism. Assisting you definitely helped me later, when I was back to being someone else’s dancer, to take a note as a new possibility, not as a criticism. Margie Gillis refers to it as discernment rather than criticism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: It’s a generous way of choreographing, that eschews the old school model I believe…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: It’s both very personal and very selfless at the same time. We’re not taught to work with that duality, w</span><span lang="DE">e</span><span lang="EN-US">’re taught to be very present, but that often focuses on “me! What is my body doing? what is every single little bit of it doing?” Analyzing rather than letting things happen and being aware…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="DE">Peter: I</span><span lang="EN-US">’m glad you were there to mediate between me and the dancers. Belatedly thanks!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: I don’t know if I overstepped my bounds then [during “Transmission of the Invisible” rehearsal], but it seemed so obvious to me in the moment that they needed to hear it and that it was true.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: I don’t underestimate the power of that mentality in training – the hard physical, technical analysis, but I have to say to dancers caught in that thinking: ‘I’m sorry, that’s not how I’m working. It’s just me. We’re here in this moment together.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: In a lot of places now, big institutional thinking is reshaping. Certain behaviours and approaches will no longer be tolerated. And there’s a new generation of artists who are saying “no, I won’t be treated this way” or “I won’t work from a place of fear”. There’s got to be a change in pedagogy to answer and encourage this….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="DA">Peter: </span><span lang="EN-US">…and philosophy and human respect.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: The youth right now make me hopeful. They are not going to put all us old people against the wall. They just want change.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: It’s time. It’s the time. There’s a shift happening. Yes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: This folds into other things we’re talking about. Shaking things up and shaking loose these world views that are inherently biased.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: It’s painful though.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: It’s got to be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: It has to be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: This is a weird quote from Nigel Lythgoe – who created So You Think You Can Dance. I remember hearing him say to a dancer on the show “if you want to grow you’ve got to get uncomfortable.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Peter: In that popular forum? Yay! Exactly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lucy: So, go build that dance centre. We’ll miss you. Send us pictures.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Lucy Ruperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06687480416463324472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170266216054875252.post-68799907200205138312020-07-20T14:46:00.002-07:002020-07-20T17:10:58.109-07:00Adeene Denton: AstrohumanistI subscribe to Dance Magazine, the hard copy that comes in the mail. It is often a slim volume with beginnings of ideas that they delve into more deeply on their website, and many of the articles are aimed at students or young professional artists. Still I love it, because I learn a bit about commercial dance, and Broadway shows, health insurance and wage issues in the United States and, each month, what drives a particular creator or dancer.<br />
<br />
Adeene Denton's short but compelling profile in a recent article about science and dance hovered off the page for me. A planetary geologist who is also a choreographer?<br />
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I contacted her immediately to be part of my Art + Science interviews. We spoke via Zoom in March 2020, during the early days of lockdown/social distancing/pandemic and it was an excellent way to launch into a startling and galvanizing stage for North America and far beyond.<br />
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Conversations like these -- though not broaching head-on the concerns of pandemics and the amazing anti-racist movement thriving across the globe -- are important because they delve into and value collaboration, imagination and a purpose beyond material success.<br />
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The intersection and interaction of art and science show a cooperation sometimes and someplaces thought to be completely impossible. Ultimately they are joined in pursuit of describing what it is to be alive. For Adeene, it is a balance of energies that make for clearer work in both fields.<br />
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You can read about her work here: <a href="http://www.adeenedenton.com/">http://www.adeenedenton.com/</a><br />
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Or just plunge in with us.<br />
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***<br />
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LUCY: So how are you?<br />
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ADEENE: Doing ok. As well as can be expected, I suppose.<br />
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LUCY: It's lovely to meet you and thank you for doing this, especially at this wild time.<br />
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ADEENE: It's amazing to talk to you.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Adeene Denton</span></div>
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LUCY: Are you safe, healthy?<br />
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ADEENE: I'm good so far.<br />
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LUCY: I can't even remember what month it was from but when I opened the issue of <a href="https://www.dancemagazine.com/" target="_blank">Dance Magazine</a> that you were in, I gasped. "I think I need to talk to this woman!"<br />
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I'm not a scientist at all so you will have to forgive me if I don't have the right words for your work or if I don't understanding everything you might talk about.<br />
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Shall I plunge in?<br />
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ADEENE: Yeah. Let's do it.<br />
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LUCY: My first question is: what is your background in dance, where did you start dancing and all that?<br />
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ADEENE: I started dancing at the early age. I'm from south Texas, so I was in basic ballet and modern training since I was about three. I started going to <a href="https://www.batesdancefestival.org/" target="_blank">Bates Dance Festival</a> in high school. It completely broadened my perspective of what dance could be. It's where I saw for the first time <a href="http://www.camilleabrown.org/" target="_blank">Camille A. Brown and Dancers</a>, <a href="https://www.dovadance.org/" target="_blank">Doug Varone and Dancers</a>. I go to take their repertory classes I still think about seeing Doug Varone's company perform in 2011 on that tiny, tiny stage. It was amazing.<br />
<br />
I love dance. It's so great.<br />
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Doug Varone and Dancers did "Lux" and I just lost it.<br />
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LUCY: His work is outstanding. The way he is so absolutely human -- himself and his choreography. You know, if you passed him on the street you wouldn't think "that's a dancer!" but then you see him move.....And this is what modern dance should be. That relatability.....<br />
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Did you want to go into dance professionally as well as science?<br />
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ADEENE: Yes and no. I was kindly told fairly consistently that I didn't have it and would not be a professional dancer. It was tough to take and honestly a lot of us who are professional dancers were told that and you just have to think "ok, thank you for the feedback". But at the time it definitely reformed my thinking. I needed to have a career in something and I fell into science as an undergraduate. I was still dancing heavily at the time. I did my undergrad in Houston at Rice, and I got heavily into the Houston dance scene, dancing with companies while I was an undergrad.<br />
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I always figured at some point. I would have to stop dancing, that it would stop happening for me. But it hasn't.<br />
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I got deeper and deeper into choreography in undergrad and as I moved into graduate school, choreography was a way to take the dance language and experience I had and process my experience of trying to understand the world around me.<br />
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LUCY: That's part of the starting place of a lot of my research -- how science and the arts are trying to describe the natural laws of universe in various ways and to various ends. Somewhere along the line of time -- some people say the Enlightenment -- the sciences and the arts got divided, though they work through similar processes: towards understanding the world around us.<br />
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Was it a natural evolution as you got deeper into your scientific field with your choreography or was there a revelation as you found how they inspire each other or..... or.....maybe I'm overstating that?<br />
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ADEENE: There are multiple answers I could give to that. I think there are ways we frame our journeys that look natural and make sense, when they don't necessarily. So that is why there's multiple answers to this<br />
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LUCY: Of course.<br />
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ADEENE: How to word this...in a way that would be the most useful......The answer is yes, the deeper I got into science, the more I started thinking more seriously about choreography not just in the kinds of things I was trying to say through choreography, but why I was trying to say them and how.<br />
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LUCY: I get that. The more you learn about the world, you realize what more needs to be said through art.<br />
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ADEENE: It wasn't that I wanted to make dances about science. I actually don't. I do science a lot. Dance needs to be something else for me.<br />
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One of the unique experiences of grad school -- one that many people have -- is four years into your program you lose track of why you're doing it. A while ago, I made a dance about space exploration and I realized I love this [what I'm studying] despite everything. How can I use dance to excavate the motivation for why I'm doing what I'm doing? How can I find that motivation again?<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Adeene Denton's Boats Leaving a Pale Blue Dot</span></div>
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LUCY: That's very beautiful. When I watched the clips of your choreography on your website: there was something, like I could see geological time within your work. Although that's a slight preoccupation of mine right now, so maybe I was ready to see that.<br />
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ADEENE: No, it's in there.<br />
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LUCY: But I felt I was watching people dancing, not ideas dancing. I'm curious in my own work how we can truly anthropomorphize these ideas that are very real but hard to fathom. Because that might make the people witnessing it care about the ideas more, by seeing dancers grapple with embody the intangible. It was really clear in your work. These are human beings absolutely. Not concepts.<br />
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The idea of going into a dance to excavate your motivation...that's brilliant. We can get on a hamster wheel with our work, just going, going, going -- and at some point it's not enough. We want to go deeper, or understand deeper what our purpose is, or might be.<br />
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ADEENE: There's comes a time when you meet with some level of visibility as an artist, and it's in the public, there's a pressure to just continually make art and then comes the corresponding "wait, but why? how?". I have to make art but it also still has to be meaningful to me. It's been interesting to watch that happen to myself.<br />
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LUCY: It seems like there might be a parallel between that push always be creating in the arts and the pressures of publish or perish in science and academia -- you have to your ideas out there and to be the first to lay claim to an idea.<br />
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ADEENE: Yup. I can't recommend it.<br />
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LUCY: I appreciate your honesty about that. It's a pill you have to swallow, at least right now, but we don't necessarily have to like it. I did a masters degree in history, nothing to do with dance or anything. I did it part time and was still dancing and performing all the way through. I got all excited to do my PhD and keep dancing and creating and all that. Then I realized "Hold on, how am I going to have my full dance career and do my PhD without it taking 20 years?"<br />
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ADEENE: It's hard. so hard. If you ever did want to do it....it's doable but....<br />
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LUCY: And added to my decision not to proceed was pressure and scrutiny of academia -- publish-or-perish, territorial colleagues, public critique. I realized I couldn't handle having a dual life with these same pressures and scrutiny from both sides, from academia and from performing arts. Not to mention, how do you train while potentially hunched in a lab or library?<br />
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Are you able to train in dance regularly?<br />
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ADEENE: I dance when I can. The only way I can do this is not to think of it as two jobs. One of them has to be a refuge and dance is the refuge.<br />
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LUCY: Beautiful.<br />
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ADEENE: Well, it helps that I don't get paid to do it. Currently operating out of a small mid-western town means I will never be paid to do it while I live here. When I was on the east coast I did produce dance that was compensated, but here it's not possible.<br />
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I train when I can and I train in ways that are meaningful to me. I mostly give myself movement prompts to mess around with. So that I remember not just how to move but the ways I think about physical space. That's what I lose quickly when I don't dance. The technique is always sort of there. I keep my body generally athletically trained, but being able to interact with space that's what I work on on my own.<br />
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LUCY: I've never really thought about it that way. The muscle memory is there, but it's the relationship to space, as you said, how you are the space and how you move through the space....attention to that becomes increasingly important as you get further into your dance career. Not what you're doing but how you're doing it, how you're choosing to move through space. That sensitivity can get lost if not exercised.<br />
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ADEENE: Sometimes I feel if I stop dancing I'll never be able to start again. But when I do dance, I'm reminded that's not so. And that's good because when the work in science is high, dance just isn't possible.<br />
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LUCY: I understand that. There's always the impossible balance. For me it's when I'm rehearsing I don't have time to take class and train, and when I'm not rehearsing I don't have the money to train. Constant fluctuation.<br />
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ADEENE: So you just give yourself class in your apartment.<br />
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LUCY: Yup. One of the good things coming out the quarantine/lockdown/pandemic situation is the immediate response from the dance community -- free classes or classes by donation. I'm taking Gaga classes every day with teachers and dancers from around the world. It's a strange feeling of togetherness in ways that weren't happening before.<br />
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We're all together in this weird suspended animation right now.<br />
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I'd love to hear more about your particular area of specialization. Am I correct in saying you are a planetary geologist?<br />
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ADEENE: Yes.<br />
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LUCY: I imagine it's very different from being a geologist on Earth-- in very practical ways. What the physical matter is and how you study something you can't visit in person. How did you find yourself in this field of science?<br />
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ADEENE: In my undergrad I was a history major and a geophysics major. To me those things are related. Not many people get it -- you probably will since you have a degree in history -- but the study of the history of the Earth on two very different timescales are what history and geophysics mean to me. I'm interested about both of them and how they play into each other.<br />
<br />
When I was in my undergrad program I did an internship at <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/home/index.html" target="_blank">Johnson Space Centre</a> in Houston, and I got to go to a meteor crater in Arizona and met people who do geology on a planetary scale. It shifted my idea of what history is. I started as a history major but geology was blowing up the time scale f and then planetary geology blew it up even more. Space and what was possible -- the same physical processes that occur on Earth happen on the moons of Jupiter, even though it's ice. It blew me away. When I realized you could do that...I didn't really know anyone could do that as a job....I thought, "my god, I have to try."<br />
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The research that I do -- I used to work on Mars but I switched -- is on Pluto.<a href="http://www.adeenedenton.com/" target="_blank"> I think Pluto is great</a>, I always have. When <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html" target="_blank">New Horizons</a> flew by Pluto in 2015, I was at the Johnson Space Centre and to be there and surrounded by professional scientists getting this information back for the first time. The feeling of looking at a picture of a planetary surface and thinking "what the hell is that?". I just think it's great.<br />
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I blow up Pluto. That's what I do.<br />
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To do this, I work with what are known as shock physics codes.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Enhanced colour global view of Pluto, taken when NASA's New Horizons spacecraft was 450,000 km away</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">image courtesy of NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI</span></div>
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LUCY: I was going to ask about that. I loved that terminology when I visited your website and I want to know more about what it is!<br />
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ADEENE: Sometimes in the literature they are referred to as hydrocodes because they are used to describe the super fast flow of material that acts like a liquid. They were originally developed in the 1960s to deal with responsive material used in detonation. I use codes designed for nuclear weapons but I use them to simulate blowing up planets instead.<br />
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Peaceful purposes. Though it feels very weird to think about where my codes come from.<br />
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LUCY: I'm sure it does. So how do you use these codes do experimentally?<br />
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ADEENE: When an asteroid hits a planet, it completely changes the planet's surface locally and globally, so it can act as a probe for what the planet is like in its interior.<br />
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If you look at pictures of Pluto it has that heart-shape on it. That's a giant impact basin, huge -- 15% of Pluto's surface. When an impact hits the surface, the shock wave will expand into the planet and it will do so as a perfect hemisphere. But the characteristics of the planet itself will effect how the shock wave and subsequent seismic waves expand. So some of the work I've done is thinking about when an asteroid is big enough, as those waves expand the entire planet will act as a lens, just like a light, and focus that energy to the opposite side of the planet.<br />
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On Pluto we have observed features that are directly opposite to the impact basin and by trying to match up those features by simulating the impact, I'm basically doing fake seismology. I'm simulating straining the internal structure of the planet. I'm learning its tectonic history. It's a lot of fun. I just blow up Pluto a lot.<br />
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LUCY: We earthlings are capable of extraordinary creativity. We created nuclear weapons, but we can use the same technologies to discover crazy wonderful things about the universe.<br />
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ADEENE: There's so much we can learn.<br />
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LUCY: Where do you see yourself after your PhD? Do you have an idea? A dream?<br />
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ADEENE: That depends. Everyone feels a lot more precarious these days. Academia is tough...<br />
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I submitted my astronaut application a couple of days ago.<br />
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LUCY: Wow. Amazing!<br />
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ADEENE: I fully expect to get rejected with extreme prejudice. But it's been a dream of mine for a while so I'll shoot the astronaut application out into the ether. Probably the next round I will apply again and be more successful. I now just meet the minimum requirements.<br />
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I'll probably continue in academia for awhile. It is the best way to combine the research that I do with continuing to dance and make dance. Academia is the best place to be, as more and more universities are leaning towards interdisciplinary work.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Adeene Denton's Breaking the Roche Limit</span></div>
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LUCY: It should be thrilling for a university to have someone like you, as you are interdisciplinary in a way you don't usually see. Often it's the visual arts that get in there with history and science etc. But with what you are doing, as you've said, there's so much that can be done by bringing them together, in whatever way.<br />
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I am also really interested in your "astro-humanism". If it's a movement I'll join. I want to be an astro-humanist.<br />
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ADEENE: Sure. Join!<br />
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LUCY: How did you come to that word and what does it mean to you?<br />
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ADEENE: The word specifically comes from <a href="https://www.skybetter.org/" target="_blank">Sydney Skybetter</a> -- have you heard of him?<br />
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LUCY: Yup.<br />
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ADEENE: When I was at <a href="https://www.brown.edu/" target="_blank">Brown [University]</a>, and I would talk to Sydney about my work and what I wanted to do. He described what I was trying to do as astro-humanism. I loved it.<br />
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So I guess what it describes is my idea that space exploration is and will be a difficult concept to unpack. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it too. There are so many different ideas on how it will go. Regardless of whether you think going to Mars is possible in the next 30 years or not -- I don't really think it is -- the technology to get people to Mars will happen.<br />
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What I'm interested is what happens when we take that next step -- not just life in low earth orbit, Scott Kelly and Christina Koch up there for almost a year -- but further. The journey to Mars itself is a year. A space journey that that will take years....we have to think about what it is we value and how our culture will transform when we're not tied to the Earth itself. What is it about humanity that will change and what will stay the same?<br />
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LUCY: Ah, of course. Because we are a terrestrial species, very literally. When we de-tether from the planet for long-term, how will we change? Not just physically but socially, emotionally, culturally.....<br />
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ADEENE: That's what I'm interested in. I truly, honestly believe we will always dance. It will look different because you can't interact with space the same way without gravity. Lack of gravity completely transforms everything about how we interact and yet we'll still dance because it forms such a critical role in our society. I like thinking about that.<br />
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That's the kind of thing that gets me really excited about space exploration. I like thinking about how we will keep being human though we'll probably change a lot.<br />
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LUCY: That is quite moving. I think a lot about these kinds of things and also from an existential perspective. I really believe that both science and art will continue in us, with or without a commercial value. We're driven by curiosity in art and science. We will always be curious.<br />
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What dance is will change and evolve in space -- just as it has on this planet. And people will always do science because it's a way to focus the curiosity. As long as people are curious....and I do think curiosity is a fundamental, genetic aspect of our species, and many other species.<br />
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I feel like this relates to what you were talking about in regards to dance training: not just keeping the technique alive, but keeping the relationship to space attuned. That question of what humanity will be as we go further into space is a really important question to ask before we're even able to get to Mars. We need to start asking and considering this now. Once things have already happened and changes are happening too subtly or quickly to track.....<br />
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ADEENE: I completely agree. I think about this so much... They have movie night on the International Space Station. There's no up or down, so they could set it up however they want, but they always strap themselves down like they are sitting on a couch with their friends at home.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Movie night on the ISS, photo courtesy of ISS National Lab</span></div>
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That just really gets me. The combination of nostalgia and a need for connection.....we're going to keep figuring out ways to be ourselves as we move forward. That makes me happy and hopeful. I need that.<br />
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LUCY: We all do.<br />
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more on Lucy Rupert's choreographic and artistic works <a href="http://www.blueceilingdance.com/" target="_blank">HERE</a><br />
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This Art + Science interview was made with the generous support from the Chalmers Family Fund Fellowship, managed by the Ontario Arts Council and from the Canada Council for the Arts Professional Development program.<br />
<a href="http://www.blueceilingdance.com/" target="_blank"><br /></a>
<br />Lucy Ruperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06687480416463324472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170266216054875252.post-28882669625899216112020-06-09T08:10:00.003-07:002020-06-09T09:19:23.257-07:00Life is short, ask an interesting question: Physicist Amar Vutha on deep mysteries<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The title of this article is by no means an indication of Amar Vutha's attitude towards my curiosity and actual questions to him, but rather a pragmatic and heartfelt approach to his choice of scientific field.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Amar's name came to me from his partner, Ann McDougall, a woman I performed with many years ago at Lula Lounge in the RED Cabaret, curated by Lisa Pijuan-Nomura. Ann played Satan and I played the Serpent in a wildly ambitious multidisciplinary adaptation of Paradise Lost conceived by Erin Shields and Lisa Pijuan-Nomura.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ann is also the designer of the Blue Ceiling dance logo!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I love how the world brings people back to you in waves.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I met Amar in his office at U of T, not knowing much about his work and admittedly, he didn't know much about me either. But Ann's recommendation that we talk to each other was enough to make us both plunge in.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Amar Vutha is a professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Toronto. He has received numerous fellowships and research grants for his work.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Dr. Vutha’s research group measures the oscillation frequencies of atoms and molecules, which are fixed by universal constants like the speed of light and the electron mass, and uses them to test the limits of known physical laws. One of his projects is to build compact and portable atomic clocks to better study gravity. Another involves measuring the shape of the electron to high precision, to find clues to why the universe only contains matter, instead of equal parts matter and antimatter.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Dr. Vutha was a physics undergraduate at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. After obtaining his PhD from Yale University in 2011, he was a postdoctoral researcher at York University, before joining the faculty of the University of Toronto in 2015.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />LUCY: I'm working on a project right now that's a large scale for my company, using the time it takes light to travel from the sun to earth as the basis, the language of science as sources, how to embody abstract concepts of physics in the non-abstract body.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />That's why I'm here and doing this: trying to understand more deeply how scientists do their work, why and how.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />So my first question is how -- forgive me if I don't have the right language for this....</span><br />
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AMAR: Don't apologize just go right ahead....</span><br />
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LUCY: Ok. You use atoms and molecules to make precise measurements and I have no idea how you actually do that. So I wonder if you could explain that to me?</span><br />
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AMAR: The kinds of questions we try to answer -- I'm not always successful -- but the kinds of questions I'm interested in answering are things to do with what I like to think of as a deep mystery in physics. We can use physics to make better trains or washing machines. Whatever the answer to that is, it's going to be an extension of things we already know. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But there are some genuine mysteries in the world right now -- you may have heard about dark matter, dark energy. And beyond these words, no one knows much about it. You know as much as anyone else. In all the experiments we've done none of them have shown any signs of dark matter or dark energy. All are consistent with what we've always known. Our only hints come from observations of galaxies far away, things on the cosmic scale.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />Things on the cosmic scale are not very conducive to experiments. It's too far. I like to do lab experiments that show something new, something unexpected about the way things work. We are looking for cracks in the structure of physics as we know it. If there's something we don't quite understand, maybe that is a way in to understand dark matter or dark energy.</span><br />
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Does that help?</span><br />
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LUCY: Yeah.</span><br />
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AMAR: That's the kind of question I'm getting at.</span><br />
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So then, why use atoms and molecules? The reason I love them and why they are such good tools for trying to figure things out is that all atoms of a certain kind behave the same way-- A calcium atom in your bones is the exact same thing as a calcium atom on the sun or a calcium atom on the far side of the galaxy. That's the nice thing about atoms -- their properties are completely fixed by quantum mechanics. If you know a few parameters-- the charge, the speed of light-- you can predict the colour of light or its absence. That's the only thing atoms do: they make light and absorb light.</span><br />
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But they absorb and emit light in different colours depending on the element. So, you get the specific colours. Those properties are guaranteed by a very few simple pieces of physics.</span><br />
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That makes them nice for trying to do experiments that look for any kind of cracks in the structure.</span><br />
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Based on what we know every calcium atom will behave the same way. If you see a calcium atom behaving slightly differently in a big gravitational field from one in a smaller gravitational field then that becomes a reference object. Or a tuning fork.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /><span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;">Atoms give us some standards of reference we can use as tools.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;">Now how do you go about using the tools?<br /><br />That's the part where you have to construct some arguments and get creative in some sense.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;">LUCY: As soon as you start to explain it, I get it. It's in the vernacular of saying "we're made of the same stuff as stars". Literally. You can isolate those things.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;">AMAR: It's also kind of miraculous too. We're not just kind of the same, it's exactly the same. If you put those two molecules next to each other you wouldn't be able to tell them apart.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;">LUCY: That's a beautiful image. It's something I know but when my imagination creates a picture of it, it's astounding. I love too that you speak about the deeper mysteries. It's part of what set me off on this journey. I think artists and scientists are the same because we try to illuminate mystery. And once we do, we step deeper into the darkness to try illuminate more. We are so often polarized, art and science. This idea that art is free and mystical, while science is trying to pin everything down, to nail down the furniture, so to speak. But that's not the truth at all.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;">AMAR: We make it up as we go along sometimes. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;">LUCY: That's kind of terrifying too.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;">AMAR: Fortunately, the things I study are completely useless. I just spent the last 8 years trying to figure out how big protons are. There was some inconsistency. We thought maybe it was a sign that physics had broken down somewhat or maybe we made a mistake. It's completely "useless" problem. We found the answer is 84. It makes no difference for washing machines and trains. So, in some sense, it's liberating because there's no kind of responsibility. It doesn't have to cure a disease or.....At least with the stuff I'm doing, I know in 100 years there still won't be a practical use for knowing the size of a proton. No one will die if I got it wrong.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;">LUCY: Discovery for the sake of trying to understand.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;">AMAR: There's a carefreeness working in this field. If I were in a field where there was more weight or responsibility, I think maybe I'd have to be more careful, I wouldn't be as free with the things I'm curious about.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;">LUCY: Leaping a little sideways from that -- so many scientific advances have been fuelled by the military or government -- i</span></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">n your field is there any pressure like this?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;">AMAR: Not directly in my field. But we do use atoms and molecules in practical ways. One example is quantum computers. So that's getting a lot of people interested....</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">LUCY: And scared.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AMAR: Possibly. It's not any good for much but it's also not very bad for much at the moment.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">LUCY: Someone I was speaking to recently was really freaked out about the idea of quantum computing being able to unravel all our security on the internet.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AMAR: Ah, no, no. It'll be at least one or more decades before it gets to that point. And even then, it'll only be able to unravel the kind of encryption we do today. That's like saying you can now break the codes that the Soviets used during the Cold War. Already there are codes that are un-hackable by quantum computers.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">LUCY (laughing): Well I wasn't worried about it personally.....</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AMAR: (also laughing): Yes of course. But it's a field of some interest now. I don't work in it directly, but I'm aware of what's going on. A lot of governments are getting worried that, for instance, China is going to figure something out before they do. Then China will have some unknown, undefined military advantage. So there is some of that ...</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">LUCY: It's around but not a big pressure.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AMAR: Not for me. That subfield tends to be better funded than mine. If someone cares, then it's easier to get money, from defence agencies, venture capitalists. It's happening. But my specific field is pretty darn useless so there's not so much. I am hoping it will stay this way, so we keep our fingers clean.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">LUCY: It must be hard to be in that position. In the arts we rely on grants and funding but there's supposed to be a system of objectivity involved in the process. The pressures are not as high stakes as if you have a defence agency coming at you with millions of dollars. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AMAR: Some people enjoy it. Competition. People are tripping over each other trying to be more attractive to get that money.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">LUCY: So how did you get into this field? I guess I'm thinking back as far as childhood, what was the journey to particle physics?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AMAR: When I was a kid I mostly just wanted to be a biologist. I loved animals and insects. For as long as I can remember I wanted to go around after creatures through to the time when I was a teenager as well.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Then I thought I should maybe try and see what people really do in this field. I had this idea of how a biologist works, in the field going around discovering things. So I did an internship over the summer to find out. I realized most biologists are lab-based. And even those who work with bees and dragonflies-- maybe some of them spend some time in the field, but a lot of the work in that area now is genetics. So time in the field is collecting specimens to bring back to the lab. That part took the fun out of it for me.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Around that time I was also getting interested in astronomy, mostly because I just liked staying up and watching stars. I learned more and more about astronomy and realized what I liked most about it was the physics. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Astronomy to me is like going to a zoo and watching a bunch of animals. If you want to understand why zebras have stripes and lions don't, you have to get into the biology of it. Looking at the sky is fun -- there's all kinds of crazy things up there, galaxies and supernovas -- but at some level if you want to go beyond naming them, if you want to know what makes them tick, then you have to get into the physics.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I did my undergrad in physics, still sorting of holding out for biology but along the way it became clear I wanted to do physics. I learned that there were people asking these deep questions. The most common way to try to answer these questions was to build a big machine like the one at CERN and smash some particles together to make some more stuff and then smash that stuff. That's been the dominant approach to fundamental physics for the better part of 30-40 years. It's been quite successful.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But that's a huge effort. it's not the kind of work that one person does. It means thousands of people working together, big teams. That's just the scientists. Not talking yet about the engineers who make the machines.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I wanted to work on something much smaller in scale because I like working with my hands. I like to be connected to the apparatus with which I'm making measurements. I don't really like working in teams of hundreds of people. I was hoping I could find a fun thing to work on in the small scale. I discovered that there were ways of working on fundamental physics in labs with small teams, and not only that, it might be the best way of doing it right now. This approach of accelerating and smashing things together has saturated its level of usefulness. I think we've figured out as much as we can using that approach.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That approach has not really been helpful for answering the bigger questions. What is dark matter, what is dark energy? People are hopeful maybe, but it seems to me that this might be a time for better ideas. Things that haven't been tried, need to be tried.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;">LUCY: That is really interesting in relation to the book I'm reading right now: Lee Smolin's <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/316818/einsteins-unfinished-revolution-by-lee-smolin/" target="_blank">"Einstein's Unfinished Revolution"</a>. I think he's very much in that kind of thinking. We've gone as far as we can go with quantum mechanics as is and we need better ideas or better questions </span></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">to take us further.</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A choreographer I often work with says this too: you have an idea, but is it a good idea that will create a good work of art? Or is there a better idea? How do you figure out what the better ideas are?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AMAR: That's a good question. Do you have insights from your field?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">LUCY: I feel like it's a lot of trying stuff and listening to your intuition about it.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AMAR: I was going to say the same thing. It has to smell like an interesting thing to go after. Part of it is: is it feasible? It's great to want to solve some grand problem, but you have to be able to do it on a realistic time schedule. We're always trying to balance how interesting and how amazing is the question with how realistic is it that you'll actually be able to do it?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I want to know what dark energy is, but I have no feasible way to do it.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Whereas one of the other interesting questions, which I do have some ideas for, is why isn't stuff made of anti-matter? This table in front of me has a bunch electrons, protons all that. But it turns out that in the Big Bang, for every electron, there's an anti-electron, for every proton, an anti-proton. We know that in the beginning, or right after the beginning, there should have been stuff and anti-stuff, but if you look today, all the anti-stuff is gone. We don't know where it went or why.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">LUCY: That's fascinating.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AMAR: It turns out there's sort of a way to try to figure out what happened using molecules. And that's related to something I did as a PhD student about a decade ago. That approach we're still trying to go after. It's an interesting question but we also have a workable idea. It has feasibility.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">LUCY: It's worth going after.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AMAR: That's what you're looking for. You want something interesting. Life is short. You don't want to waste your time going after questions you don't care about. But at the same time if you only go after the super, grand questions which don't have any feasible chance to be answered, it's an equal waste of time.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">LUCY: I think I read a quote from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman" target="_blank">Richard Feynman</a> who was talking about that, to the effect, if you can't relate your theory or question to something that's in nature, in the universe, then why are you doing it? If you're so focused on one little thing that has no relation to the network of what is known, then why? Vastly paraphrased of course.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You've spoken about some big, deep questions: dark matter, dark energy and anti-matter. Are there any other deeper mysteries that you are interested in?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AMAR: Those are my big three. Certainly as an experimental physicist living today, I feel that we're somewhat lucky that we have some interesting questions to go after. Wouldn't it be terrible if we understood everything and there was nothing else to do but make a faster washing machine?<br /><br />We're fortunate. I have this theory that nature is maximally inscrutable. If everything was completely random it would actually be quite easy to understand. And if it were completely orderly it would also be easy. Nature has this way of being just hard enough to figure out. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Thirty years from now, when we know the answers to these big questions, people will look back and say "Ah, those people were really lucky to grapple with these questions."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's a privilege in that sense. Why do I even have this job? It's sort of ridiculous that I get paid to sit in my office and think about why, what happened to the anti-matter?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">LUCY: In my view, it's one of the most important jobs in the world in a way because it's adding to a deeper human culture.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AMAR: It is culture. It's on par with other things that people do for culture's sake. But it doesn't sound like a real job. I console myself with knowing that I'm also teaching. That's the "honest" part of my job. But the trying to figure out dark energy? I've only been in Asia and North America and I'm trying to figure out what's happening way out there? It's bonkers. It should not be possible but it is. That's the best part.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">LUCY: You've spoken a bit about this, but where do you find or feel the creativity in your process?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AMAR: Again, as an experimental physicist, my job is really to try to make good measurements and make measurements that advance our understanding. Some of the questions that would be nice to answer, I don't know how to answer, given what is at my disposal. That's one place where creativity comes in. If someone comes up with an amazing way of testing dark energy, I appreciate the elegance and beauty in using the available tools to answer an interesting question.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">LUCY: It must be kind of satisfying when you have that ah-ha!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AMAR: I don't think it comes at once. It comes by degree. One year you look back and say that thing I thought was stupid isn't so stupid after all, but then you look back another year later and think, no it was really stupid. I feel like it evolves more gradually, at least in my field. It's fairly rare that someone breaks out with a "boom, now I know how to....!!!" Usually you've been thinking about it for a while using the stuff that you have and you go through 40 different ideas and come up with nothing. You go away and then have one last idea.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">LUCY: You feel like there's an ah-ha moment, only when it comes together and it works.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AMAR: Yes. Because right up until the moment it works it's a lot of "I don't know, I think it should work."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Some of the experiments we do in <a href="http://uoft.me/vutha" target="_blank">my lab </a>come from a combination of hunches but it's not done 'til it's done and typically in my field that takes five or six years. It's a little more gradual than a mathematician who suddenly sees the equation or a theorist who suddenly knows why.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">[Learn about Amar's lab here: </span></span><a href="http://uoft.me/vutha">http://uoft.me/vutha</a>]<br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">LUCY: The experimental process takes time because of repetition and observation. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AMAR: Part of [the idea of the ah-ha moment] is the popular view of physicists. The popular books by physicists tend to be written by theoretical physicists. The theoretical physicists do have more ah-ha kind of moments. My cynical take on it is that they're the scientists with too much time on their hands. Meanwhile experimentalists are trying to fix something that's broken and don't have the time to write an amazing book. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You mentioned a few names of authors yourself and they are all theoretical physicists. You've had insights into the way theoretical physicists work, but the experimentalists are more than 50% of the total field. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">LUCY: The theoretical people can't go ahead without the experimentalists.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AMAR: It goes both ways. They come up with ideas and we can test in the lab. But at some level if the experiments don't give interesting measurements the theory dries up. People think physics is standing at the blackboard working something out, but most of what I do is drawing and designing experiments. The nuts and bolts of what needs to come together.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">LUCY: Are there any good books out there on the experimental process?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AMAR: There are! Let me think....<a href="http://www.simonwinchester.com/" target="_blank">Simon Winchester</a>. He wrote one recently about precision. [<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35068671-the-perfectionists" target="_blank">The Perfectionists</a>] How people have improved ways of measuring more and more accurately.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">They exist but they're not quite as prolific as the others.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">LUCY: Lee Smolin told me that all those theoretical guys have the same agent. It's not necessarily that the world wants these books, it's that there's one guy pushing for these books to be written and out in the world and people are getting into the subject matter that way.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AMAR: Theoretical physics makes for a good story. In some sense, who wants to read 100 pages of how I figured out how to get rid of some broken part of an experiment? But I'm hoping some experimentalist someday will break through with a book for the general public.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I say this from a personal place. Growing up when I was trying to learn what physicists do, a lot of it was "you should try to be like Feynman" or be like someone who spends their time constructing theories etc. More than half the field is doing the work of experiments in basements, their stories are swept under the rug.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">LUCY: It seems there's a new wave in the sciences for scientists to become better storytellers, better communicators of their research. I don't know if I've noticed this only because I've been more focused on this world in the last couple of years or.....</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AMAR: No, I would agree. I think some of it is good, but I'm not convinced that it's all good. There are more stories about science. Part is motivated by this feeling that we're getting more superstitious, less scientific, stupider... the effects of current politics. Part of it is a reaction to that. I think when it's done by good communicators it's very good. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There's a bit of pressure inside the community to be on Twitter etc. That you have a responsibility to inform the public. I don't know if I buy that. A lot of the time you're a scientist because you're good at making measurements, not because you are a good communicator. A lot of those people are really terrible communicators. We shouldn't necessarily stay that way. But like I said, life is short, should I spend time becoming a better communicator or doing the things that I am good at? I think I should leave the communicating to the professional communicators.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As long as you can clearly explain what you're doing without unnecessary hype, then you should be fine. This notion that you should be out there promoting what you're doing, in 200 words or less -- this expectation is growing more and more. The notion that we should be public figures.....I love talking to people who are non-experts b</span></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ecause I feel it's my responsibility to try to explain what I do. But at the same time, is it the best use of my time? I'm not 100% convinced. But I am a huge fan of the professional science communicators. It's an important job.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">LUCY: It is an interesting point. We feel that in the arts too. There's an expectation that you will be visible constantly, your product has to be visible all the time. In dance it works well because video and photos are so compelling on social media.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AMAR: But if you're spending a lot of time on that, it's taking you away from creating your core content.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">LUCY: Or you start framing your work so that it fits social media when your end target is a stage or a gallery or.....</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AMAR: Even if it's a subtle, sub-conscious thing.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">LUCY: I had a residency at the end of the summer (2019) and I felt like I should be getting clips of our work to share constantly but then I thought "None of this is going to look good in that format because that's not the kind of piece I'm making. It's not the kind of rehearsal I'm having." I don't have 20 seconds of explosive moments that are going to grab you on social media. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That's not why we need live performance.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That's why we should read those books about science. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AMAR: The work is not a sound-byte. A definition. We have to appreciate what the questions are.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">LUCY: And to keep questioning through the whole process. And to look back at the original question and ask, is that still what I'm working on? and does it matter if it has changed?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Right now, I don't have to look at my list of questions for you because I asked the first one and the rest just spilled out. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The first question was interesting enough to keep the whole conversation going. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></span>Lucy Ruperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06687480416463324472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170266216054875252.post-10231291287741058762020-05-23T10:01:00.001-07:002020-06-05T05:23:43.580-07:00Reflections on Purpose in 2 Parts: Margie Gillis and Lucy RupertPART ONE<br />
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My conversation with the world renowned artist, creator and teacher Margie Gillis (OC CQ) was intended to be about how she brings our art form to a greater audience, by using the inherent values and features of dance in non-dance, non-performative settings. Actually, my work with Margie was supposed to be in person, in a studio, through her intensive retreat but world and personal circumstances have made that impossible for the time being.<br />
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Either way, we wound up at something more lively, and something ultimately about the how the values and features of our art form can support us in uncertain times.<br />
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This is about dance, but also about purpose.<br />
Rigour and mystery.<br />
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Opposition and balance.<br />
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These word pairs can seem at odds with one another. Balance is good, opposition is bad. Rigour is good and must be used to transform mystery. All that may be true, but is only part of the picture.<br />
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Mystery inspires rigour.<br />
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The perpetuity of mystery is really what compels dancers to their rigour, to keep at it day by day.<br />
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Some actors I have met are a bit mystified by the daily training, the daily practice of dance, given that dancers and actors are very similar in so many other ways. Acting and dance require observation of human nature, and physical rigour. But the physical rigour of dance subverts and abstracts naturalism.<br />
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The mysteriousness (elusiveness) of perfection and of subversion and abstraction can be prime drives in dancers.<br />
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Over my 3 years -- so far! -- of interviewing scientists I have found that this too is what drives them. Mystery.<br />
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We go into the mystery to figure something out, knowing full well that figuring will also open up new mysteries, the folded extra dimensions of space -- both their theoretical manifestations and the metaphoric.<br />
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Margie's insight and lifelong research into mystery and rigour takes us to a place of deep self-trust.<br />
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We don't necessarily have to work so hard to trust our embodied wisdom. We just need to experience and notice the channels that facilitate the wisdom. Those channels could be mystical, spiritual, physical, dietary. Anyone can do it.<br />
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Her workshops in conflict transformation are a testament to this:<br />
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It's already there.<br />
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We have what we need.<br />
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Obviously when pain, poverty, ill-health or trauma come into our lives, those channels can be blocked.<br />
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We can't all heal ourselves, but we always have more than we might realize.<br />
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What's driving a lot of us right now, whether we are able to continue working or not, is purpose. I don't think it's a blind need for busy-ness. Instability seems to flare up our engines of activity, our desires to contribute. The opposite can happen, we can fall into lethargy -- but I think it comes from the same place, this need to feel centred and part of something beyond our own skin.<br />
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I have witnessed this in friends since the lockdown began -- an old friend sent me an impassioned message to please find Jesus. I know this is her way of feeling she is contributing to a larger purpose when things are uncertain. She hasn't tried to save my soul for many years now. And I am touched that she keeps trying. Another friend (who is still working full time in a fairly stressful job) has been doing everything she can to sculpt and shape how online learning is happening with the school our kids attend.<br />
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I am not working - as in I have no paying gigs and have lost many --but I find myself working constantly. Finishing tasks I left behind months ago, but mostly developing, channelling, flinging myself at ideas that can connect my work to something bigger than just my imagination and the possibilities of my body (and of the bodies of the dancers who collaborate with me).<br />
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I need my skills and experience to contribute to a bigger idea. I need purpose.<br />
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I have always believed deeply in the value of art in any society. It is entertainment and aspiration and beautification and provocation, but it is also retreat into and expansion of what is already in there, in ourselves individually and collectively. Performing in dance gives me the clearest shot at inviting an audience to bypass the intellect and go into their viscera (Tim Gunn! (if you know what I mean here, then you are a Project Runway fan too!)) in witnessing a performance. A vicarious retreat and expansion, if I let myself be vulnerable and articulate on stage.<br />
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If I hadn't had dance -- even though I was a terrible, undisciplined dancer until the age of 18 -- I don't think I would have made it through high school. I don't mean academically.<br />
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Dance provided me with a retreat into myself and an expansion beyond what I thought was possible and what I thought I was worthy of. When I left high school and pursued a degree in dance at the University of Waterloo, it became my goal, for a long time subconsciously, to encourage others to do the same.<br />
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When I graduated I started investigating not how I could make a compelling expression of my feelings -- which were crazy and intense and important as it always goes in your 20s -- but of how my ability to embody those feelings could relieve, unsettle and change the audience.<br />
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I didn't by any stretch of the imagination have the capacity to put this into words beyond that sense of change in direction of my energy while performing. I used to try to pull the audience into me, and I found that energy had reversed, spiralling out to the audience.<br />
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This sense of purpose has deepened over the 25 years I have been dancing professionally. It is the subject of the research fellowship which has allowed me to interview scientists, do field work in the wilderness and in the studio over the past two years.<br />
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When I chatted with Margie on May 1st, she shared a similar understanding of dance's power. Seeing where her depth, wisdom and beauty have taken her into this sense of purpose has helped me find and will continue to help me find resilience in this crazy time when I am unable to work but must remain useful, ready to spring into action.<br />
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So, I sat down with Margie via Zoom, with the intention to ask her how she developed her work from choreography and performance into conflict transformation and training. But the conversation took it's own necessary trajectory.<br />
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It was already there.<br />
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PART TWO<br />
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LUCY: When I first saw you perform at Premiere (now Fleck) Dance Theatre somewhere around 1996 or 97 -- I felt an immediate attraction because everything you did transcended technique. I had been so obsessed with my perceived lack of technique, and I wanted to be a solo artist....I was riveted by how liberated and precise you were. It was not about showing technical virtuosity but there was physical virtuosity coming from someplace deeper.<br />
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MARGIE: I always had a sense of purpose. I never danced without that.<br />
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I came to dance from a sense of philosophy. I had a fear of audiences. But when I was trying to figure out what to do with my life, I had a vision: dance. And I thought, "Oh fuck, no. People are not main creature and I don't want to do that."<br />
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I realized I was either going to run away from it or towards it. I had a lot of philosophies and ideas about human communication that I did want to test and try out. So I thought, "Ok, that's what I'll do."<br />
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I wanted it to be authentic and pure and if it would touch people deeply -- that was where it was going to be a success. If it could provide a transformative experience, I didn't know to call it a transformative experience yet, but I had a real deep soul sense of "I'm going to do this and throw it right out there and let the thoughts and the emotions and the inner landscape of my being create the architecture. And I will not make the architecture unless it comes from those places, those imbued places. And I want it to be real."<br />
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My tests were: How am I going to communication with others? Is it possible to communicate with others? Do people feel love at the same time? A lot of things that we know now about neuroscience. Nobody was out there dancing the way I wanted and I had no intention of becoming a dancer or a choreographer.<br />
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excerpts from Voyages Into the Inner Landscapes</div>
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But I put this out there and it was an incredible success. I thought I'd just put this out there and it would fail and I'd get back to being a teacher or involved in philosophy or psychology.<br />
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But it did work and it was touching people very, very deeply. I felt if I could be very close and honest and raw about what I was doing, that I could touch that part of other people. I was looking for the Jungian transpersonal state. To be as close to the essence as I could, so the sorrow wasn't about my sorrow, it was my understanding of sorrow. People would be very touched by the storylines, not because of my storyline within it but because of their own. They would see the motion or the story move through, the physicality of that, the storyline being embodied, allowed to come out in full physicality.<br />
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I, of course, was a wild child, and so I couldn't control myself. I needed to let things out rather than structure things. I was an oddball in that way. But that worked out just fine.<br />
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I have always come from a vantage point of problem solving, whether it's artistic or social or mathematical or physical -- there are all sorts of ways. Even with music, I've been interested in spoken work, silence, using music as an environment or as a partner. How is music touching the body, do you feel the music, it descending or rising? The myriad ways one can experience things...<br />
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It became apparent to me that dancers really take the music and make it vivid and seen in a certain kind of way. So I'd do tests, like take the music and play it three times and make a dance to the same piece of music played through three times and see if anyone would notice that was happening. They wouldn't.<br />
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One of my greatest compliments was people coming back stage [at a solo show] and wanting to meet the other dancers. My make up changes were changing the colour of my lipstick and possibly putting my hair into a ponytail. Nothing big. But I seemed to be multiple people.<br />
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LUCY: That's cool.<br />
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MARGIE: It was! They'd come backstage and say "Oh you were wonderful in your piece but I want to meet the dancer who did that other piece! Where is she?" I'm sitting there, short and wet and long-haired but they'd seen this really super tall woman. So much of my life has been people telling me "You look so much like Margie Gillis!"<br />
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The more I got through time, the more I got a hold of it, this thing I was trying to do. I only knew how to do it myself. I couldn't ask someone else to take that emotional risk. But I developed concepts about through and to, where "through" goes, where "to" goes in movement -- which is really important for times like now because you don't want to go "to" what sucks and stabilize. You want to go "through" what sucks and stabilize what's on the other side.<br />
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The psychology of movement, using movement to move people through their stuff, using it to problem solve, whatever the problem seems to be. I can't solve everything. But we can go into the mystery. And the rigour.<br />
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Sometimes ballet dancers, when they get older, approach me and want me to create something for them because they think they will suddenly be able. "Oh, I can do what she does now that I don't have my technique." But there is a technique to what I do, a strategy, a rigour. Not a discipline -- I never called it a discipline because I had a passion so there was no need for passion, just this thing I needed to do.<br />
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excerpts from A Stone's Poem</div>
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Like any science I researched my subject matter. I researched and researched and as I did I began to hone my understanding of nuance and excellence and art and quality, and I began to hone my intuition. Ultimately I could put all of this knowledge base at service and get hit by the inspiration: there's the problem, there's a solution. You don't own it, you just are in preparation to gather the information and the ideas together.<br />
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The one place I really had conflict with science, was the idea that it [intuition] all started in the brain. I was so excited when I heard Stephen Hawking say, "No, it starts in the stomach."<br />
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I'd been saying that for a long time. It comes from the centre of our being. It's not about us, it comes through us.We just have till the soil and be rigorous around curiosity and questioning and keeping ourselves vivid and alive to the subject. Then looking at it from another angle.<br />
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Constellations around the problem. I would do that with experiential wisdom. But I've always had a brain that wants to know everything yesterday.<br />
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LUCY: I can relate.<br />
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MARGIE: It was not good enough to be sitting there with a body that wanted to be roaring around. Another thing I super-love is the understanding that there is a place inside of us for sorting out that we are nature.<br />
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I love doing group solos so that everyone is doing the same thing on their own and over time it shifts and coalesces so that everyone fusing and doing it uniquely as well. That, to me, is that place of sorting out that we are part of nature.<br />
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LUCY: I just finished a big-cast project and it was really satisfying to see how little time it took for everyone to find their ecosystem together. We had so little time as a full ensemble in rehearsal.<br />
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MARGIE: Opportunities for big groups will be questioned very strongly in the coming period. People are going to have to do solos. The bigger companies will remain the bigger companies because it's just like society: if you've got the money.....Ballet BC lost something like $500,000 --but they have a good structure. People within the structure will help solve the problems.<br />
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Have you seen what Julliard did with video? It's just amazing. They released it on Wednesday. Of course they had major resources to make this happen. They have an astonishing editor. It's kick ass.<br />
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Julliard Bolero </div>
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LUCY: I didn't see that but I'll look it up. I've found the Zoom concerts really inspiring. Just the attempt to be together particularly by symphony musicians. It really moves me.<br />
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MARGIE: Me too. The only people touring internationally before this happened -- it was really only 30 companies. And only two Canadian groups. All from the ballet structure. Nothing really from the contemporary. There's so much going on that you can't really see anything.<br />
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It's going to be very interesting to see to how we adapt and change. We've really only gone through this for two months so if we do start coming out [from lockdown], and we have to go back in, we'll have a knowledge of how to go back in. It's going to have a rhythm and a wave to it and I imagine it's going to be about two years before we'll be in front of any kind of large audience.<br />
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Filming and incubation and cocooning is important right now. Waiting for your seeds to come to fruition. For dancers and choreographers it's a very important time to think "What do I want to say to my audience?" and "What kind of change do I want to put them through?".<br />
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The bigger questions are where do we go with the art when there only a few people in these big institutions who can support it and only a few people who decide what gets to be seen and not seen?<br />
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When the Canada Council started they had a discretionary fund so if somebody was really hot they would throw money at it, water it when it needed watering. Somebody recently I heard about had a really great program that people were crazy about and a tour across Canada, but they didn't get their funding for touring so it couldn't happen. That's insane. It's fucking insane.<br />
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It was an important thing about how the community grew back then -- this discretionary fund for when something caught the audience's imagination profoundly. But if you're going for ideas that you feel are not in the planet yet....<br />
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LUCY: YES!<br />
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MARGIE: If you feel like "What I want is not here!" You have feel out the space for it and have the bravery to commit to it. But that's scary because the vision is so perfect and we're human and fallible, you have to make an incredible reconciliation. You have to hold opposites in such a horrifyingly big way. It's always been my experience that if you get 50% you're doing really good.<br />
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If 50% falls away from the high and low ends, it's good. It's important to say "I don't know." when you don't know. It doesn't mean that you actually don't know, it just means that your head hasn't organized it yet.<br />
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The knowing can be there before the head organizes it. That's what I love about dancers so much. The knowing is in the body already.<br />
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LUCY: That was a really hard thing for me on my last project because I was working with 12 dancers --including myself-- and a commissioned choreographer and a team. Most of the time we were rehearsing separately and only came together at the end. Through the whole process everyone was so lovely and generous and supportive that I felt comfortable saying "I don't know.....yet."<br />
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But in those last two weeks before the show opened when there still that generosity from all the collaborators saying "Lucy what about this? and this? and what about that?" I couldn't handle it...<br />
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I pride myself in being a very patient person and I try to create a very kind working environment, but in the pressure at the end I felt myself get a little snarky, saying "I don't know and you talking to me about it right now isn't helping."<br />
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I felt so terrible. But inside I was trying to tell myself "It's ok!! You still don't have to know everything." I should be allowed to not know. I should allow myself to feel ok about that.<br />
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The collaborators wanted to help find a solution because they were with me in what I was trying to do. This was a really good problem to have, but it was hard to recognize that in the moment.<br />
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We've all worked in those situations where we just sit back and wait for the choreographer to tell us what to do. I'm so glad that the team felt that collaborative spirit, even though I really did have to be responsible for executing the vision since it was my beast we were all riding.<br />
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MARGIE: From a spiritual perspective and Jungian view, you need to be centred in yourself and it's really valid to say "no" and say "back off and give me space". When we go up to into our heads and don't connect to our bodies it does a profound thing to our movement quality and cognizance. You've got to be centred.<br />
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From the Jungian perspective it's discernment as opposed to criticism. This is a huge one for women. Discernment will give you everything criticism gives you, but it connects to your empathy and community. Criticism ostracizes you and your heart and everyone else. It's a pretty dumb tool.<br />
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It can create beautiful excellence, but you can have it through discernment, a feminine consciousness. It's a Jungian statement: Women in order to regain themselves in this world need to be discerning about their compassion, otherwise they are lost.<br />
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PABLO: Mom!<br />
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LUCY: Oh Pablo, come here and say hi to Margie Gillis, she is a world-renowned choreographer and dancer, and Margie's class was the first dance class I took after you were born.<br />
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[I pretty much cried all the way through from joy and the stimulation of so many body parts -- I think it was not quite two months after Pablo was born.]<br />
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PABLO: That's pretty cool.<br />
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LUCY: What did you want to tell me, Pablo?<br />
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PABLO: I beat every single boss in the Crystal Caverns. Can I play some more?<br />
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LUCY: Yes.<br />
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PABLO: Great!<br />
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LUCY: He's playing this game Prodigy where they are wizards and have to battle creatures, but the battles are math questions.<br />
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MARGIE: I've heard of it. It's fantastic.<br />
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LUCY: He plays with one of his classmates almost everyday. It really helps him normalize things right now. He's having some tough times. When we're allowed to go back into the world I think child psychologists are going to have a lot of work on their hands.<br />
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Some days are better than others. But this morning he didn't want to do anything -- he didn't want to go to his online class. He just wanted to play cards with me. He said he didn't feel like himself, he didn't want to participate, he felt weird and angry.<br />
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I wish I could -- this is that criticism/discernment coupling -- I'm being very critical of myself because I wish I could to support him the way he needs in every moment but I don't know my way through this. I've not been through this before either.<br />
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MARGIE: You don't know. That's ok.<br />
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LUCY: A good thing I've learned -- from being a dancer -- is to go back to the body. When Pablo gets stressed out we talk about the heart softening, the lungs softening, the space behind your eyes softening. So when he gets upset I just hug him, even when he really doesn't want it -- but the attention to the body takes him back into his centre -- like you were saying! Now he knows when he feels weird he just comes over and hugs me. You know....<br />
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MARGIE: Yeah, I do know. I mean, I don't have a child, but I know...<br />
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LUCY: It's humanity, just a little version.<br />
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MARGIE: You just go through it in purity, in wisdom, in experience.<br />
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[Deep breath.]<br />
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LUCY: There are four words I'd offer out, sort of as a question. I was re-reading your essays in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28151229-the-choreography-of-resolution" target="_blank">The Choreography of Resolution</a> and a pair of words jumped out at me, coming from your writing that our health has balance and opposition. They struck me because so much of our society would see them as being --<br />
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MARGIE: Rigid.<br />
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LUCY: Well, I was thinking separate. Like balance is good and opposition is bad. But as dancers we know balance is opposition, it's not holding still but you have to have a sense of movement in opposite directions which creates balance.<br />
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MARGIE: I'm working a lot with the notion of resilient stability. If something is too rigid it breaks, if something is too flaccid it doesn't have any rigour or life and it pushes out. So what you are doing is working the opposites so that you can hold more. Counterbalance and holding centre, the deep heart, with an elasticity.<br />
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My main person in these dialogues about health is <a href="https://movementresearch.org/people/irene-dowd" target="_blank">Irene Dowd</a>. The elasticity of the body and what is the elasticity of the mind, the resilience? How do we meet life from a centred place?<br />
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What is that book? About Auschwitz? About who survived. It wasn't the strongest, it was the most resilient. What made them resilient? A strong sense of meaning.<br />
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LUCY: Oh, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_Search_for_Meaning" target="_blank">Viktor Frankl's book</a>, "Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning".<br />
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MARGIE: Yes. Survival came from: Giving creative value, facing the situation and meeting life.<br />
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LUCY: Meeting each for itself and not generalizing the situation immediately.<br />
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MARGIE: Yes. Meeting this moment, this thing and then the next. Curiosity and a centred place moved people through. For me the centre is resilient and juicy. As we search for stability in this time, it will be holding space and stability that is lively that will help us through.<br />
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LUCY: Another two words you've used as a pair, almost every scientist I've interviewed so far has also used: rigour and mystery. I think those two words are also thought to be separate in an popular understanding, but an interesting trait of both artists and scientists is that we understand good work gets done when there's rigour and mystery and that there's rigour when you venture into the mystery. I think it's really remarkable that those two words keep coming up.<br />
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MARGIE: They are super, super, super important. Random motion is now being understood, improvisational motion and guided motion like Gaga and the way I teach, create new brain waves. More rigoured movement stabilizes what the brain waves already there. You need both.<br />
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Scientists and creators use their rigour to go forward but they have to be able to sit back and know that something is going to come through them. There's a globalization of questioning and energy and then from this clear blue Buddha mind, suddenly there's the whole landscape. It happens in an openness and a mystery.<br />
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There is a deep focus, a narrowing of vision, necessity vision, and then universal vision that opens up the view, and finally economy vision which is the movement between the two of them. When you're playing between the two, you'll overdo one and then the other, and one and then the other. That means we have opened and reopened. There are times where we hit walls and then we take it out into an open perspective.<br />
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I see how scientists are on the chase for something and at some point something moves through them and gathers it all together, puts a universality or a mystery to it, it gets put in a larger perspective. It allows for the detail to come in<br />
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LUCY: There have been a lot of those stories in the scientists I've interviewed. Those moments of clarity when something bigger moves through them. Usually it's in a moment of letting go.<br />
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One person I interviewed, Matt Russo, is an amazing example. He went to Etobicoke School of the Arts and was an accomplished musician, got an undergraduate degree in jazz guitar performance. He kept a life as a musician on the side, as he continued his academic career in astrophysics. All the way through with a PhD, he kept those two veins of his life separate.<br />
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It was the discovery of the musicality in the Trappist planetary system that gave him that experience you are speaking of, when he realized his ability to make music and understand the physics of planets and stars gave him a unique opportunity to interpret and share the universe in a new way. His work has just taken off since then.<br />
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He just did a thing for NASA for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. It's been an explosion for him, to bring these two aspects of his life together in a way that is meaningful and offering a different view or context to a wider range of people than a more purely academic work might not have.<br />
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When that clarity drops in, as you said, even if it is a tiny clarity, it seems like it has the potential to open up a huge amount possibilities.<br />
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MARGIE: One of the dynamics I've gotten into is the idea of the calling. Most of my life I've thought of it as something I'm searching for. That I'm going out there for it. I've come to understand if I don't know, I can call it to me. I thought of it as entering through the back and coming through me. But I can let it seep into me -- it's already there, like a parallel universe, I'm just drawing it in. It's a very good practice when I don't know what the next step is, or when I find myself in a real desire that's getting me into trouble.<br />
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[Big Laughter. Both of us.]<br />
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I'm just squeezing myself out of a toothpaste tube trying to be right for it and in doing that I get over the line, trying to call it to me. I have to let it call me too. I've done the work, the landscaping, and I'm ready for new stuff. What is my soul's purpose? Sometimes our soul's purpose is not something we really want to accept.<br />
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We are given desire and appetite to go on certain pathways.<br />
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LUCY: Margie, you have been so generous with your time. I can't tell you how much I needed this, how this is the perfect day for me to hear your words. And I miss you!<br />
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MARGIE: I miss you too.<br />
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LUCY: Thank you so much Margie. Have a beautiful afternoon.<br />
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*******<br />
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<a href="http://margiegillis.org/" target="_blank">The Margie Gillis Dance Foundation </a><br />
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“Artistic expression is essential for the evolution of our collective wellbeing.” – Margie Gillis<br />
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Margie Gillis' career has spanned over 45 years, so far. She is an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Knight of the Order nationale du Quebec and winner of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Governor General's Performing Arts Award Foundation, among countless other awards and honours.<br />
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Visit her website (above) to learn more about her work and her foundation.<br />
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Art + Science interviews are made possible with the generous support of the Chalmers Family Fund Fellowship program, administered by the Ontario Arts Council.Lucy Ruperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06687480416463324472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170266216054875252.post-70461245658302107452020-03-10T16:38:00.001-07:002020-06-05T05:24:03.386-07:00Kristen Facciol: endless curiosity at the Canadian Space Agency<div class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-size-adjust: auto;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">In January, Kristen Facciol was in Toronto for the WISE (Women in Science and Engineering) Conference and I was supposed to interview her then. However the conference coincided with the opening of my recent production "8 minutes 17 seconds" and I found myself too overwhelmed to make it happen.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Luckily, Kristen was willing to talk to me later this winter via email and I am so grateful for her beautiful answers to my simple questions.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Kristen is an Operations Engineer at the Canadian Space Agency, part of the Mission Control Group. She has trained at NASA, and trains astronauts herself, remotely operates robotics in space. Kristen was part of a history-making team, training the two astronauts</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> for the first all-female space walk in 2019.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">This interview is short and sweet, but so worth the read.</span></span></div>
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Kristen Facciol photo courtesy of NASA</div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">LR: What drew you to engineering? and to your particular area within engineering?<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">KF: It was my high school algebra teacher that first planted the seed to consider engineering right before I started applying to universities. She had graduated from chemical engineering and I became more interested in learning about the potential areas for study within the broader scope of engineering. I have always enjoyed problem solving and quickly realized that engineering was a way for me to take foundational knowledge and apply it in new ways to help find solutions. My first two years were general studies and this gave me the opportunity to learn that I enjoyed aerospace courses, and was also exposed to ways in which I could take my passion for space and make a career out of it one day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">LR: Did the arts figure in your formative years, or do they still? <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">KF: Yes to both! Music is a huge passion of mine, as are the performing arts. Throughout my life, unfortunately more so when I was younger than now, I learned how to play 11 different instruments and was once in a musical. I enjoyed the way it stimulated me in a different way, and the challenge of applying what I had learned with one instrument to another. I am often listening to music while I work, and find that it helps me perform in a more effective way; this was also the case when I was studying for my exams in university. I regularly attend concerts and shows as well, and find that it really improves my mood and mental state in so many ways.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">LR: What are you curious about — in your field, about space, about the potential of engineering in the future?<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">KF:I am truly curious about everything that surrounds me – from people’s behaviours to what lies beyond what we currently know. I think that we all have this inherent desire to explore, and I love that I am in a field where we are looking to explore areas well beyond where we ever thought possible. The beauty of engineering is that it is a field that adapts as we learn more, and there really are no limitations on what we can accomplish. I think that the opportunities really are endless, and I am excited to see how we will grow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Courtesy of CSA</div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">LR: How do you cope with the unknown, or the unknowable in your work? In life, generally?<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">KF: To be honest, I used to be afraid of the unknown. But more recently I have become much more excited about it, since it often means the potential for growth and opportunities to learn.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">LR: You have trained with the astronauts in simulations — and you teach astronauts how to operate some systems in space — what is most challenging about these aspects of your work?<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">KF: At first the biggest challenge was my imposter syndrome getting the best of me. I didn’t feel I was qualified or deserving enough to train some of the best and brightest, let alone work with them on a level playing field. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Now that I’ve gone through some pretty substantial training myself, I see the importance of the roles we each play individually and how we have to work together towards common goals. Ultimately though, working with astronauts means that their safety comes above all else, and knowing the challenges the space environment can present in general is always something we need to keep at the forefront.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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courtesy of NASA</div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">LR: Do you hope to go to space one day? I’m sure people ask you this often….I can’t help but admit my curiosity too!<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">KF: I used to want to become an astronaut, but over time I have learned that the role is not a good fit for me. At the time I dreamt of being an astronaut, I wasn’t aware of all of the other career opportunities that existed in the aerospace sector. Now that I’ve learned that there are so many other ways to help contribute to human spaceflight and exploration, I’ve found an area that’s much more suited to my interests and abilities. It’s an honour to serve as part of the team that enables these missions and tasks, and to have the opportunity to play a role in it. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">That being said, I wouldn’t turn down an opportunity to go to space as a tourist!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">LR: How do you perceive creativity or artistry in your work?<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">KF: Part of my job involves designing robotics trajectories for various missions and operations. Although there are physical limitations to our systems and workspaces, it’s always fun to incorporate a certain elegance into the trajectories. There are often multiple ways to get to a final destination, and sometimes it results in getting there in a way that can be perceived as a robot pirouetting through space, and I find that really beautiful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">LR: That is a beautiful image.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Thank you Kristen!</span></div>
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Art + Science interviews are made possible with the generous support of the Chalmers Family Fund Fellowship program, administered by the Ontario Arts Council.</div>
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Lucy Ruperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06687480416463324472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170266216054875252.post-3710603200816433422020-02-05T17:48:00.001-08:002020-06-05T05:24:58.166-07:00Clarke Blair -- doing the digging in science and in danceColleen Snell of Frog in Hand dance recommended I connect with Clarke Blair -- a woman studying science at the University of Toronto and maintaining a performance career as a dancer. I was thrilled to sit down with Clarke, without knowing much of anything about her. I felt awkward, at first, chatting with such a collected, intelligent young woman, but by the end I was simply inspired and energized.<br />
<br />
Since this interview I invited Clarke in as a dancer for some studio research I was doing as part of a science-art related fellowship and got to experience observing and dancing with this wonderful person, and this weekend Clarke and I are on a mixed bill in the pioneering series Dance Matters --see details below!<br />
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Clarke has an incisive mind and body, and whatever she's doing, she will be curious and we will be intrigued.<br />
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****<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdQSV9hHDN_P3HcUJGgLSazIDatil8vDiqofa6Z2dOSzVWHK-Z9dyGRc1LqblwC_tDHFvHD3hdjSugQkuhU-5CwoaQUWcfzxZMnrDaUncg2MD4ZOROYbxUXi306rtLw69d-QCQzqoOVxjR/s1600/Headshot+Clarke+Blair.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1280" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdQSV9hHDN_P3HcUJGgLSazIDatil8vDiqofa6Z2dOSzVWHK-Z9dyGRc1LqblwC_tDHFvHD3hdjSugQkuhU-5CwoaQUWcfzxZMnrDaUncg2MD4ZOROYbxUXi306rtLw69d-QCQzqoOVxjR/s400/Headshot+Clarke+Blair.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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photo of Clarke Blair by Francesca Chudnoff</div>
<br />
<br />
LR: So tell me about your journey in art and in science.<br />
<br />
CB: I've been dancing for ever. I trained with CCDT and I danced with their company in high school. I went into sciences in university. I always knew I would. I am in the process of finishing my undergraduate degree in neuroscience and cell biology at the University of Toronto. And at the same I am trying to keep my artistic life alive. That currently is manifesting itself in working as a part-time student, and dancing.<br />
<br />
My [scientific] interests currently lie a little bit adjacent from my actual degree. I'm really interested in fertility and reproduction, early embryo development. I approach it from a cell biology perspective. I'm doing a research project this year about placental development. I'm still figuring out exactly what that is as I get permission do the study within a hospital, have all my immunization records checked etc.<br />
<br />
LR: What drew you towards cell biology?<br />
<br />
CB: I actually went to the University of Waterloo for a year in bio-chemistry and decided I did not like the school. I sorely missed the arts community. I worked hard to make connections, knowing that I was not going to do a post secondary dance program, so that I could keep dancing. But then I wound up in a place ....<br />
<br />
LR: With no network....I went to the University of Waterloo. There used to be a dance program there, and I was in the final class that went through it. Back then there was a bunch of us who tried to create a network outside the university, producing our own shows etc. But once the program was phased out, there wasn't a good platform for its development any more.<br />
<br />
CB: I thought maybe it would be different because there had been a dance program there but no....So I transferred to U of T because I wanted to study neuroscience, that was always something I was fascinated about. I needed another program when I enrolled so I chose cell biology, thinking I could change that choice later. But I ended up really enjoying it.<br />
<br />
I took a course in developmental biology from the single cell to organ formation to limb formation. All these processes absolutely blew my mind. Neuroscience is also fascinating, but I've been a more attracted more to the biology side of it than the behavioural side of it.<br />
<br />
LR: It may be too soon to know, but do you have an idea of that you want to do when you finish your degree?<br />
<br />
CB: That's a good question. I like research. Doing something with a tangible, specific result, feels like I am really contributing something. So what I'm doing this year is aligning the desire for research with my actual area of research. I would like to get a Masters degree in reproductive and developmental medicine. I thought for a hot second I wanted to get into genetic counselling. Do you know what that is?<br />
<br />
LR: Yes. I was 35 when I got pregnant with my son, and we were planning on delivering at Mount Sinai Hospital and they required you to go for genetic counselling, finding out the probabilities and markers for various disorders based on genetics and age and ultrasound.<br />
<br />
CB: It's fascinating but it can be really depressing as well. You can analyze embryos and see which ones have the genetic markers and make sure that you continue with embryos that do not have the disease.<br />
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LR: In an interview I did with <a href="http://blueceilingdancer.blogspot.com/2019/11/john-brumell-light-and-space-to-figure.html" target="_blank">John Brumell</a> we got talking about this, the implications or ethics or morality -- actually <a href="http://blueceilingdancer.blogspot.com/2019/05/questioning-questions-neural-science.html" target="_blank">Cindi Morshead </a>and I were talking about this too. It's a tricky issue. When these abilities should be used and where's the grey area? This ability to fine tune a fetus.<br />
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CB: There are moral and ethical questions. From person to person and also within policy. You're helping people have children but there's a cost and so who has accessible, who doesn't have access? Making assisted reproduction accessible to queer people -- it is an incredibly heteronormative field. Understandably because of the way babies get made, but still....<br />
<br />
LR: Outside of heterosexual intercourse babies are being conceived in all kinds of ways and it should be opened up, or made more inclusive to the wealth of potential parents out there...<br />
<br />
CB: It's complicated.<br />
<br />
LR: It wanders into religious and cultural beliefs. It must be interesting to be inside it because I imagine a lot of people go into science for the science and it's not until you get in deep that you start to see the social and political and cultural undercurrents and ramifications of what you're researching or working on. I suppose it's the same as dance. We often get into it because we like performing or moving or the costumes or the music but as you get deeper into it, you realize how it can impact things beyond pure entertainment.<br />
<br />
CB: You do something that is purely aesthetic but someone will read other things into it.<br />
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LR: And you have to own it. You can't control it. And you can't deny it.<br />
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CB: I feel like dancers are better at that than science is. Science is taught often narrowly -- we're just looking at biology not the social factors that impact people's interactions and access to health care -- race, socioeconomic class.....which are part of the experience, it's not discussed with enough weight often.<br />
<br />
LR: I imagine there are definite personality types that get draw to different fields. So many people don't believe that performers are actually very shy, that performing is a way to be open and protected -- it's true for me anyway. It may be true of people in the sciences -- the structure, the rigour, the predictability, the investigation.<br />
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CB: I know that I'm a very analytical person in science and in the dance. I want to be doing the digging. This is part of the work that's exciting to me.<br />
<br />
LR: I feel you. I love that aspect too. Often it can be the choreographer who does the research and then comes up with the concepts of what the bodies or dancers should be doing, but I like when we (me as choreographer and the dancers) research together how the body might embody these concepts. Collaborative research -- based on a short list of ideas that I've cultivated through my own. My company is working on a piece about the transit of light from the Sun to Earth, and everyone is so different in their approach. I think the results are best when you have a mixture of the "I got it!" people and the "puzzlers". They are all so interested in trying to understand the science.<br />
<br />
CB: You have to do justice to the concept, the performer and to the audience -- so it's not an internal exploration of a photon in your body.<br />
<br />
LR: Exactly. And once you are interested as a dancer, the next step is how to make the audience interested?<br />
<br />
CB: I love dance.<br />
<br />
LR: Can you talk about some of the dance projects you're involved in? You are working with <a href="https://www.froginhand.com/" target="_blank">Frog in Hand</a>?<br />
<br />
C I'm working with Frog in Hand right now. They are incredible. Colleen Snell is a phenomenal force to be reckoned with. And then I also work with <a href="http://socialgrowldance.com/" target="_blank">Social Growl</a>, Riley sims. Bopping around doing programs and intensives as much as I can.<br />
<br />
LR: Is it hard to balance the two?<br />
<br />
CB: It is definitely difficult. I am grateful that Riley and Colleen have been so accommodating of my scheduling. I have structured my class schedule when I know I have classes, and I've chosen classes where, for example if I know I have a performance in March, the class does not have four major assignments due in March. It take s a lot of wiggling and planning months in advance, but it has been possible.<br />
<br />
And I also really do care about school. If I was taking something that I didn't love I would find it harder. If I was in a program I wasn't enjoying it would be like smashing my head against a wall. I feel lucky that I've found and that I've worked to find my niche so that all the classes and course work are things I enjoy. It makes it easier to get the work done.<br />
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Doing research projects helps because the schedule is more flexible. I might be in the lab til 8pm filling 80 pipettes but if I don't do it I know I'm messing myself for the next day. If I come in late I'm only screwing myself over.<br />
<br />
LR: You are so together. May I ask how old you are?<br />
<br />
CB: 21. Almost 22.<br />
<br />
LR: You're so young! I'm sure you hear that all the time. Old people like me saying it.<br />
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CB: But it also is true.<br />
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LR: You're so together. Really. I've met a lot of 21 year olds lately who are so lost. It's hard right now -- every generation finds this age hard - but I think there's a lot happening on a lot of different fronts right now, socially, politically and culturally. All these things were issues when I was 21 but there wasn't the same pressure to be involved with every one of them. There's so much responsibility put out there to fix things.<br />
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CB: Yeah, it's not possible to not have a stance on the issues. If you are silent you're not helping. That's the feeling.<br />
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LR: When I was 21 I was able to just be angsty in a generalized way. That included my concerns about the environment and the Gulf Wars and civil rights but everything was just a little bit quieter. I didn't feel like I had to have a particular or well-developed view on every issue and I didn't know what my views were yet because I was just figuring out who I was and what I really cared about as my understanding of the world got broader and broader.....<br />
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Clarke Blair in Frog in Hand's The Fall</div>
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photo by Francesca Chudnoff</div>
<br />
CB: If you are making art in this political climate, people are going to interpret it in different ways than perhaps what you wanted. So having an understanding of what's going on and how your work might be interpreted is necessary.<br />
<br />
And it's complicated because you can't control how people do interpret your work.<br />
<br />
LR:The issues are on the minds of audiences whether your work is intended to take them on or not.<br />
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Knowing that, it's hard to know what the right decisions are in the creation process, if you think about it for too long.<br />
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You have to let your art be what it is, but also do the critical thinking from within, in the larger cultural context, and allow the critical thinking to happen from without and learn to sit in whatever discomfort that might cause.<br />
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CB: That is actually something they have hammered home in the last years of my degree. Scientific literacy. You need to be reading everything critically. Go through the results of a paper, before you read their discussion of it. Are the conclusions they are drawing what the results are showing? Even the experimental method needs to be questioned: is it a fair control for what they want to investigate?<br />
<br />
Sometimes it's a beautifully done experiment and sometimes it is a little wonky. It's the language that gets to me. The language that is used to try to get funding, to show your results. The language can be "we did this thing and we are correct".<br />
<br />
LR: Without any room for elaboration or correction. That's in the arts too. Sometimes I feel, maybe it's my background in academia that brings it to this language, that in order to put something on stage you have to have a thesis and if you don't prove your thesis through your piece people are harsh about it.<br />
<br />
I wonder about the possibility of having a thesis and adapting it as you research so that it may still be mysterious or only partially revealed by the time it hits the stage. The audiences themselves can reveal or make conclusions from the raw data of the performances?<br />
<br />
CB: Yes: "This was the starting point and we've moving away from it to this new thing...."<br />
<br />
LR: Is it related to grant-writing? You have to put it in concrete terms to apply for funding, and there's an inherent pressure, if you get that funding, to do exactly what you said you'd do. There's wiggle room with the arts councils, as in they understand that where you start might not be where you end up, but I imagine it's not that flexible in science?<br />
<br />
CB: Well there's basic science, translational, clinical. In basic science it is more flexible because it's discovery for the sake of discovery at that level.<br />
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LR: Of course and in clinical research you can't change it as you go because you are actually affecting people.<br />
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CB: And there's pressure to discover things that can be used at that point. People do good science. It's a tiny fraction that does bad science, or not-the-best science. But it affects us all.<br />
<br />
Another a weird parallel between science and dance is a bit of pretentiousness. I'm thinking about writing specifically. In scientific writing, you need language for talking to your peers and a different language for the general public. But I've read papers that are literally in my field and I don't understand what they are talking about.<br />
<br />
I think about communication a lot. If I'm writing a paper, I feel that my mom should be able to read my introduction and understand it. I think that is overlooked in science. And in dance. Especially in conceptual work, which sometimes seems like it has been made for other dancers, so when non-dancers come in they feel alienated.<br />
<br />
LR: I recently read the book <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/25245928-houston-we-have-a-narrative" target="_blank">Houston, We Have a Narrative</a> written by Randy Olson, a scientist who became a film maker and then became a coach for scientists on how to tell better stories about their science so that people get excited about it. To communicate with passion and interest.<br />
<br />
It's great you are already thinking about it.<br />
<br />
So what's this year like for you academically, artistically?<br />
<br />
CB: This year will be the final year of my degree. I'm doing an 8 month research project and taking a couple of courses in the winter, working with Frog in Hand on a new immersive production, Stories in the Woods (October 2019), working with Social Growl in the new year, on a new creation.<br />
<br />
LR: Lots of learning and new work. I know when I was in academics I loved learning and never questioned the constant learning curve, but in dance sometimes I find it hard -- maybe because my whole body is the tool -- sometimes I just want to work from a place of what I know. Just for five minutes. Then I'll go back to learning all the new.<br />
<br />
CB: Sometimes it's very nice to be told what to do. You want me to do a tendu? Sure. I know what that is. It's nice.<br />
<br />
LR: Was it similar for you in academics with the learning curve?<br />
<br />
CB: I feel that learning in my academic brain and my dancer brain are different. Working in a university, you kind of have to play a game. I've always been a school person and I can play that game. I test well and memorize and regurgitate. But the research project I did last year was an absolutely incredible experience. It has carried over into other aspects of my life: I don't know things, I am a baby in this new world and if I make a mistake there are real consequences. So checking the ego and asking for help and asking the stupid questions is better than to do something incorrectly. My research advisor was lovely and would answer all my stupid questions.<br />
<br />
Huge learning curve. I was there to learn, not to carry my ego in and pretend that I already know how to do it all. Because I don't. That was the point.<br />
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In dance now, I ask a lot of questions and try to leave the ego. Like floor work. It's not been part of my training and I don't know how to approach it. I need help and I don't need to pretend that I'm good.<br />
<br />
LR: I have taken two classes with <a href="https://www.spiritloft.com/trainers/elke-schroeder/" target="_blank">Elke Schroeder</a> who has a really unique and exciting approach to floor work and I love it but it is hard to be ok with being bad at it. But the more I learn about her teaching, the more I understand that being good at it is not the point or the benefit from doing the work. But you have to be willing to go in as baby in a new world, as you said, in order to figure that out.<br />
<br />
It's ok to say "I don't know."<br />
<br />
CB: It's fine.<br />
<br />
LR: It might solve a lot of problems in the world if we were all more willing to admit we don't know.<br />
<br />
CB: Even to say "This is what I've done and this is it. I'm not going to pretend it's anymore than that. And here's what I might do next."<br />
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Clarke Blair with Social Growl in Amorous Playlist</div>
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photo by Merick Williams</div>
<br />
LR: Speaking of what's next....what is your research project?<br />
<br />
CB: This is a great question I'm still in the process of negotiating what it is and I still have a lot reading to do. But it will focus on disorders of placental development. I'm still reading the papers. The lab where I work, the head works with imprinting, genetic imprinting. Two copies of every gene and only one is active and usually that is random. But in certain tissues it matters which gene is active. If the placenta is heavily dependent on the paternal genes so if you have a mutation in that gene it causes issues, or if its not activated or it is suppressed you can have problems with placenta formation.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.nature.com/news/sex-redefined-1.16943" target="_blank">HERE'S A LINK TO A PAPER THAT INFLUENCED CLARKE'S PASSION FOR THIS AREA OF STUDY.</a><br />
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LR: It's amazing that our bodies get up and do anything when you think of all the things that could go wrong and are constantly going wrong in there.<br />
<br />
CB: It actually is. Especially in pregnancy development -- there are so many things that can go wrong. So when they don't go wrong it really is a miracle that we can be born and be functional beings. It's wild.<br />
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LR: Do you have a specific hospital you will work with?<br />
<br />
CB: The lab I'm working in is out of Mount Sinai. I was born there.<br />
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LR: I would imagine as you get into a research project it can be hard to hold onto the fact that what you are doing is about taking care of people.<br />
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CB: The project I did last year was with baby fish up 15 days old, they were the size of my eyelash. What I was working on was related to a protein that is implicated in a human disease. So there was a care aspect to it, but my actual work was so removed from that....it was hard sometimes to care about 4 day old fish. I've been hunched over a microscope for hours, my eyes are kind of crossed. It's hard to remember the tangible aspect of what I'm doing.<br />
<br />
But sometimes science is just about learning about stuff, without a direct line to practical use.<br />
<br />
I like the people side of things, which is why fertility counselling is interesting to me. I can be communicating science to people who are not necessarily experts in that, and helping them understand the possibilities.<br />
<br />
LR: That exists in the arts too, that detachment from the deeper goal. Through art you really are trying to care for people not just your peers or your family. You are trying to offer the world something that will make us better.<br />
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CB: And you don't just want people to come see your work because you made it, but because it offers something else. That's difficult and scary and who knows if you can ever achieve it?<br />
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LR: You do all the research and you put it out there and you hope the audiences use it and run with it.<br />
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CB: The work changes based on who's in the room dancing and who's in the audience.<br />
<br />
LR: I'll wrap this up because I'm sure you have places to go! So to close, could you tell me what's your favourite thing about dance and your favourite thing about science?<br />
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CB: I think with both it's the research. Being able to dig in and sink in to something whether it's the function of a single protein in a cell or embodying a concept.<br />
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I do love them both.<br />
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******<br />
<br />
Art + Science interviews are made possible with the generous support of the Chalmers Family Fund Fellowship program, administered by the Ontario Arts Council.<br />
<br />
******<br />
<br />
In a wonderful twist of fate you can see choreography and performance by Lucy Rupert and by Clarke Blair (along with Sara Porter, Meagan O'Shea and Newton Moraes) this weekend at:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: , , , ".sfnstext-regular" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dance Matters</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: , , , ".sfnstext-regular" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Series 2 - Rebel Yells</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: , , , ".sfnstext-regular" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">February 8 @ 8pm, February 9 @ 4pm</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: , , , ".sfnstext-regular" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Citadel: Ross Centre for Dance, 304 Parliament St.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: , , , ".sfnstext-regular" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://dancematters.ca/tix/" target="_blank">Tickets</a></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: , , , ".sfnstext-regular" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Limited Seating, please purchase tickets in advance</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: , , , ".sfnstext-regular" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">$16-$20, available for purchase online below, or with cash only payment at the door</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: , , , ".sfnstext-regular" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">PWYC tickets - a limited number will be available at the door for Sundays' show</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: , , , ".sfnstext-regular" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tickets will be sold online up until 2hrs prior to the show after which they may be purchased at the box office 45min prior to curtain.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: , , , ".sfnstext-regular" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Featuring:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: , , , ".sfnstext-regular" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sara Porter, Lucy Rupert, Meagan O'Shea, Newton Moraes, Clarke Blair</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: , , , ".sfnstext-regular" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Postcard image featuring: Dancers: Emilio Colalillo and Falcione Patino Cruz, Choreographer: Newton Moraes, Photo by: Kent Waddington</span><br />
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Read about Clarke's choreography here: <a href="http://dancematters.ca/artist-blog/clarke-blair/?fbclid=IwAR0CSGxPd1xkEmyAXwVxqenzbf_vrxZwhMiT_9hYH8Uz41NkIwogmuwdyo0">http://dancematters.ca/artist-blog/clarke-blair/?fbclid=IwAR0CSGxPd1xkEmyAXwVxqenzbf_vrxZwhMiT_9hYH8Uz41NkIwogmuwdyo0</a><br />
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<br />Lucy Ruperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06687480416463324472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170266216054875252.post-1866754892527977712019-12-16T14:42:00.000-08:002020-06-05T05:25:35.154-07:00Sarah Stewart and Lucy Rupert in conversation-- what makes you curious?Sarah Stewart is a former marine biologist turned data librarian and PhD researcher studying the impact of open data on scientific research practices in biodiversity. She is also a fan of contemporary dance and visual art, with a strong interest in the exchange of information across disciplines.<br />
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Sarah appeared on my art-science horizon after the Squash Court Collective show "Mirrors" which I created with Paulina Derbez in the spring of 2019 at the Citadel. She volunteered to work box office for us and we chatted about the science and art connection. Sarah has been a supporter locally, and from afar, of mine for so long that I couldn't remember exactly how we met. Was it at Denise Fujiwara's butoh intensives? Was through the theatre world?<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Lucy Rupert and Paulina Derbez in "Mirrors" photo by Francesca Chudnoff</span></div>
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Thankfully Sarah remembered. It was through a classmate and good friend while I was doing my Master degree in History at the University of Toronto. Monika Berenyi -- a scholar and visual artists-- became a good friend and sometime collaborator during the early years of Blue Ceiling dance. We have since lost touch: Monika, where ever you are, I hope you are thriving and happy!<br />
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Sarah was a friend of Monika's back then and came to see our shows and now 15 years later, our curiosity has impelled to us interview each other on the art-science connection.<br />
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LUCY: So tell me about going from marine biology to data science?<br />
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SARAH: To be honest, it wasn’t that much of a shift – although in some ways it has been, perhaps in terms of more tangible ‘organismal’ thinking, such as identifying a bird or (in my case) seaweed, or other algae, or plants in their environment. Biology is becoming increasingly a ‘data-centric’ or even ‘data-driven’ science, and it is becoming transformed by digital data.<br />
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Biologists now are more likely to be working with data on computers as looking at specimens in a natural history collection in a museum or herbarium. This is something that I am currently investigating in my (part-time) DPhil at Oxford University, where I am examining how open biodiversity data (often generated from these natural history museum collections) is changing how scientists identify and study species. <br />
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My work as a biologist has mainly been investigating evolutionary relationships through a comparison of physical morphology and genetic sequences to determine how species evolve and change. I have studied a group of red algae, and was able to both collect them in the field (lots of hiking through incredible forests, in streams, and later, along the seashore!) and then take them to the lab to extract and sequence sections of their DNA for molecular comparison, and generate phylogenies, which are like family trees of evolutionary relationships.<br />
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I have been fortunate to work both in the field and with data, which is kind of a field of its own! It is exciting to be able to explore novel patterns in data, and find new connections, but at the same time, there is also a potential loss of context, as data is really just an abstraction of nature, and, although data can provide a very rich context in itself, it may ‘miss’ or even ‘misinterpret’ some things that can only be observed directly in situ. Data in itself likely only captures a specific part of a question posed about the natural world.<br />
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My current day-job is being a ‘data librarian’ at the British Library, which is fantastic, as I can work with data from many different disciplines – from the arts and humanities and from the sciences too. The British Library is currently developing a digital research repository with some other galleries and museums, including Kew Gardens, The British Museum and the Tate galleries, so it is an exciting time for open data in museums.<br />
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I’m curious to find out how the data that we are releasing ‘into the wild’ of the web will be used by researchers and, indeed, anyone who is interested. The great thing about making data ‘open’ and freely-accessible online is the innovation that it can inspire – from climate scientists looking at historic maps to determine how an environment has changed over time, to musicians making music from geological data and artists using collaged images from Victorian newspapers and city maps to tell stories! It is fascinating to see the synthesis of data to produce new knowledge.<br />
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LUCY: That mention of data "into the wild of the web" reminds me of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Macfarlane_(writer)" target="_blank">Robert Macfarlane</a> (and other researchers), when he has spoken about the wood wide web. Kind of an inverse of his inverted image. But in both there's distinct imagery of connection that permeates boundaries that we perceive otherwise as rigid or uncrossable. I think it was you who recommended I read Robert Macfarlane!<br />
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How would you explain or research data in “practice based art forms”? I feel like I know what this means, but probably not in an academic/research context.<br />
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SARAH: ‘Practice-based art forms’, is perhaps a rather dry, technical way of describing how ideas and new knowledge are manifested and generated through the actual process or workflow (the practice!) of creating a work – this could be an artwork such as a painting, a piece of music or a choreography, such as in a dance work. In the process of creating the work, the artist, author or creator produces knowledge through the synthesis of various ideas, inspirations and influences, so the creation of a work is essentially a form of research. For instance, you take a lot of inspiration from science to create your works and in your piece, ‘<a href="https://vimeo.com/294964055" target="_blank">The Speed of Our Vertigoes’</a>, which explores Einstein’s thought experiments and the development of the theory of relativity, and this work literally embodies how a scientific theory comes into being.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">original postcard image for The speed of our vertigoes, 2006</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">photo of Lucy by David Hou</span></div>
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Interestingly, in my own data and digital preservation work (wearing my data librarian hat), dance and other ‘practice-based’ forms of research and inquiry should be preserved as ‘data’, so finding a way to ‘preserve’ something that may not be directly tangible is also an interesting and challenging problem.<br />
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Dance is often considered to be an 'ephemeral' art form - how would you 'preserve' your choreographies for the future? Would you rely on digital technologies for this preservation?<br />
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LUCY: Mostly I do rely on digital technology, archival filming, iphone videos of rehearsals. sometimes I write out the choreography descriptively as well. Though the words I use are often not formal descriptions, more images and evocations. But perhaps in the future it will be more interesting to interpret “spin like a butterfly pinned to a cork board” than to just reproduce that form from video. it might actually reveal more about my intent with a piece of choreography than a list of codified "steps".<br />
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I tend not to worry too much about preservation on the whole. Perhaps it’s just the nature of the art form, and I have given in to the ephemerality. I think the ephemerality is part of what is special about dance and any performing art. It will never be the same twice. I hope the legacy of the work is small shifts or changes in the people who danced it and witnessed it. Those changes are the best preservation of a work a art.<br />
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What draws you to dance?<br />
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SARAH: I love that dance is so transformational and even transcendent – a dancer can literally embody anything from an animal or other being, to elements, sub-atomic particles, cancer cells, or even more abstract concepts like ideas or emotions. I also love that dance can be such a cultural medium of expression, and it can convey stories and histories that might not otherwise be expressed. It can give voice to the voiceless. Finally, I love how dance is such an expression of just being alive, in all its aspects!<br />
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I’ve been obsessed with Pina Bausch and Tanztheater Wuppertal, as these strange, and often absurd situations resemble my dreams!<br />
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In your own experience as a dancer, how would you 'capture' or 'embody' abstract scientific ideas in performance?<br />
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LUCY: This is tough to answer. I’ve trained a lot in butoh — a form of dance from post WWII Japan which focuses on transformation at a cellular (or imagined cellular) level. So I put that training into practice when working, but a lot of it is very instinctual. So it’s personal to my body and different in the bodies of other dancers I work with, but there is truth in all our responses.<br />
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What that looks like is a sort of mediation on a given idea, action or principle that unfolds into improvised movement and eventually is shaped into non-improvised choreography. Sometimes we stay improvisational with it, but give the image a specific task as well. For instance in our upcoming show there is an improvised segment where the all dancers are moving through space and connected by one finger to the person in front and behind them in the line, while trying to embody dark matter spreading into a vacuum. Another example is a duet in which the two dancers work with the same choreographic material but one is moving as a particle and one is moving as a wave. If they make eye contact they switch wave/particle roles.<br />
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The fundamental idea is to bypass the heavy, analytical thinking work and respond to the image/natural law/language and the choreography with the instincts of the highly skilled dancing body. It requires really remarkable artists who stay curious and don't judge their impulses too harshly.<br />
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With your PhD research, how do the arts integrate with your research?<br />
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SARAH: Sadly, at present, the arts don’t integrate as much with my research as I would like, but there is the possibility of using visual art techniques to ‘map’ how knowledge is produced through flows of data as a scientist conducts their research. Perhaps the flow of data into knowledge could even be danced! Maybe we could collaborate here?<br />
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LUCY: Any time. That would be a challenge!<br />
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SARAH: Art and science are very similar in terms of their use of ‘practice’ as a mode of inquiry and research. Einstein demonstrates this through his thought experiments, which are like a form of 'practice-based' research, similar to how a choreographer might create a dance work. The evolutionary biologist and entomologist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._O._Wilson" target="_blank">Edward O. Wilson</a> wrote a very interesting book, Consilience, on the synthesis and unity of knowledge derived from human thought, which finds parallels between the arts and sciences. In order to produce knowledge in both the sciences and the arts, creativity, imagination, and the ability to observe and find new patterns is necessary. It will be interesting to study how data is turned into knowledge in a scientific context, and see the parallels in a humanities context, too.<br />
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What inspires you about science?<br />
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LUCY: When I really started down this road of science through dance etc -- back in 2005 --it was the way ideas unfold from scientists, the realization (though it should have been obvious, I suppose) that all these ideas are human-generated and thus part of a creative process. I was immediately inspired by the language scientists choose to name or describe things; “the violence of metamorphosis” and “heliopause” and “coronal mass ejections”. I encountered one scientist's description of the scientific process as: saturate, incubate, illuminate, verify. And it seemed to me to describe the artistic process perfectly as well.<br />
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I started reading a lot about astrophysics/cosmology after my father died in 1996. I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. I had just graduated from university with a Joint Honours BA in Dance and Music, and no distinct plan other than “to make it as a dancer”, not really knowing what that meant or entailed. I went back home to the house I’d lived in from birth til 19, and rode my mom’s stationary bike (when I was 15 she had passed away from multiple myeloma cancer but she used to ride her stationary bike at home for the Great Ride for Cancer) while I read Darwin and Sagan for hours at a time. It was the liberation of knowing how vast and complex the universe is that allowed me to proceed without a distinct plan. just what my next step might be, and to be ok with the not-knowing beyond that.<br />
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Over the years, this has transformed into a love of learning about frontiers of science — particularly astrophysics, cosmology, evolutionary biology, neurology — and an excitement about the mystery that is inherent in science. The path of the unknown never ends. There will never be a complete theory of the universe.<br />
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I’m definitely a Type A personality — I like order and discipline and to-do lists and equations and problem solving. I also like bringing together seemingly disparate ideas to find new patterns and connections. Science does all of this as rigorously as does dance. The challenge of trying to really understand the science I'm reading about appeals to the ghost of my student-overachiever self.<br />
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SARAH: From your experience and interviews, how do you envision the intersections between art and science?<br />
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LUCY: Well, I really think we have something in common — science and the arts often get restricted and limited under conservative governments and I’m sure that is related to the fact that both use their disciplines to describe the nature of reality, and it’s messy and mysterious and not at all comfortable. To challenge the status quo on a fundamental level is very confrontational. It encourages independent thought and creative problem solving, which is not always in vogue. I think using science as a launching point for art articulates the science more imaginatively for people who aren’t scientists and also gives a grounding for audiences who may be uneasy with contemporary art.<br />
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I think we need to team up to support and express or reveal each other’s discoveries.<br />
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Art + Science interviews are made possible with the generous support of the Chalmers Family Fund Fellowship program, administered by the Ontario Arts Council.<br />
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Catch Blue Ceiling dance's next science-inspired show in January at The Theatre Centre<br />
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<a href="https://tickets.theatrecentre.org/TheatreManager/1/tmEvent/tmEvent288.html" target="_blank">TICKETS TO 8 MINUTES 17 SECONDS</a><br />
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<br />Lucy Ruperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06687480416463324472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170266216054875252.post-34900624189829014622019-12-03T14:23:00.002-08:002020-06-05T05:25:59.191-07:00Katrina Sukola -- the healthy divide<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Katrina Sukola is another scientist with whom I connected through unexpected serendipity.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Two summers ago my son came home from summer camp at the High Park Nature Centre rhapsodizing about a kid named Clem who was in his group. They were both into Voltron and Lego and nature and want to be architects or designers of some kind when they grow up! So on the last day of camp I tracked down Clem's father and offered him my email address. Clem's mom emailed me later and told me she remembered me from the University of Waterloo dance program. We had taken ballet classes together at the Carousel Dance Centre -- a dance school that ran out of the Dance Dept. studios in the evenings when university classes were done. Vania, Clem's mom, was in high school and I was taking extra ballet classes to supplement my university classes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Fast forward a year and a half: Pablo and Clem are good friends, still into Voltron and Lego and being architects, and also Star Wars and graphic novels and theories about Dumbledore based on the Fantastic Beasts movies.....When I put a call out for female scientists who might be interested in participating in my art/science interviews, Vania recommended her sister Katrina -- who also took dance classes at the Carousel Dance Centre.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Katrina balances a career as a water quality/water resources specialist, with teaching yoga and over some of the years maintaining a performance life in dance.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">LUCY: what is your practice or history with science, personally and professionally?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">KATRINA: I did my undergrad in environmental chemistry, and M.Sc. in chemistry with research related to fresh water aquatic systems. After grad school I did an internship researching toxicology -- chemical fate and effects --in marine waters, and my first job after that was managing a lab and doing chemical oceanography research. After that I shifted to non -profit work for a local watershed organization, managing their water quality monitoring programs. While working, I couldn't get enough and volunteered for other environmental non-profits. Now I do environmental consulting, with water quality and hydrology as my area of specialty. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I continue to support local environmental nonprofits, not as much as previously, but still tapped into some nonprofits. And my bookshelf has a collection of non fiction science books, mostly focused on some environmental issue --water, forestry, climate, and aquatic ecology -- for some "light reading".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">LUCY: What are some of your favourites for “light reading” as you put it— climate, ecology, water etc? I’m always looking for more books to add to my reading list!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">KATRINA: I don't have a favourite author, but I am interested in certain topics. My favourite place to get books is a small bookstore in Tofino, BC, so a lot of the books are themed around the Pacific Northwest (Even when I lived on the east coast, I would fly here for holiday and get books). A favourite book is the Golden Spruce (by John Vaillant about logging in BC), This Crazy Time (by Tzeporah Berman starts with logging and ends with Climate change and environmental organizing), and books about water resources, and local guide/foraging books although I don't forage much.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">LUCY: And what is your relationship to art and creativity, personally and professionally?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">KATRINA: I started dancing at the age of 5, and danced through high school, ballet, tap, jazz, ballet exams, and dance competitions. I also studied piano for 6-8 years. More recitals and competitions. I taught dance my 1st year of undergrad, but took a break from dance for 3 years until grad school when I took adult classes at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. I moved to Boston and continued at the Boston Ballets adult program, and took other classes as well (contemporary, flamenco, aerial) for about 8-10 years. I was also in two dance companies and performed in a number of shows.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Now I teach yoga. Although my teaching is rooted in traditional yoga, my classes usually have some element of movement that challenges my students coordination. I think of it as movement education in a yoga class :) I went to a contemporary dance class a few weeks ago, first time in 4 yrs. I have a full schedule so hoping to go back.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Over the years I've also taken a number of art classes - 2 week pottery intensive, 2 different print making series (1 and 6 week), metal clay workshops, jewelry classes, and knit whenever I'm inspired (usually just baby gifts these days). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Teaching yoga is my creative outlet. Designing classes, sequences and flows, plus music playlists. I teach full time and do environmental consulting part time. I needed that balance between art and science. Consulting full time was too serious, but I love my science side, and couldn't imagine not doing it all.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">LUCY: What dance companies did you work with and when? after grad school? during?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">KATRINA: After grad school while working in Boston, I performed with Screech to a Stop/Around the Corner Movers (2007- 2013), and some projects with independent choreographers for a number of shows and festivals (2004-2013).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">LUCY: What motivated you to keep performing when you were on a path for science?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">KATRINA: It was when I moved to Winnipeg for grad school that brought me back to dance. It was something familiar in a new place. That's what motivated me to continue dancing when I moved to Boston. A sense of community, something familiar, a way to meet people, and get out of the house! It was nice to have a different group of people that where outside of the science background I was surrounded by. Even though my day job is science-based, I was never and still not addicted to work, and like to leave work at work, and have something else. I like having that balance, or different side. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My husband, also a scientist, is the same way. We're not obsessed with science all the time, which is typically of most science based people. It was also interesting to meet other dancers who were also scientists, who felt the same way as I did about about their co-workers, they took it too seriously, most of the time. Or more commonly, dancers who become yoga teachers, which is where I ended up.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">LUCY: How do you frame or experience creativity in your scientific work? and from the other perspective, do you feel your experience or process in science informing your work as a yoga teacher?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">KATRINA: My yoga teaching is alignment based, giving lots of cues. That being said, I'm learning not to use cookie cutter cues, but allowing space for students to create their own pose, based on their unique structure and needs. I use real anatomical terms, and plan classes around muscle groups to prepare for the class's peak pose. As part of maintaining one of my teaching licenses, I have to do continuing education, that usually involves technique and anatomy. The body work training I'm currently doing also overlaps with anatomy focused continuing education.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As far as experiencing creativity in my scientific work, that doesn't come up as often. Most of my projects are related to policy, that are rigid and concrete. I'm not involved in the design phase of projects, but the permitting and regulatory side. Sometimes there is out of the box thinking (a project on the coastline or bay adopting for mid- or late-century sea level rise), but most jurisdictions have design requirements. When there're missing, we tend to recycle concepts or ideas, so projects meet the necessary approvals. And any idea we brainstorm has to be approved by the client. To be honest, I prefer when the client does their homework, and provides a design that would be approved. There are too many rules to check, they change, and vary across jurisdictions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">LUCY: Have you witnessed in your work in hydrology etc. the coming together of art and science for public dissemination or education etc? I think of this beautiful TedX Talk excerpt : </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">KATRINA: When I worked for a non-profit, I did a lot of public presentations, trainings, and workshops for environmental education and program development. I managed a citizen science water quality program. Over 40 volunteers collected water quality samples year round, over 100 ppl attended our trainings and workshops to learn about river herring and volunteered to count fish for population studies. As a non-profit, we had 5 employees, and a team of hundreds of volunteers who participated in our programs. A good presentation - plus flyers, webpage, online and print media, etc. -- would drive membership and volunteer participation. We also worked with youth, which usually involved some type of creative outlet -- making watersheds in a box, signs for new rain gardens, etc.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In consulting, most of our documents go out to the public for public review (for comments and approval by authorities). We have a team of publishing specialists who create good looking documents. The documents go through vigorous editing and formatting so documents are easy to read for the public. The better, and more clearly written the document, the less comments we anticipate, and the quicker the approvals. The reports included figures, photos, and maps, developed by our editing and data team. The figures and maps usually have a lot of data that explains (or supports) data better than text. When writing my analysis, I always need to see design figures, maps, etc and create tables and figures, before getting into my analysis.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">LUCY: That is a nice segue to an upcoming interview with a data science. An element of the art-science intersection, I hadn't really considered before. Thank you Katrina for your time and effort in this email back and forth to make this interview happen!!</span><br />
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Art + Science interviews are made possible with the generous support of the Chalmers Family Fund Fellowship program, administered by the Ontario Arts Council.</div>
Lucy Ruperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06687480416463324472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170266216054875252.post-70913169131258727082019-11-22T08:36:00.001-08:002020-06-05T05:26:55.172-07:00John Brumell: the light and the space to figure things out<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>This is the first thing I see when I reach the Cell Biology Lab at the Hospital for Sick Children. After fumbling my way through security and fobs and confusing elevators, I meet the director of the lab in this beautiful lounge. This is actually what we spend the first 15 minutes talking about: the architecture, the way this vista and lounge area connects three floors of research in a communal space of air and light. Dr. John Brumell speaks about watching the Nobel awards, FIFA World Cup and the action of city in this space. How all of this space and light induces collaboration, new ideas, and quick problem solving.</i></div>
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<i>Dr. Brumell is Co-director at the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Centre at the Hospital for Sick Children, Head and Senior Scientist at the Research Institute for Cell Biology, a Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto, and the Pitblado Chair in Cell Biology at the Hospital for Sick Children</i></div>
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<i>He is also the father of one of my son's best buddies and one of the funniest people I have ever met. Over the years, we have commiserated about grant writing, we've toasted each other's grant successes and bemoaned the roadblocks at many a social gathering. John is also the instigator of this series of interviews about the art-science intersection. Ironically he has been the most elusive to pin down for an interview date. It was John who related to me his view that artists and scientists do the same thing: walk into the dark, try to illuminate it, then walk further into a new darkness. We try to explain or describe reality due to a commitment to our own curiosities and to the darkness itself.</i></div>
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photo courtesy of Sick Kids Hospital</div>
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<i>John shows me the lab offices, and continues to explain how architecture and design inform the way the lab works. The interns and assistants have desks along the outside by the windows and the leaders and directors are in offices in the centre.</i></div>
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<i>"It brings us out of our offices." he says.</i></div>
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<i>In fact most of the good conversations happen in the wide space between the window-side desks and doors to the leaders' offices.</i></div>
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<i>"This is where the problem-solving happens."</i><br />
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<i>I think it is remarkable that there is such a deep awareness of how space creates the intellectual and emotional relationships that build a workplace. Another assumption I had -- that dancers hold the lion's share of spatial awareness and sensitivity -- has been debunked. I am glad and inspired by it.</i></div>
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<i>The lab itself is nothing like I expected: sterile, orderly, cold. It is none of those things. It too is airy and light. Filled with equipment and supplies, clean but lived-in. John casually picks up and shows me a petri dish filled with "maybe 2 million salmonella bacteria".</i></div>
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Lucy: My first big question is how did you wind up here? What was the spark that took you to this place ?<br />
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John: Oh....well like any career there have been lots of mentors and influences along the way, but a lot of what drives you into a career like this is basic personality. When I was a kid I had a mom who was a nurse and father who was in the business world who then became an entrepreneur. So that was the perfect training for being in the health world.You have to appreciate medicine and science, and it's kind of like you're running a franchise at the same time.<br />
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As a kid I was into natural things...I remember my neighbour's older brother caught a fish and opened it up, pulled out all the organs, the swim bladder, the intestines. and I was fascinated....that's how they controlled their buoyancy? that's how that works? Long before the grade 9 experiment when you had to dissect a frog, remember?<br />
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Lucy: oh yes, I remember.<br />
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John: This was with a real live fresh fish. The stories my mom would tell me. As a nurse there are somethings she'd see that were miraculous and somethings that were horrific. This would just be common discussion at the dinner table. I would hear about what happens to a guy that falls off a motorcycle at high speed.<br />
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Lucy: Was your mom an emergency room nurse?<br />
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John: She kind of did everything over the years.<br />
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She could tell you the problems of a diabetic. She taught me how to put needles in a person. For my PhD I took blood and she was the one who taught me how to do it properly. Delivering babies to 11 years olds -- it blows your mind -- but for her it was the natural world of the hospital.<br />
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My dad was in sales and started several different companies...That creative entrepreneurial "see-an-opportunity-and-go-for-it" had a big imprint on me. Sometimes in science we have to see beyond the known.<br />
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I have this discussion with my students where I say this is a cool possibility, we should look into this. And they go and look at the literature and come back and say "there's absolutely nothing written on this why would you think it's a good idea?" and I have to say "That's the point." We don't want to discover the known, but the unknown.<br />
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Those were my early influences and my personality predisposing me to a career in science. The traits of a good scientist will make you good in business, good as an artist, many things.<br />
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It just worked out that I had a really great chemistry teacher in grade 11 and that solidified my interest in science before i had lots of interests...I actually thought about becoming an electrician...This chemistry teacher got me excited. And I liked math so I thought I'd be an chemical engineer.<br />
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I did chemistry at at the University of Western Ontario, and realized I didn't want to do engineering. I discovered Bio chemistry. Again I had a great professor. I realized this was the chemistry of life and that's what I cared about. I didn't care about electrons and orbitals and chemical bonds. I wanted to see the bigger picture.<br />
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That's the nuts and bolts of cellular stuff. Over the years many of the best discoveries have come from biochemists because they went into fields without preconceived notions of those fields. I went into microbiology without ever having read a microbiology textbook. A colleague of mine, who almost won the Nobel prize -- said his advantage when he went into immunology was that he never read an immunology text book. He moved into that field without being tainted by old-school views.<br />
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Lucy: I've heard that in several different contexts: if you go into a field with whatever expertise you have, but without the dogma or rules that have already been laid out, you're able to manouevre and innovate because you haven't heard the "no". So you go that way and then someone says "but you can't go that way" and you say "But I'm already here."<br />
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John: I think one of the beauties of science is that you can have people come in from the outside and blow things up. You can. Because we don't have dictators or tyrants at the top of the food chain crushing the new ideas at the bottom. We don't. We might try but we just can't. Because the data stands, the ideas will rise.<br />
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There's a lot of discussion right now about a turmoil in the bioscience world. It revolves around biological reproducibility. About studies that are published but their data can't be reproduced by other scientists. There's almost a suggestion of fraud in some cases. It shows an ignorance of what we're dealing with. It's bioscience. We're trying to reverse engineer something that has evolved over 2 billion years and every step of that evolution has been by accident. And we're putting this up against computers, which have evolved over 80 years in very specific deliberate design.<br />
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Lucy: But there are people who deliberately mislead for profit or reputation?<br />
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John: The amount of real fraud out there is small, I think. When you see different results to the same problems, I think "they are all right!" When I started my lab, not even my career, but my lab, 17 years ago there was the idea of autophagy and a couple people knew about it, while everyone else ignored it. Looking at protein degradation experiments, they made strong statements about what was happening but they were missing out on this beast that controls everything -- autophagy. They know that now but back then.....I have a quote here from a peer review of a paper a colleague and I submitted:<br />
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"All these discrepancies should be resolved or explained in the manuscript"<br />
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Everything had to be explained. We were shocked. This idea that you could explain everything in one paper.<br />
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We're still missing a lot and we know that. We have to battle the idea that everything is known.<br />
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Lucy: That's interesting because I think of that as being the conservative minded approach to science, especially the religious conservative view of science. That it needs to explain everything. But that's not actually what science does.<br />
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To hear that this is more broadly within your field ---<br />
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John: It's our enemy.<br />
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Lucy: I guess in every field there is conservatism. The old guard that is threatened by the new?<br />
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John: It kind of kills the romance too. You're trying to train your students to see there is so much opportunity, so much to discover. And they get that comment that you have to nitpick every detail of your data.<br />
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Lucy: But that process of nitpicking your data would never end.<br />
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John: Exactly. This is a relatively new thing. Ten or fifteen years ago, you could say "interestingly we observed this and it doesn't fit our model, but we'll report it."<br />
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Lucy: But now they could come down on you if you didn't explain that detail?<br />
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John: Now you sweep it under the rug and you don't talk about it.<br />
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Lucy: That's sad. Because that one little thing could be what sparks a whole new solution to a problem.<br />
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John: I know. In older papers there are nuggets that you could run with for a new study.<br />
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Lucy: A springboard.<br />
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John: There is a famous one. We showed that listeria is a bacteria that grows inside the cytosol of cells. The gel-like expansive part of the cell. In this paper we found it could grow inside the vacuous compartments. The whole field to this point had said "no, this doesn't happen" but we saw these results and I called my colleague at Harvard. He said "I've seen it once before."<br />
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He pulled out a paper from ten years before, on immunology and infection and buried in this paper was this image of the bacteria in the vacuous parts. We knew what we had found was real. So I called the senior author of this paper -- famous guy, probably going to win the Nobel prize soon -- I asked him if had any more samples.<br />
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He didn't but he said he'd reinfect the mice and send fresh samples. We got the images and it supported our findings too. From that we could see that the bacteria actually spend most of their time in the vacuous parts. They go into the gel-like part to spread.<br />
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Lucy: What you discovered was kind of like the bacterial home base.<br />
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John: Yes. It was kind of a flashy paper we published because it turned the idea of listeria on its head. And because we looked at an unexplained detail in a decade-old paper.<br />
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Lucy: I love that your work includes a colleague saying "I will reinfect some mice for you."<br />
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So is Listeria your disease? every medical research scientist seems to have their own.<br />
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John: Ha. So true. I have a colleague in Virginia who says she's gonorrhea. She has a sign in her office that says "I don't have gonorrhea, but I'm working on it"<br />
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Mine are salmonella and listeria. As a cell biologist it is fascinating how they grow in our cells, including our immune system cells. Those cells hunt disease and infection, and these two diseases use them like a playground.<br />
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We're studying the mechanisms of how these bacteria can overcome defences and gain nutrients, replicate. How they spread from cell to cell. That's really important in animals cells -- how they can do this and evade the immune system the whole time. How do our cells fight back? Even in the face of toxins we usually win. We can suppress pretty much everything.<br />
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That's the main playground we work with. We look at these things in a dynamic context. With our new microscopes we are able to see the dynamic events and really see the interactions.<br />
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<i>John shows me the microscope labs. A darkened, deep closet-shaped room. A young man is at work there conjuring up colourized images from his microscope straight to the screen of his computer. </i><br />
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<i>Networks and nebula of green and red appear on a black depth of background.</i><br />
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<i>"Have you ever noticed how these cells resemble images from the Hubble Telescope -- images of star formations and deaths?" I asked.</i><br />
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<i>"No. Really?"</i><br />
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<i>"Absolutely."</i><br />
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<i>Things are constantly revealing themselves as echoes, repetitions, fine-threaded and interconnected webs.</i><br />
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John: Our colleagues who are looking at inflammatory diseases are finding that the machinery that we are studying is effected. The ability to handle microbes is altered in people with chronic inflammatory disease.<br />
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Lucy: Interesting.....<br />
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John: It makes sense because we are in a dirty world. Ad we need a lot of defences to fight them. So if you are missing some or them it can cause disorder that stays with you. In working a pediatric hospital we are dealing with kids in the early stages of the disorders and we are usually able to find some genetic component and study it.<br />
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We can look at listeria and take out a gene really commonly affected in kids with Crohn's disease and ask how it affects the interaction. Usually its very dramatic -- it spreads faster or kills the cells better.<br />
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Lucy: My very basic understanding of an immune system tells me that if the immune system is compromised it will be further compromised.<br />
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<i>John pulls out a box of plush toys "Giant microbes Blood Cells 1,000,000 times the actual size! Contains White Blood Cell, Red Blood Cell, Plasma, Platelets and Antibody". He just happens to have it in his office.</i><br />
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Lucy: I could've used this when my mom was sick because it was hard for me to understand all the jargon about her white blood cell count and why and how that effected or revealed what was going on with her cancer.<br />
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John: The state of the art is that now we understand how many microbes are in our intestines and our blood and everywhere. Microbes are escaping every time our body works hard at something.<br />
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Lucy: It's amazing that any of us are alive when we think of the millions of things constantly going wrong, or battling all the time. We're so resilient and so fragile. How do we hold it together for 70-100 years<br />
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John: And that's very recent. You know not that long ago it was like 25. You were ready to pass on your genes at 11. It's very hard in the modern world to take in that information but my mom was a nurse and it was common. The younger they were the quicker they got up and left the hospital after giving birth to a baby. When the standard was a week in the hospital after a birth, the very young were up and out right away. That's how nature works.<br />
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Lucy: You just had a baby in the field, right?<br />
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John: And then the baby got up and walked. Like deer.<br />
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Lucy: Ha. But seriously, it's quite shocking how quickly things are changing for a complex species that should take a really long time - for the adaptations of evolution to show up.<br />
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John: Look at how big these kids are!<br />
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Lucy: Yeah I know -- you and I each have one of those. Jake and Pablo are both tall for their age, but they are not alone. The growth tables may have to change, at least in this part of the world?<br />
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John: I have friend working in cell size research and how it relates to organism size and he's finding that there are these amazing evolutionary trade offs in this constant race. Cells speed up how fast they grow, how big they get, how quickly they divide and the trade off is fitness or lifespan. Dinosaurs are a good example. How big they got so quickly. Lifespan is related. There are zombies in nature, but no vampires. You can't just go on forever......well you could argue that stem cells kind of can but.....<br />
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Lucy: That was another interview I did! With <a href="http://blueceilingdancer.blogspot.com/2019/05/questioning-questions-neural-science.html" target="_blank">Cindi Morshead</a>.<br />
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John: Zombies are real.<br />
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Lucy: I was reading something about this in a book by <a href="http://blueceilingdancer.blogspot.com/2019/03/as-right-as-you-can-be-in-moment.html" target="_blank">Alanna Mitchell</a>, I think. tell me more.<br />
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John: Zombies are aging-related and infection-related. As you age some of your cells become zombies, kind of damaged, kind of disheveled looking, metabolizing but not fully. They refuse to die. unless you shoot them right in the head.<br />
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Lucy: Of course. Do they slowly travel up towards your head muttering "brains...brains"?<br />
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John: Of course. But it's a really interesting thing because they're finding if you can clear out some of these cells, you look better. They have seen it in mice, these sort of disheveled old mice wind up looking like handsome George Clooney mice.<br />
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Lucy: Don't let the cosmetics industry hear about this.<br />
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John: There will be creams that remove senescent cells from your face.<br />
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Lucy: Can't wait for the commercials with the little zombies getting shot.<br />
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<i>We could keep talking for hours but John must get back to his research and I must get to rehearsal. So we'll end our conversation with zombie jokes and retrace our steps through the beautiful lounge and back to the elevators.</i><br />
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<i>On my way out of the building and back to the subway, I feel light and optimistic walking through the 'hospital district'. </i><i>I have often wondered about how saddening it may be to study disease, especially in a clinical or research hospital setting.</i><i> 'Enlightenment' means knowledge or deeper awareness, but the word could also mean the lightening of a load. Walking through these tall, many-windowed buildings where the researchers have the opportunity to look at the sky frequently, I consider the interconnectivity of architecture, nature, and curiosity -- all evident in Dr. John Brumell's lab -- create a lighter world.</i><br />
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<i>Until the zombie apocalpyse of course.</i><br />
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Art + Science interviews are made possible with the generous support of the Chalmers Family Fund Fellowship program, administered by the Ontario Arts Council.<br />
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<br />Lucy Ruperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06687480416463324472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170266216054875252.post-55018815157108533712019-11-17T10:03:00.001-08:002019-11-17T10:03:04.875-08:00Visiting the Gentle, Odd Apocalpyse with JD Dance<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Visiting a rehearsal is like stepping through the looking glass. It is a world of curiosities, peculiarities, frustrations and unripened temperaments, which are all part of the process of honing a wild idea into a wild performance. The resulting production or performance will have all these characteristics, sometimes latent, sometimes frothing over. But where you start is never where you end up. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is why, of late, I love sitting in on rehearsals and observing before I see a production. And I was honoured when Jesse Dell and Jordana Deveau invited me to sit in on a rehearsal and write about it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The origin or spark of new performance work has a sweet evolution, no matter how painful or painstaking the process is. Sometimes it's a breeze, but those processes are whimsical anecdotes. The real function and work of art and art-making is living in the shit. Artist or not, we all experience that inescapable point of living in the shit. We work hard to create beautiful provocative, entertaining, moving, enlightening, funny, dark, thrilling performances that reflect the galaxies, worlds, communities and realities we live in. That is our main task as artists, in my view. And those realities are complicated, messy and gorgeously shapeshifting.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All these thoughts are flowing through me as I sit on the rickety bench outside Toronto Dance Theatre waiting to visit JD Dance's rehearsal for In Absentia -- premiering this week as part of <a href="https://www.danceworks.ca/mainstage_event/jddance/" target="_blank">DanceWorks Mainstage Series</a>. </span><br />
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photo by Craig Chambers</div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.jddance.ca/" target="_blank">JD Dance</a> -- Jordana Deveau and Jesse Dell -- has been developing this work for 5 years, over which time both artists have taken up residences outside the city while still managing their Toronto-based careers. Jesse gave birth to twins. There were cast changes, funding and theatre challenges, and the general, universal challenge of how to execute a big, sweeping vision with a small company infrastructure.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They are two remarkable women, that is for sure. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In Absentia is choreographed by another remarkable woman with a large, sweeping vision: Sharon Moore, who has made spectacles for the PanAm Games, choreographed zombies in big budget films, created solos for emerging artists and all things in between.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I ask Jesse why they commissioned Sharon, why for JD Dance? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />"I believe it was one afternoon in the foyer of <a href="https://www.ccdt.org/" target="_blank">Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre </a>Sharon asked us if we would like to get into the studio with her. Jordy and I are pretty much game for anything and definitely loved the multifaceted and complex nature of Sharon's work. We love physical work, we love theatrical work and we love a challenge, so from the beginning it was a good fit." Jesse said, "Jordy and I have always talked about upping the ante with each project we embark upon and we knew working with Sharon was definitely gonna do that."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rehearsal begins as they sort, assemble and organize cardboard boxes...many cardboard boxes. Sharon explains to me that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and shows me a maquette (also a prop piece) of a cardboard cyclone which will figure prominently on stage.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As they begin working, the cardboard transforms from boxes to a ledge, an umbrella, a burden, a portal -- all the while still evidently cardboard. For me the effect is wreckage and rubble, and yet also the domain of childhood: building worlds out of cardboard boxes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Those two ideas can be held as one, as Jordana and Jesse are two childlike creatures who seem to not understand the world they find themselves in, inhabited by five equally peculiar and perhaps a little confrontational beings. Together they seem to be making new rules for a new society, while no one speaks the same language. They are coping with a wrecked world of imposed limitations without knowledge of why there are these limitations or of their own prior existences.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am reminded of the Maze Runner book series, T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland, The Wizard of Oz, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Lord of the Flies, but this choreographic work doesn't quite live in any of these specific references.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It skims over the familiar with a wicked sense of humour and expansive physicality, as the weirdest obstacle course, ever.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The score is gorgeous, equal parts of indicative and elusive waves created by composer Allen Cole. The music just enough description at one moment then heads off in a different more abstract direction. A kind of mythology underlying this new society the dancers may be trying to construct.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I asked Jordana about how living out of the city -- both she and Jesse both live in homes in rural areas outside of Toronto -- has shaped this production.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-size-adjust: auto;">"I am still very much here (in Toronto), or in two places at once! My time between the city and wilds, between two worlds in a way, feels analogous to how our characters in IN ABSENTIA are straddling two worlds – trying to hold on to pieces of a past life while being inevitably pulled towards another.</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-size-adjust: auto;"> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-size-adjust: auto;">Being closer to nature and spending time in my garden fills me up and keeps me grounded in a way that I feel supports my artistic life. It provides much needed balance and perspective and reminds me to slow down, breathe, and understand that everything in this world is a process, like the seasons, part of a bigger cycle. Details are important, and also, tiny specks in the grand scheme of things."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She likens this to the roles both she and Jesse play in the production: producers and performers. </span><br />
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<span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"I think the hardest part is the simultaneity – trying to do both and be both at the same time. We want to enable our creative and design team to realize their full artistic visions, but of course as producers, the challenge is to do this while managing the budget! The biggest challenge of performing in this context will be to ‘shut off’ my producer brain – let go of the logistics and details – and be able to be fully immersed in the work as an interpreter and performer."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I know exactly what she means. It is a vivid reality for dance artists of all kinds these days. But it extends beyond the realm of dance. It is the crunch of multiple identities we all have: how to have them coexist and not topple each other.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And this, I think, is what I was getting to at the beginning of this blog. Our job as artists is to create performances that live, thrive, relish and languish in the discomfort and awkwardness of life. If we can do this as performers, perhaps our audiences can feel recognition and release.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">IN ABSENTIA is a world that is powered by imagination the way Earth relies on sunlight. Performers activate a constant wonder with the actions and reactions happening around them. It a strangely alive landscape of rubble. A gentle but odd post-apocalypse.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglLqaVEi-TQJXk83ew5CCbn-LF72Iza3Xviyk1_t-XTSJ7LqjVtoxoQMvR_Ldsqo7vlQS3gIzuRgq1ImxuIKPvjnPrd29kOnFJ7QEyL9u4eYDR0OGtD6L2xVOtUHfueK9eH4-VZ32XM0ae/s1600/079_In+Absentia+Residency-+photo+by+Craig+Chambers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1060" data-original-width="1600" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglLqaVEi-TQJXk83ew5CCbn-LF72Iza3Xviyk1_t-XTSJ7LqjVtoxoQMvR_Ldsqo7vlQS3gIzuRgq1ImxuIKPvjnPrd29kOnFJ7QEyL9u4eYDR0OGtD6L2xVOtUHfueK9eH4-VZ32XM0ae/s400/079_In+Absentia+Residency-+photo+by+Craig+Chambers.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How did they arrive at this subject matter?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-size-adjust: auto;">"The seeds of the subject matter were there in the beginning, some ideas that were whirling around in Sharon's mind --but it definitely developed over time." says Jesse, </span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> "</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The cardboard was there from the beginning.</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> Over each creation process the amount of cardboard grew and grew. It is currently close to 1000 lbs of cardboard. </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The skeletons made their way into the second process and I believe it was in the second process that Sharon had visions of the Wraiths (the 5 other dancers). She talked about them </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">as the force that rips everything apart and the glue that brings it all back together again. A constant cycle of creation and destruction, destruction and creation. I</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">n the third process Jordana, Sharon and I spent some time with Anne Barber of Shadowland Theatre, she gave us some tips on working with the skeletons as puppets. We worked with the Wraiths -- unfortunately only Kathia remains from the original group but the dancers with us now are great too."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is a fabulous team, with great, evident personalities on which Sharon capitalizes. Together, Jesse, Jordana, Yiming, Noah, Hilary, Kathia and Jake make a motley and beautiful crew of misfits.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After watching this rehearsal of violence, tenderness, raw physicality and crazy voices, I can't wait to see the premiere.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">IN ABSENTIA </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nov. 21-23, 2019 @ The Harbourfront Centre Theatre</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a JDdance production </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">presented by DanceWorks </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">concept, choreography & direction: Sharon B. Moore </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">set & lighting design: Steve Lucas </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">projection design: Laura Warren </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">sound composition: Allen Cole </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">costume design: Sonja Rainey</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">production manager: Suzie Balogh</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">stage manager: Laura Cournoyea</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">assistant stage manager: Hannah MacMillan </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">performers: Jordana Deveau & Jesse Dell </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Noah Blatt, Yiming Cai, Hilary Knee, Jake Ramos & Kathia Wittenborn</span><br />
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<a href="https://www.harbourfrontcentre.com/whatson/dance.cfm?id=10661&festival_id=0" target="_blank">TICKETS </a>Lucy Ruperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06687480416463324472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170266216054875252.post-45896264509941999262019-05-15T15:37:00.001-07:002020-06-05T05:27:56.905-07:00Questioning the questions: Neural Science with Cindi Morshead<div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; text-size-adjust: auto;">
In the process organizing Blue Ceiling dance's first Art + Science Evening, I chatted with Carol Walmsley, who works at <a href="http://www.swanseatownhall.ca/q-about.php" target="_blank">Swansea Town Hal</a>l where our A+S events are happening. Our conversation started with rental rates and event themes and ranged to local scientists we know. Carol spoke highly of her friend Cindi Morshead, a University of Toronto professor, Chair of the Anatomy department and a most excellent public speaker. Carol introduced Cindi and I through email and several months of arranging our schedules later, Cindi and I finally sat down together. </div>
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Inspiring, funny and frank, Cindi is a wonderful storyteller and a formidable scientist. You can join us at Blue Ceiling dance's second Art + Science Evening, June 14th, 2019 at 730pm at Swansea Town Hall, where the company will show excerpts of our new work-in-progress and you'll get the full, glorious impact of Cindi, as she will be speaking about her work. Read on for a taste.....</div>
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LR: I've explained to you a bit about my curiosities as a choreographer and my reason for doing these interviews -- to learn more about how scientists see their work and their creativity. So I guess a good place to start is with your vision for yourself as a scientist.</div>
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CM: I don't really have a vision. My level of creativity is how to design, how to ask a good question.</div>
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Cindi Morshead</div>
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LR: That has come up a lot in my interviews: the importance of the question. How to ask a good one. Along those lines, I am going to be really awkward in asking you about your work with the cadaver lab at the University of Toronto.....</div>
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CM: As a Professor at U of T that's part of my work. There's the balance between teaching, research and administration. A big part of my administrative work, as the Chair of Anatomy, is the Willed Body program. It's really spectacular. Lots of levels of complexity. Families, grieving, but also they are doing something wonderful for students. Sometimes we have to refuse some bodies because they are not suitable for teaching, for the lab. A lot of dimensions. Some families want the whole body back, some will let us take certain parts for teaching. We have to respect all of that.</div>
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LR: I never thought of what happens after the use of the body in study. </div>
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CM: We have a burial service every year for all those who donated. We have four or five a day to make sure that all the families have all the people who want to there.</div>
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LR: At the University of Waterloo, where I studied Dance and Music, for my dance degree I had to choose between a kinesiology class working with cadavers and a biology class in which you dissected a cat. I felt I could deal with the human situation better, although my mum had passed away not too long before and I knew there was potential for me to be quite emotional. But I was so grateful for two things. </div>
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The first was to see, up close, how the body is connected, how the muscles and tendons and veins and arteries and nerves are put together. I still use that knowledge on a daily basis. The second was the professor: his passion for the respect and ethics of working with the cadavers. He was impressive and stoic, he made it clear that if you did anything disrespectful or questionable, you were out. We signed contracts agreeing to this.</div>
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CM: We have 2500 students who come through cadaver labs every year. We have spectacular students, high expectations, world class professors. We can't take the chance of bad behaviour. Most are very respectful. I cannot remember an incident in my time as chair -- almost ten years. </div>
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LR: That's an incredible number of students taking part in the program.</div>
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CM: It's such an important way to learn.</div>
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LR: There were so few of us that ever actually worked with the cadavers at the University of Waterloo,. And I don't know any other dance programs that integrated that option. I feel very lucky.</div>
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So tell me more about your work. I am always curious about how do people come from being 5 or 15 or whatever age they have a sense of what they want to be when they grow up to being in neural anatomy?</div>
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imaging of brain cells</div>
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CM: Neural anatomy is what I teach. My research is neural stem cells, regenerative medicine, combining those two things. </div>
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My story isn't so great. When I went to university, all my friends knew what they wanted to do -- and they are all doing those things now! -- I had no idea. I thought about medicine. If you liked life science, medicine was what you thought about. I worked at a sports clinic -- they don't even have sick people there -- but I didn't like the setting, the hospital setting wasn't for me. My whole life has been by exclusion. I didn't really like that. And I didn't have any compassion for law. </div>
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So I thought I'd quit, but in 3rd year I took neuro-psycho-pharmical with <a href="https://www.pharmtox.utoronto.ca/faculty-w-mcintyre-burnham-phd" target="_blank">Mack Burnham</a>, who's still at the university today, and it was a turning point for me. After that I took any course that had neural or spinal cord in it. I thought I'll just keep doing this til I don't like it anymore and here I am. It's hard to tell my kids that I didn't know. There's so much pressure on them to know exactly what they want to do.</div>
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I have a son in business at Western. He doesn't really like numbers but it was a default. I've asked him what his favourite course is and he's said the environmental studies, the history, the philosophy. I've told him that's what you should do then! But he's staying the course in business.</div>
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LR: That's something I worry about for my son. This pressure to pick something that leads directly to a job. I used to work at U of T in History. In this storage closet of an office, doing academic counselling for students -- what courses they needed to take to complete a major or a minor in history -- and they would ask "But what job can I get with a history degree?" And I would say to them "You can do just about anything with a history degree. What do you want to study about history and then what do you want to do with that information? Teach? Create? Research? Curate? I know historians who wound up as costume designers for film and theatre......</div>
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My parents -- well let's just say that I didn't know that university wasn't mandatory til I was 16, when friends of mine said they were going to drop out of school and I thought that was illegal. My parents never said anything specific, it was just always part of the plan: to go to university. But at the same time, there was never any pressure to know, they wanted my sister and I to go and learn about the world so we might figure out what we wanted to do in it.</div>
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CM: Same for me. In retrospect I think I might have been depressed in my first year of university. I listened to the same music over and over -- Culture Club. I wore the same clothes. My mom noticed I wasn't right and said "school is not for everyone and it's ok if you decide not to stop." It was like a weight came off me and I thought "Ok, I can do this." My attitude changed.My vision of the process of university was different.</div>
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LR: Did you grow up in Toronto?<br />
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CM: North York, very middle class, all good. But I kept doing science and I keep doing science because I like it. I have my ups and downs.</div>
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LR: We all do. This "do what you love" mantra is annoying to me. Some people think it's a dream to be an artist, an indulgence, a font of creativity and self-expression. I love being a dancer but sometimes I don't want to go into the studio. It's just as mundane as sitting at a desk. Sometimes work is fun and sometimes it's not. Curiosity and a desire to keep learning are crucial.</div>
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CM: That's true for anybody, no matter how passionate you are about your work. Sometimes it's a slog.</div>
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LR: That makes me think of something biologist <a href="http://marcbekoff.com/" target="_blank">Marc Bekoff</a> wrote: "Passion fuels the curiosity that is essential for scientific inquiry." (from <i>The Emotional Lives of Animals)</i></div>
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Something that has come up with other scientists I've spoken with, a commonality with artists, is the dependence on public funding, grants and fellowships etc, and the way politics can influence that. I wonder if you have encountered any problems ever, given that you are working with stem cell research and regenerative medicine, and historically there have been some intense political divides about these fields.</div>
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CM: In Canada it was less controversial than it ever was in the States in terms of the beliefs and the morality. It is a concern and its highlighted. It's less of a concern now. In the beginning it was embryonic stem cells, which are those that come from a fetus and the only way to get them is to destroy the fetus. So that is a problem and always will be. But now we can make those cells out of things that are somatic or fully differentiated The ability to do that has revolutionized how excited people have become about regenerative medicine. I can take a skin cell and turn it back into a cell that can make all the parts of my body -- which we can do, at a very low frequency. </div>
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I can take a skin cell turn it into a heart cell and put it back. It's not feasible right now but that's where we're going. There are lots of questions. One group asks how do I turn a cell into a heart cell? And another group is asking how I can increase the efficiency of making it into that heart cell. Everyone is taking a little part of that investigation. But not all diseases are conducive to this approach.</div>
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brain cell imaging </div>
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If I have <a href="https://mssociety.ca/about-ms/what-is-ms" target="_blank">multiple sclerosis</a>, my body, my brain is killing my own cells so the idea that I will take my own cells, remake them and put them back in is maybe not such a great strategy since my body killed them the first time, it may reject them again. You have to know the pathology of the disease in order to know what we need to make.</div>
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With <a href="https://www.als.net/what-is-als/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIsLPt4Lae4gIVW7XACh3lcwCYEAAYASAAEgKVpfD_BwE" target="_blank">ALS</a> -- devastating, terrible, horrifying. Short duration, terrible prognosis-- people think of it as a spinal cord disease. They think the neurons that spread out to innervate the muscles, they die. It turns out there are these long projection neurons from the brain down to the cells and those cells play a big role in saying oh i'm not getting any innervation down there and they die, but if we can save the cells up in the brain maybe we can regenerate those ones to rebuild. There's much to know, before I can design a good regenerative strategy. Communication amongst the researchers is so important.</div>
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LR: Can you elaborate more on this collaborative approach?</div>
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CM: I love collaborating. It is the best way to find out how other people ask the same question that you have. There are a number of fundamental questions that people want to ask and find answers to yet the approaches can be very different, which is something you get to appreciate when you collaborate. I learn so much from other people and it's fun because it teaches you how to think another way. You also get to share your expertise and usually, two heads are better than one. Trainees benefit immensely from collaborative efforts and this is one of the goals I take seriously as an academic. We need to train the future scientists and leaders. </div>
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But you asked me about funding originally!</div>
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LR: Oh, this is far more interesting. It's related...there's this idea that stem cell research now is the same thing that got everyone upset in the beginning. A lawyer friend told me not long ago that there have been so many changes, the general public doesn't realize that embryonic stem cells are no longer the focus, but we can let those people protest as they may, and quietly go about the new research with new approaches and new information.</div>
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CM: Exactly. And there are still ethical considerations. Originally embryonic stem cells were found in a mouse. You could grow them in a dish. It was earth-shattering. You could take stem cells from two mice and develop new tissue. We weren't exactly making chimeras but ....But how do you test human stem cells? Do you put it in a mouse? Does the mouse develop human characteristics? Not that we expect them to speak or anything. But these are questions coming up as we work with non-embryonic stem cells. Can we make a mouse-human chimera? Maybe not. There's so much out there in the public now it's scary. </div>
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LR: We know the genome, we can manipulate it. But we've been doing that forever, unconsciously, through evolution, through attraction, making choices about the potential features of our babies.</div>
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CM: There's all sorts of rationale behind those things. But testing is different. And now <a href="https://www.livescience.com/58790-crispr-explained.html" target="_blank">CRISPR</a> babies.</div>
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LR: I can't quite wrap my brain around it. Editing the genome.</div>
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CM: It's too easy to do. To make changes to the genome without effecting other things. It's just so unethical. It's actually not allowed. It's illegal. There's a lot of hope and hype around stem cell biology. It is the future of regenerative medicine. But we have to remember it's not going to make Christopher Reeve walk.</div>
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LR: That was the great hope. What a symbol to have Superman walk again.</div>
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CM: The New York Times reported that after stem cell discovery that Parkinson's would be cured in 5 years. And the money came in for research but it was never realistic.</div>
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LR: Parkinson's worries or scares a lot of people right now.</div>
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CM: And Michael J Fox has been its symbol of hope.</div>
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LR: He's done so well.</div>
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CM: And that's great and he's been a great face for it. The money has come in for the research but then there's the expectations. Not everyone is going to have Michael J Fox's experience with treatments. The famous face to the disease is a catch-22.The expectations are so high.</div>
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LR: Is ALS one of your main areas of research?</div>
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CM: At my lab it's a lot of animal models. Mostly we work on stroke. Stroke is one of the leading causes of death and disability, of economic burden on caregivers. We work on neonatal stroke, which is an underlying cause of epilepsy and cerebral palsy, a very understudied area. There aren't a lot of good models for it. Adult stroke as well. Different ways of enhancing the neuro-plasticity. How do we get the host brain to make better connections? Can we make new cells to make the right connections? As we know -- the wrong connections, you can end up with autism or something else. We don't even know what cells we even need.</div>
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I use this analogy when I give public talks (I do a lot of them because I think it's important since people don't really know what stem cell research is now): If you have a lawn that has no grass, you can plant the seeds to make new grass -- that would be putting stem cells in -- or you can use fertilizer to make the environment better the grass will grow in. We don't really know which we do make new cells or give them fertilizer to stimulate the cells that are there.</div>
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LR: It's a beautiful image.</div>
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CM: It's probably a combination of the two ideas. There's no silver bullet.</div>
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LR: And that's what everyone wants.</div>
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CM: Because it's easy to grasp. And people are vulnerable. There are people who will $120,000 to go to China and have fat cells injected into their spine. Adipose cells. There's no follow up. There's no controls. There's desperation. There's not proof that it makes anything better. And it could actually make things worse.</div>
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LR: I can't imagine. But these anecdotes and stories are important. It feels like a fairly new aspect of science -- the emphasis on storytelling. A new concern about telling good stories about the science that your'e doing in order to communicate it to a wider audience. To get people to care. It feels new, to me.</div>
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CM: I think it the importance of it is new. The first thing to go in the government budget is science.</div>
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LR: And art.</div>
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CM: Those seen as being up in the ivory towers. It's important to communicate the excitement of it and also the reality of it. What's happening and what's not going to happen. Whenever I give a talk there are always people in the audience who ask about their uncle's condition, will this cure him. And I have to say probably not. Not right now. It's not feasible yet, but we're working on figuring it out. They have to know. It's not a silver bullet.</div>
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LR: You said earlier that your creativity is in coming up with good questions. If you don't have a good question to start with ...</div>
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CM: ....You're not going to have a good answer.</div>
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LR: I"m not sure how it has come about for me as an artist. I certainly never had a class in how to ask good questions. Perhaps it was from the research in other subjects that drove that -- but I wondered, how did you become such a good question former?</div>
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CM: I had a good mentor for my Phd. He said there were no bad questions and don't believe everything you read. Once my mentor gave me three papers to read and come back to discuss with him. I read them and memorized every fact. Then he asked me "what do you think?" I realized I had been asked before "what do you know?" but never "what do you think?" Only in a philosophy class was I asked that. Never in science. So now I tell my students that critical thinking is key to asking a good question. Don't believe everything you read and question yourself "why don't I believe that?" It leads to more questions and more. Then it snowballs into your own question.</div>
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LR: And you need the time to get there with that snowball.</div>
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CM: It's true. No one reads enough. we're just doing. We have to read across disciplines. I'm doing a small sabbatical next year and I'm not going away -- maybe a few conferences -- but I'm going to read, all kinds of things. </div>
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LR: Different perspectives stimulate different insight into an old question or problem you're trying to solve.</div>
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CM: Every time we think we have an answer, we have another question.</div>
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LR: There's darkness, you see a little light and you walk into that little light and then realize there's more darkness just past it and so you walk into that dark too</div>
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CM: That can be daunting. Students have to remember that they don't have to answer all the questions.</div>
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LR: We joke in dance that it attracts perfectionist because it's the perfect storm. You work towards perfection and when you get to that place where you think perfection is you see there's so much more to figure out that you just keep going.</div>
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CM: That's science.</div>
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LR: Curiosity is crack for perfectionists.</div>
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CM: It's a great analogy.</div>
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LR: What is the next “dark spot” for you — the next unknown? </div>
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CM: I think that neural repair is in fact, the last frontier in regenerative medicine. Of course there are other HUGE questions like the role of AI in society (for example)....</div>
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LR: Do you have any thoughts about the ways art and science can and might support each other? </div>
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CM: Art and science need to collaborate - it will be a big part of sharing science and informing society in general. Making science accessible, which includes through the arts, is as big a challenge and important an endeavour as any other.</div>
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Photos courtesy of Cindi Morshead and the Morshead Lab.</div>
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For more on Cindi and her work:</div>
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<a href="http://morsheadlab.technology/about-dr-morshead/">http://morsheadlab.technology/about-dr-morshead/</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.neuroscience.utoronto.ca/faculty/list/morshead.htm">http://www.neuroscience.utoronto.ca/faculty/list/morshead.htm</a></div>
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<a href="http://sites.utoronto.ca/morsheadlab/">http://sites.utoronto.ca/morsheadlab/</a></div>
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Art + Science interviews are made possible with the generous support of the Chalmers Family Fund Fellowship program, administered by the Ontario Arts Council.</div>
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Lucy Ruperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06687480416463324472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170266216054875252.post-24103490156791640152019-03-23T13:43:00.000-07:002020-06-07T08:45:16.305-07:00As Right As You Can Be in the Moment -- an interview with award-winning science journalist Alanna MitchellAlanna Mitchell would not describe herself as either an artist or a scientist but she touches both those spheres with grace, rigour and integrity as a science journalist who has turned playwright and performer. I met Alanna on the advice of Franco Boni, the artistic director of the Theatre Centre, someone whose advice I would always take.<br />
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I met Alanna just after she performed her solo play "Sea Sick" at a fundraiser for the Theatre Centre. And with true journalistic instincts our interview began by her asking me a question.<br />
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photo of Alanna Mitchell courtesy of alannamitchell.com</div>
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ALANNA: So what's your project about?<br />
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LUCY: The big project I'm doing with my company is pure dance -- 8 scenes interwoven, looking at the time it takes light to get from the Sun to Earth. Each section is about 8 minutes 17 seconds long, and looks at a different aspect of the behaviour and properties of light in space. Also at the metaphors that are embedded in the scientific language describing it.<br />
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We're looking at as it is in space, but not so much within the Sun or here on Earth, but the journey between.<br />
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ALANNA: You're talking about the visible light not the whole electromagnetic field?<br />
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LUCY: Yes, the visible light, although some of imagery around electromagnetism is so compelling that it has made its way in. It's also about the length of time, 8:17, the awkwardness of this length of time. What is necessary to be said in that amount of time? The main component is light: human bodies and light and how do we embody those aspects of physics that we encounter everyday but we don't think about?<br />
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In companionship with the stage project, I'm doing a series of interviews with scientists and people involved in science who explore, understand or work at its intersection with art. I want to connect my work as a dancer and choreographer to something bigger than just the art form. I have always been excited by science.<br />
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Our production will be happening at the Theatre Centre in January 2020 and it was the artistic director there, Franco Boni who recommended I contact you. When I read about your work, and then read The Spinning Magnet, I felt absolutely certain I needed to meet you!<br />
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You have a long history with the Theatre Centre with "Sea Sick" and the new project of translating other research into a play?<br />
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ALANNA: Yes. I got an Ontario Arts Council grant [for writing the second play] just as I was in the midst of writing The Spinning Magnet. I just need a month to sit down and work on it.<br />
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LUCY: Well, we've jumped to the middle of my questions but this is one of my biggest curiosities: how do you turn a non fiction book into a play? What is that writing, development process?<br />
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ALANNA: I've never really done that before. Sea Sick is a non fiction play based on the journeys I did for the research of my book. Compressed into 5 or 6 stories instead of 13 in the book. It really developed from a series of talks I gave about the book. There were all these great tales. It's storytelling. Franco heard one of my talks and asked me to make it into a one woman play. I had no idea what that actually meant. At all.<br />
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It is more complex than I imagined. What I wrote for the play is more philosophical and less scientific, trying to find the larger meaning in the science. There's a line in the play: "Science can only take you so far. You need art to explain things, make you care about it."<br />
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My whole play, the thesis is about that.<br />
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LUCY: I'm sorry i missed it when you performed it recently.<br />
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ALANNA: I'm trying to make people fall in love with the ocean, then draw them through a way to care about how it has changed. I used to give the punch line before, but I realized working with Franco that you don't give it all away up front. You have bury the lead, as they say in journalism. The theatre people I worked with didn't really know the world of journalism so they kept asking why, why, why. Why do journalists do it this way?<br />
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It became the philosophical underpinning of the play.<br />
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So the book is only about half the play and the rest is from research I did for a book on Darwin. It's a lot of fun adventures.<br />
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2015 trailer on Sea Sick the play</div>
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LUCY: The play is the experience of everything that led you up to the play.<br />
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ALANNA: Right. One of the central things in the play is when I turn my back on the audience and write figures on a blackboard. And it stemmed from being in rehearsal with Ravi (Jain, director) and Franco and I had to explain things to them, there happened to be a blackboard in the room. So even the experience of making it the book into a play became part of the play.<br />
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I didn't start out thinking I was going to turn it into a play.<br />
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LUCY: It seems like a natural evolution from writing an article to a book to a play to a performance. Although giving a talk is a performance.<br />
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ALANNA: It is. Someone asked how is the play different from a TEDtalk and I said "Because it's a play." That is its intent.<br />
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Alanna Mitchell's TEDxtalk in Calgary 2011</div>
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LUCY: It's great that it's had such a life. Touring and such.<br />
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ALANNA: I don't do any of that -- Franco has made it all happen.<br />
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LUCY: He's an amazing force.<br />
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ALANNA: I know. He's changed my life for the better. Not because of the play but because of the process.<br />
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LUCY: He's changed mine too and I'm sure I don't know him as well as you do.<br />
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ALANNA: This other play I'm writing is a fiction play. It started being based on a book I wrote about cancer. It swiftly changed into something else. The ideas are rooted from that book, but it's quite a different thing. It's hard because I'm writing fiction which I haven't done before. Fiction based on scenes I've witnessed.<br />
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LUCY: I found it extraordinary when I saw your website you've written about the Franklin Expedition to the arctic; I made a work about Shackleton's last Antarctic expedition. You've written about cancer; I made a work based on imagery of cancer cells and solar flares. You've written about climate change and habitat loss; I made a work last year on that very theme. I've also been connected to Darwin and evolutionary theory, you wrote about Darwin. I immediately felt very connected to you.<br />
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ALANNA: These are the big themes of now.<br />
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LUCY: No doubt...How did you get into environmental or science journalism? Is that what you intended?<br />
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ALANNA: No. I was a financial journalist in the beginning. That was just because I got a job at the Financial Post. There weren't a lot of jobs when got out of journalism school. For me it's all about the learning. I need these learning curves. I realized that early on. I didn't know anything about finance. So i was there for three years. Then I got a job at the Globe and Mail. I was their social trends reporter. It was science in kind of a way. It was statistics. I happened to be able to read numbers like I read words and the statistics made sense to me in this really deep way. It was a really good fit. There was a rigour there that I really appreciated.<br />
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Then I went out to Alberta to as part of the Globe's bureau out there. I went with a one year old and a 4 year old. And there were all sorts of stories out there.....My father was a biologist and worked on the prairies, so I grew up out there. There were all these familiar spaces and creatures. It was a great opportunity to see how things had changed.<br />
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And because my ad was a bio I was always really interested in science....this was my parent's social crowd, professors. I like scientists. I like the wild creativity in their work. Their passion to figure things out for the first time. To describe scientifically and with rigour this extraordinary world we live in and beyond. I have always loved it. This extravagant creativity.<br />
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When you go back to time of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Faraday" target="_blank">Faraday</a> -- how did they even come to be able to see that stuff?<br />
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It was controversial in Calgary at that time to write about anything scientific, anything environmental. And to bring up climate change was just a no-no. I went there in 1994 and stayed til 2000. It was a challenge to get those stories across. I realized it was the best story going. It was urgent. I was interested in not just science, but systems. Planetary systems. And it's scientists and mathematicians who are defining that. How do these systems work? How did it all become capable of working together?<br />
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The topics I'm drawn to have gotten more esoteric. I'm not sure I'm happy with that. A lady I know who is in her 80s was a big fan of Sea Sick (the book). She asked me what I thought about my book Spinning Magnet and I said I think it's the best book I've written so far. She said "You know I couldn't read it. It was just too hard."<br />
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I was gutted. Absolutely gutted.<br />
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It was the most intellectually challenging book I've written. I was thrilled that I could understand some of this science that I never thought I would understand.<br />
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The most creative book I've done so far, intellectually and emotionally. Maybe not as immediately relatable.<br />
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LUCY: The consequences-- for lack of a better word -- of the Spinning Magnet are a bit scarier because it is not at all within our control. With oceans, we see how we might change our behaviour and improve the situation.<br />
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ALANNA: Me, I'm not much of an activist. I don't want to tell people what to do.<br />
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LUCY: My activism is my work. For a lot of people that isn't activism, but for me it's how I can contribute with my best skills. I'm not good in crowds so rallies and protests are out of the picture. The best thing I can do is take my 20+ years of making and performing dance, work with the artists I care about and explore ideas that seem urgent and important to me. My activism has to be my work.<br />
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ALANNA: Me too. I used to go to protests. But I don't feel like I want to anymore. I am more passionate about the issues than I was in my 20s. The activism in me now is explaining. And that is a very radical act. Without understanding things I can't want to change them. I want to give people the numbers<br />
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LUCY: I want to give people something to feel. Even if they can't put a name on it I don't really care if they clap. I care if they talk. With my show about Shackleton, I measured its success not by cheers at the end but by the fact that by the time the dancers and I emerged into the lobby after each show, most of the audiences were still there talking about it. Trying to figure it out. I had two friends take me out for drinks after to settle an argument about which one of them had the right interpretation. The best thing was, after they told me their theories, I said "You're both right. But both of our interpretations never crossed my mind before now!"<br />
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ALANNA: That's the goal. To keep the conversation going. When was you Shackleton show?<br />
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LUCY: January 2016. I started from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Man_factor" target="_blank">John Geiger's book the Third Man Factor.</a><br />
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ALANNA: He was my co-author on the Franklin book.<br />
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LUCY: Of course!<br />
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So we were looking at Shackleton's experience of the "third man" through the lenses of religious experience, neurological phenomenon, and something more peculiar or metaphysical.<br />
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ALANNA: Dees John know that you did that?<br />
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LUCY: Yes, I invited him to the premiere. He couldn't come but asked me to keep inviting him. Hopefully we'll do it again. The neurological side was thrilling.....the mysterious edge of how the brain works and what is consciousness. It gets dark. They don't know everything but there are points of light....<br />
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You have talked about the value of the intersection between art and science. It's been talked about a lot but in the arts it is often expected that the intersection will be a technological one. But for me it's human: science is done by human beings.<br />
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ALANNA: It's the cultural impulse to do science and to do art. I think they are facets of each other.<br />
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LUCY: Through the Enlightenment they became separate from each other and from "regular people". Do you think this is changing, art and science being more integrated with community and daily experience of culture?<br />
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ALANNA: No I don't think that's happening. Not fundamentally. It's almost becoming more entrenched. As the two groups become more and more under attack. There is public discourse about it but no meaningful movement about it.<br />
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All things under attack journalism, science, art -- all descriptions of truth. Women's words -- are they true? Are they capable of being true? It's all intersecting right now. It's fascinating to think about why.<br />
Is that what happens when you have a sort of proto-fascist regime? It's happening about rights. Human rights, are they valid? do they even exist? All that is under attack. How is it even possible that a child held at a border can die of exhaustion and dehydration?<br />
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How does that even happen?<br />
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It's a time when the exploration that you're doing, Lucy, is so important. We need some sort of social, cultural acknowledgement that truth -- art, science, truth -- matters. There are facts. And they make a difference.<br />
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L I feel sad that I have to have this conversation with my kid....I'm sure I'd have to have it regardless of the situation politically right now -- but he comes home and says "my friend says this is true." And I tell him in fact that is not true. But insists that it must be because this particular friend is loud and insistent that he knows better and more than my son and therefore what he says is true. I have to try to explain to him that the person who speaks the loudest is not necessarily right. And just because he keeps saying "I'm smart" or "I'm right" doesn't mean they are. Frequency and volume of declaration do not make it true.<br />
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ALANNA: That's what my next play is about. Truth.<br />
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LUCY: I need to read the book!<br />
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ALANNA: I should have brought it for you.<br />
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LUCY: Oh, that's ok. I'm a big fan of library.<br />
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ALANNA: It helps me too when you check it out from the library! But errors do happen in media. You can make errors in good faith. Miss a fact-check, make a spelling mistake. We are held as journalists to a high standard that you can't always get to. There's honest mistakes, there's outright lying and then there's propaganda. Trump is a propaganda. the impulse to propaganda is very strong right now.<br />
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LUCY: We have such good tools for its dissemination right now.<br />
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ALANNA: and also for challenging it!<br />
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LUCY: I feel hopeful about that actually.<br />
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ALANNA: Is this helpful for you?<br />
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LUCY: Of course. Every conversation is helpful. Wherever the conversation goes is interesting and it branches from the initial proposal of art and science I'm interested in living in that intersection. It's bigger than my research or one scientists' research. It's way bigger than that.<br />
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I'm interested in hearing about your process -- do you see journalism as an art form?<br />
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ALANNA: No. No I don't. I never thought of myself as an artist. My books are literary non fiction, so I started to think of myself a little more as an artist, but the basis is journalism. Journalism is the fundamental practice. The whole process of putting things together and figuring out narrative....Well I think of the Spinning Magnet as most creative book because of the way the structure worked, the way it went together. There's a lot of science in it but trying to figure out how to tell the story...It felt incredibly creative intellectually. There was a principle of finding hinge moments when the science changed and things were different. They were important to find narratively.<br />
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The play both the writing and the conception of it and the performance, are all elements of creative and artistic.<br />
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It's very different to do talks on the material of Sea Sick now. I don't like to do them any more. I prefer to do the play.<br />
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LUCY: Interesting, why is that?<br />
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ALANNA: The play is about me and I'm a tool. I'm a way of letting people into the information. I'm a narrative technique. It feels as though the information is almost incidental to my quest in the play. We 're in it together in the play. It's very intimate. There's the flow of energy.<br />
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It happens a little bit to a thinner degree in the talks. It feels like it's about the information. I'm telling people about myself to give myself credibility.<br />
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LUCY: Do you think that is equally determined by how you approach the material and how the audience is in the different formats?<br />
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ALANNA: I think so. They come to a talk not to hear that much about me. but in a play people are there to be immersed, they want to go on a journey. The talks are not as emotionally invested.<br />
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LUCY: Not from either side, I suppose.<br />
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ALANNA: I'm invested but I don't have the same expectations. With the play I expect a lot from the audience. It can be devastating or have a really intense emotional experience.<br />
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LUCY: In a solo performance you have to create a lot of energy because there's no one else there to give it to you but you also have to carry a lot of the energy of the audience. You have to take the load they are giving you and you don't always know what that's going to be.<br />
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ALANNA: My play feels like 10 hours non-stop.<br />
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LUCY: I can imagine. I did a 45 minute solo dance in October and after the first performance, I thought 'whoa I forgot how different it is to rehearse this, giving me all in a room by myself, versus absorbing or deflecting the energy of the audience." And then add to that the physical demands of dancing.<br />
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ALANNA: Depending on the theatre, it can be harder to fill that room with energy.<br />
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LUCY: I love talking to someone about the energy in the room. It sounds kind of silly to some people, but it's a real thing.<br />
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ALANNA: Oh it's real. It's totally legit. There is energy and when I researched for Sea Sick, I learned that ocean water is incredibly conductive of energy. It's a survival mechanism, so that if you are an animal in the ocean the energy gets translated to other beings. It's communication. It's true in the air, but air doesn't conduct energy as easily. It's denser or harder. but it's there.<br />
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LUCY: I recently learned about electromagnetic fields of the organs of the body, dancing with this idea I have been overwhelmed by the intersections between myself and the other dancers<br />
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ALANNA: Your fields were interacting.<br />
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LUCY: It was almost....<br />
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ALANNA: Unmanageable.<br />
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LUCY: Yes, I actually couldn't perform if I stayed in a place of constant awareness of that. It's a good tool. We've been working with it in 8 minutes 17 seconds, the dancers improvised with this idea and they got stuck. There were so connected they couldn't pull themselves away from one another until I said "Ok you have to find a way to split." One of them imagined herself a blackhole and they all fell away from each other.<br />
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It makes you think if you could people on a daily basis to consider this a little, we might be more compassionate.<br />
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ALANNA: Or at least realize that we're all made of the same stuff. We're made of the same fields.<br />
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LUCY: It's not even really that special that we're in this shape!<br />
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ALANNA: We're all just fields that are everywhere in the universe. So what if one's skin is brown or religion is Islam.<br />
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LUCY: Small details. It makes sense as cosmology and evolutionary biology are co-mingling. An evolutionary universe. In your interactions with scientists for your research -- is there anything that has surprised you about scientific process or approaches?<br />
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ALANNA: Two things. One is the consistent rigour. I knew that but it is always so pleasing to know and to witness it across all the different disciplines. To see the adherence to rigour and reproducibility. It's impossible to be a good scientist and be sloppy. There's something very life giving to me about that.<br />
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The second is how many prejudices there are in science. Things that are fads. I was with a scientist involved in micro-planting, nano-planting, tiny plants and it was a deeply unfashionable thing to look at then. Those creatures were not interesting. This scientist broke new ground. But it was a battle for him to get funding. So he went into industry to stay in the academic fields.<br />
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A lot of the science I'm interested in is that edge -- the people looking at what we don't know. The world that exists deep in the crust of the earth with all these creatures that just exist but barely move, eat or anything. We are augmenting the life down there by dumping stuff like petroleum.<br />
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How did they get there, were they always there? Where do they come from?<br />
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LUCY: Fascinating.<br />
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ALANNA: They are part of the biogeochemical cycle of the whole planet.<br />
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LUCY: Freaky and wonderful at the same time.<br />
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ALANA: The deep carbon observatory -- they are trying to understand more about it..... It's the questioning I'm drawn to. That's what artists do. It makes it hard to describe and write.<br />
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LUCY: That aspect of questioning is important It's come up in all the interviews I've done so far. The rigour of the questions. It may seem that the arts have a little less rigour.....<br />
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ALANNA: But the rigour is that it has to work for an audience or it just doesn't work. Sea Sick is a story. It's just a story, an ancient form. And i'm not an actor, I'm just a storyteller and somehow that works.<br />
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LUCY: It must be hard to trust in that sometimes, or at least in the beginning.<br />
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ALANNA: It still is. It's my big terror. I'm a big ham. I'm Irish. I love to tell a story. One of the ways I got through in the beginning was to say "this is just an experiment".<br />
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LUCY: And you have to repeat experiments to see the patterns.<br />
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ALANNA: And everyone is going to be different.<br />
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LUCY: My professional training was mostly this is how you do it, this is the shape you have to make. but at the end a new wave was happening where it was finding yourself inside the technique. My early days performing were so rough on the ego because you were taught to expect the same result each time....it was when I started to do acting that I was really liberated.<br />
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ALANNA: But there's still a script and I worked hard on it and I hate it when I miss a word or flip a line around.<br />
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LUCY: One of the most important things I learned from working in theatre was that if you forget your lines, but you know why you need to speak, you'll figure out how to say what you need to say. I tried to take that into dance. Giving myself that permission.<br />
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ALANNA: To screw up.<br />
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LUCY: Actually it led me to not screw up as much.<br />
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ALANNA: Sometimes the stumbles don't matter but sometimes they really do.<br />
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LUCY: And then you have to let go of that.<br />
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ALANNA: The space time continuum warps when you're performing.<br />
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LUCY: A friend of mine describes it as being so present you are absent.<br />
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ALANNA: Interesting. When I get to half way mark of the play, I often can't believe I've done all the other stuff already.<br />
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LUCY: Every show i have a mark in the show that's either technically or emotionally hard and i just have to get there and then --<br />
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ALANNA: Everything will be ok.<br />
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LUCY: And sometimes it comes so quickly and sometimes it feels like forever to get there. It varies from day to day.<br />
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ALANNA: Another way artists are like scientists. You are always putting yourself on the line. You have to put your research out there. you have to get published.<br />
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LUCY: And possibly be wrong.<br />
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ALANNA: You have to be as right as you can be in the moment. Some of the basics that we used to talk about even in the 2000s are no longer the way we talk about matter now.<br />
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*****<br />
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Art + Science interviews are made possible with the generous support of the Chalmers Family Fund Fellowship program, administered by the Ontario Arts Council.<br />
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<br />Lucy Ruperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06687480416463324472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170266216054875252.post-50933125882028965792018-12-09T16:28:00.000-08:002018-12-09T19:06:58.176-08:00Noah Kenneally's Science of Cartooning in Sociology<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I met Noah Kenneally sometime around 2001, when my then-boyfriend-now-husband and I ran a performance series out of a warehouse space in the west end of Toronto. Noah was introduced to me by a frequent performer in our space: Lisa Pijuan-Nomura. (I don't think anyone Lisa has ever introduced me to has ever been a jerk, she naturally attracts the most lovely people.) At the time Noah was a theatre performer and maker, a puppeteer with a fiercely smart and political mind.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah and I went on to share the stage three times. The first in Lisa Pijuan-Nomura and Erin Shields' joint experiment "The Paradise Project" -- an exploration of Paradise Lost that happened at Lula Lounge. The second time, Noah and I played villain lovers in Theatre Rusticle's "WISH", an adaptation of Congreve's "The Way of the World". The final time was in a Blue Ceiling dance project that was part of Harbourfront's HATCH program in 2005. "Days of Mad Rabbits" was, as were the other two projects we shared, wild, multidisciplinary, fantastical dreamscapes. And I was amazed and inspired at the way Noah could throw himself into the unknown, outside his comfort zone with beautiful abandon. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But what follows is not about Noah as an artist, not exactly anyway (you'll see his cartooning all the way through). Shortly after Days of Mad Rabbits, Noah took on a new career path. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I had to edit out our tirade about lack of affordable childcare, and a debate about whether or not it is good luck to get pooped on by a bird (I was the lucky recipient of the poop as our interview wrapped up in Christie Pits Park) but r</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ead on to hear about the more important stuff: Noah's work using art as a scientific research tool, and about building a more compassionate, open-minded society.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL-IGEuMKFfTvl074jnLJoX3GPWRsMzk4agRuV8p7dDcbzyF7SqbrXl3vYgC5H9frx9jjOFW0wmT-ArcHYSk81FC6f66EARgrgu3TAxkAnOsoMgm0KV7_oR1IEVFqe-8-1aOobNrHkShWA/s1600/rabbits+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="446" data-original-width="297" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL-IGEuMKFfTvl074jnLJoX3GPWRsMzk4agRuV8p7dDcbzyF7SqbrXl3vYgC5H9frx9jjOFW0wmT-ArcHYSk81FC6f66EARgrgu3TAxkAnOsoMgm0KV7_oR1IEVFqe-8-1aOobNrHkShWA/s320/rabbits+5.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Noah Kenneally in Blue Ceiling dance's "Days of Mad Rabbits" 2005</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">photo by Melanie Gordon</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: Culturally we have a really particular idea of what a scientist is. When I posted a call for scientists to interview, you, as a social scientist, responded first! You challenged my thinking, which I had thought was very open. However there was a default setting in my brain about "scientists". But of course science is the study of how the world works and that is what you do. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So, my first question is perhaps to address this unconscious bias of what scientists are: how do you see yourself as a scientist within the field of social science?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: You’re not alone in that idea that science means hard science: biology, chemistry physics etc. And I agree with your definition of science being how to figure out how things work in the world. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I’m a social scientist, a sociologist because I look at how people work together to get along, the negotiations. In my discipline of sociology there are two streams. One is statistical and big patterns of movement in society, large populations, the mathematical side of things. My side of sociology is more qualitative looking at the negotiations on a day-to-day level and how that creates society. The science aspect is the approach. Science is a framework and a headspace and an attitude towards things rather than a set of rules or laws.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And people may disagree. 100% sure there are people who disagree.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: The experimental astrophysicists, theoretical physicists – they’re pretty out there, but also some of the smartest people on the planet -- they would probably agree with you.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: They would. It’s the folks who subscribe to the popular idea of what science and then there’s the actual science which is asking questions and if you’re asking questions then you are doing science. All scientists have different and sometimes very formalized approaches to asking the questions. But all of us are engaged in inquiry and trying to figure stuff out. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: The messy parts.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: Science is not dogma. It is actually anti-dogmatic. It’s collaborative and about not being afraid to be wrong. Seeking the ways to be wrong so you can get to a better place.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: The more popular understanding of science may be based on academia – the publish-or-perish perspective. You have to be right and if there’s a hole in your theory or proposal someone else could swoop in and steal or disprove your idea. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I suppose the government has a lot to do with it – the process of applying for grants and fellowships and peer assessment, much like artists – who’s at the top of the government impacts what is being funded and thus researched.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: Politics and capitalism and science are not happy bedfellows. The capitalist model that we have absorbed and science don’t go together. We are always looking for the product or the answer. Science is about the process and the questions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: It is interesting to me that you’ve had a life as a performer. I am so happy to say I’ve shared a stage with you in three different shows. Is there a path that took you from your artistic life – not that your artistic life is over-- </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: Kind of.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: Is there a path or a trajectory that took you from performing to what you do now?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Bee Pallomina and Noah Kenneally in "Days of Mad Rabbits" 2005</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">photo by Melanie Gordon</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: The transfers are between teaching and performing, collaborating and performing. All the community art work that I did alongside the performance I did – I did because of my politics. Those politics about collaboration and social justice are the main thread from the performance work I did to the science work I do now.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: When you refer to the community and politics-influenced art you did, are you talking about <a href="https://clayandpapertheatre.org/" target="_blank">Clay and Paper Theatre</a>?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: Yes. Working with Clay and Paper and <a href="http://www.shadowlandtheatre.ca/" target="_blank">Shadowland</a> and <a href="http://www.jumbliestheatre.org/jumblies/" target="_blank">Jumblies Theatre</a>. I also had my own company I did stuff with and freelanced. The community art I did was often with kids. My decision to go back to school partly came from doing more and more administration and less and less making of art. It became less fulfilling. And between my then-partner and I, one of us needed some kind of pension and I had not been producing my own work for years, and people had been telling me to be a teacher.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I went to school to become a kindergarten teacher originally but after two years I realized I didn’t want to tell kids what to do, I wanted to ask them what they think about the world. I moved away from school and pension to a certain extent. I needed to learn to become a researcher, to learn how to ask people questions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: That’s something a lot of people don’t actually consider is how to ask questions. I’m horrible at it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: You’re doing great. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: Well, I’m curious which helps, but I’m not particularly thoughtful about how the questions come out. That’s a really valuable skill.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: That’s the basis of research. How do you ask questions? It falls along disciplinary lines, chemistry, psychology and nuclear physics might all be similar, but their questions will be different. Between the hard sciences and the social sciences there are similarities, but the questions will be different.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: There’s something in the framework of it that has to be similar in order to be honest and truthful.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: That’s an interesting word truthful. Different approaches to science approach what the idea of truth is differently.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: I guess in a way that’s sort of their point. Like art. Because scientists and artists-- what we’re all doing is really trying to explain the world somehow and we have this road that we’re going to go on to explain it and all the roads are going to crisscross and probably end up in the same place if we follow for long enough. But the point is it’s THIS road and not THAT road we’re taking and in order to be truthful on that road it requires slightly different words, images and processes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: The tricky thing is when people place value hierarchy on that. This road is the right road or the only road that has the truth</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: That’s often how religion functions. This is the only road and the rest of you are heretics.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: The media’s and the common-sense approach of science boils an idea down, so we can understand it. But science can’t really be boiled down. It’s complicated and complex.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: And constantly changing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: Yes. So, it’s hard to simplify stuff. Simplifying things leads invariably to reductionism. Which leaves out all sorts of important ideas.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: There are those magic people who can do it, put the complex idea out there for the general public and leave people feeling they really grasp the fullness. Neil DeGrasse Tyson makes you feel you are part of the process as well as the history, and by being involved in the history of it you feel you are part of the now.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: Science needs to be inclusive instead of exclusive. Science says I am pursuing a way of describing and explaining the world in this particular path and you are doing it over there in your way and that’s great too. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We have the Enlightenment to blame for this division between art and science. We made this split and the liberal philosophy at the heart of the Enlightenment was that people are individuals and responsible for themselves. Science is incredibly political, on a large scale.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The power structures of research evolved [from the Enlightenment] as ivory towers, the approach of “leave me alone and let me pursue my truth”, These have reinforced this division. The idea that science is over there, not here with me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: There’s the ivory tower in art too. But it’s shifting. I used to hear artists speak as though they were separate from society somehow, but I do believe the current atmosphere, in North America, anyway, is galvanizing more and more artists to immerse in, reflect upon and speak to broader political and environmental conditions without losing depth of artistry.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">On to another line of thought…. Let me ask you about your work more specifically. You are doing social science through cartooning?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: Yes. It seems like you can’t get away from art once you stop being an artist. It doesn’t let you go. I set my art aside and I wanted to make meaning in a new way, through the dominant ways of text and writing in academia. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I have always been a drawer, and working with young kids, which is where I’ve ended up, we can’t always rely on text and particular forms of literacy. Asking kids questions about their live, their experiences and how they feel they fit into the world: those are complicated and sophisticated ideas that kids are completely capable of grasping and working with. Even if they can’t write yet, they can deal with those questions. For a long time, social scientists who work with kids have been asking: How do get children to explore these ideas and create some kind of document that will contain their responses?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My brand of sociology is pretty collaborative. The way I understand society is that we are all involved in it, in large ways and in individual ways. So just asking kids questions and recording what they say isn’t enough for me. I want to invite kids into the process. It’s a way of expressing something without relying on written text. And so I have been experimenting with this.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I’m standing on the shoulders of a lot of people. I’ve been working with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynda_Barry" target="_blank">Lynda Barry</a>, who is a cartoonist -- she had a syndicated cartoon for over 30 years and has published books and plays. Most recently she has been working as an interdisciplinary fellow at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">She’s doing really interesting work about how writing and drawing activities can be used in research. She uses the language of cartooning as a framework. It’s particularly useful with kids. I say to a child, “what is a story that you can tell me about what being a kid is like for you?” I approach things as stories because that’s something I’m comfortable with, but a story is just another way of explaining the world. Story is another word we can use for theory.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My background in childhood development comes from a particular view of children having rights and of being capable, sophisticated thinkers. Kids are theory builders – it’s the way they learn. It makes a lot of sense if we are thinking of a collaborative way of building society together.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I get kids to make drawings to communicate their theories about what it means to be a kid. I can use the document with them to see if other kids are building the same theories. How do they relate to the theories that adults are making about the experience of childhood?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: Fascinating. It’s so clear how it falls in line with the quintessential scientific process. I’ve brought this up with the other scientists I’ve interviewed: I read one physicist’s explanation of scientific process as Saturate, Incubate, Illuminate, Verify. He said it was the same as artistic process, except art doesn’t have the Verify stage.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: That’s bullshit!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: Of course! That’s putting your work out into the world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: That’s the performative process! I understand the science perspective of artists not getting feedback.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: But as a performer you’re getting it live and constantly.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: Exactly.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: And you’re adjusting your theory, your experiment as you do it! Even unconsciously.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But I love that description. I use it now in my choreographic process. I find the phase of incubation particularly valuable.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: It’s the stage that’s so railroaded. The commercial/commodity pressure of science is to push it out. Time is crucial to art and science to get good answers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: Some people do push through quickly and successfully, if done in the spirit of openness and standing on the shoulders of those before them – I’ve heard that metaphor used in so many of the books on science I’ve read – Einstein said it about Newton and that he expected others to stand on his.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: Einstein has given artists so many insights as well. It’s amazing to think about this generosity that is at the heart of science also. The way we move through time and space, in geography with information technology…people can take it and elaborate, extend in a totally different way that is open-hearted. Science as inclusive is key to that idea.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: I’m feeling optimistic about technology because of its inclusivity possibilities. The way open source sharing is happening in medical research and other fields. The arts, dance is actually one of the first places to grab hold of it because of the visual aspect. I can go on YouTube, I can be inspired by things happening across the world. It requires that all parties act in generosity.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: And with transparency too. “We got this idea from these people and we’re going to elaborate on it, or go in this direction.” Science is good at this, though people do still steal…..</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: There’s a practice of citing your scientific sources and roots that’s accepted and expected.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: Exactly. The job of the student is to engage with the questions and create a roadmap of where those ideas came from. Maybe taking two ideas that haven’t been in conversation with each other before to see what might come of it. Art does this too.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Caroline Niklas-Gordon, Noah Kenneally and Bee Pallomina in "Days of Mad Rabbits" 2005</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">photo by Melanie Gordon</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: You’ve already touched on this but what are the biggest questions for you in your work?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: That’s a great question. What are some of the ways that kids create meaning about their experiences? How do those practices that kids do hook up and inform the large societal or social practices that keep us moving in particular ways?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I am also interested in Lynda Barry’s question: what is an image?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: Is that from the perspective of what constitutes an image? Or by what it’s influence on us is?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: What components make an image, AND what are images for. It’s both. Lynda says anything we call the arts is a vehicle for an image. We are so visually oriented, but it doesn’t have to be visual. For people who are visually impaired, what are the images in their imaginations? How would you research that, given the limitations of language?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What is an image? Dance contains it, text contains it. An image does not contain a specific meaning. We are familiar with this in art, but in science subjectivity is just now coming into consideration.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Lucy Rupert, puppet (who surely had a name, but unfortunately I've forgotten) and Noah Kenneally in "Days of Mad Rabbits" 2005</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">photo by Melanie Gordon</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: Thank goodness for those quantum physics guys. They shook things up in this department. The idea that something can be two things at once. The Heisenberg principle: that we can know where something is and how it’s moving but not both things at once. I feel like it’s starting to sink into our broader thinking. It impacts how we can engage in critical discourse – two views on something can simultaneously accepted, even if they are mutually exclusive. You can’t know position and momentum at the same time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: Uncertainty makes matter.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: In terms of physical matter, but also matter as in meaning. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">When we were working on that crazy Paradise Project with <a href="http://girlcancreate.com/" target="_blank">Lisa Pijuan-Nomura</a>, you told me to read <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Dark_Materials" target="_blank">His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman</a>. And I did, and I thought “This guy has got it figured out.” I kind of think Pullman has the best explanation of energy, matter, death and the universe. The translation of physical matter into disembodied and embodied meaning. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: It comes back to are you asking questions or are you trying to prove answers. Proving an answer can lead to wars. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: Yes, because if someone else has a different answer it can be really threatening. I was listening to the podcast <a href="https://onbeing.org/" target="_blank">On Being</a> recently, an interview with a Franciscan monk and his view was that prayer was leading to not great things, like pray for forgiveness then you’re off the hook. His view was to call the action contemplation and the action is deeper thinking in pursuit of more questions, rather than answers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: So good. Have you heard of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna_Macy" target="_blank">Joanna Macy</a>, an environmental activist and Buddhist philosopher? She does interesting stuff with spirituality, embodied experience. She did her PhD on systems theory and Buddhism in their overlap and also their relevance in environmental activism. She talks about the uncertainty. Not knowing brings us into deeper contact with reality, then we are able to be more present, see more clearly, ask a wider variety of questions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: I responded pretty strongly to Richard Dawkins’ idea that religion in its more formalized state is a stage of evolution that we have outgrown. That makes sense to me. At the same time, Joanna Macy’s approach is probably where we need to go to find meaning and combine that sense of meaning with the knowledge we have to act, to solve major problems on our planet. We will always make a story.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: And we even retell a story with a new interpretation, to connect it to new circumstances.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lucy: Like our interpretation of patterns in the stars back before telescopes and astronomy. Humans made relationships between different stars depending on their environmental reference points. Australians saw an emu constellation; North Americans saw a bear. Different frames on top of the same big pattern.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Noah: If we said the world is big enough to contain multiple ways of telling stories about the world, if we said our hearts and minds are big enough to contain multiple ways of telling stories about the world we would be much better off. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">***</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">You can follow Noah and learn more about his work:</span><br />
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All cartoons courtesy of Noah Kenneally.<br />
All photos courtesy of Blue Ceiling dance.<br />
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<br />Lucy Ruperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06687480416463324472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170266216054875252.post-67312883809340609322018-10-29T11:18:00.003-07:002018-10-29T12:02:00.983-07:00Louis Laberge-Coté -- the art of being many things at once<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">In a way, the first thing Louis Laberge-Coté does in his solo, The art of degeneration, refers to blurred</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">lines, which makes me smile. This was what I had just been considering on my way to</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">rehearsal. I was reading Louis' email responses to some questions I sent him and wrote a</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">note for me to think about: duality and blurring of lines between the choreographer and</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">dancer - an ongoing and personal question -- and between the destruction dance</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">can cause the dancer and its simultaneous power to heal that destruction.</span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-f4418850-7fff-2538-9865-444f71bb1ca8" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">Over twenty years ago I started attending the School of Toronto Dance Theatre Professional</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">Program and Louis was my class mate. Those days were full of the wreckage of angst and</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">the utter joy that dance, and training to become a professional dancer, can bring. Less than </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">a year later, I had been dismissed from the school for my inability to mitigate the angst and</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">joy. I obviously found my own way through the rejection, but I marvelled at others' abilities to ride</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">that paradox through to the end of the program.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">Louis was one of those I admired. He not only survived, but thrived with a magnificent</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">performing career and a stream of creations that have been clever, heart-ful and</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">captivating.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">****</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">LUCY: Perhaps this is the rose-tinted glass of nostalgia, but I recall you and I being the</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">most tortured souls of our class at STDT, at least in first year. How did you transcend that?</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">LOUIS: While the training was an opportunity for me to indulge in several self-destructive</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">patterns, it also provided me with a creative and expressive outlet through which I truly</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">experienced pleasure, playfulness, connection and passion on a daily basis. I believe these</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">sheer feelings of rapture, sensuality, and intensity were enough to carry me forward. As I</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">aged, I eventually learned more about myself and managed to work through a fair portion</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">of my negative patterning. Dance has followed me all along in this process, and I am</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">incredibly grateful for its tremendous impact on my life.</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;"> </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">****</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">And now I get to watch a rehearsal run of his new, and possibly last, solo "The art of</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">degeneration".</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">It begins with a blurring of boundaries. Two distinct things happening simultaneously, and </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">bleeding profusely into one another.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><img height="533" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/nMrIi7SBv9BQFDgMLFdzE1a5miL-lvLFczC5CTdmpXCx1Da4wVxCtY7l1vBMtDkjg6hbNUImTb4w_YRWEsArE4Nnq4dRUPGCPOsIeWmTX2UQ8-6WwfESHLvObXa0uQv5MQehmbjb" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="427" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-align: center; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">Louis Laberge-Coté photo by Jeremy Mimnagh</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">Louis possesses an innate ability to be completely candid and absolutely calculating</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">in his performance. He holds nothing back but at the same time, you don't feel you</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">are watching a confessional one-man-show. This has been cleverly honed and</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">sculpted, with room for spontaneity, surprise and even failure. </span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">****</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">LUCY: How have you changed as a performer over the years? </span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">LOUIS: For the majority of my performance career, I felt (and was perceived as)</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">athletic, strong, and fast: a dancer who shines in physically demanding works. In the</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">past five years, I have been dealing with ongoing knee injuries which have </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">noticeably impaired my ability to move with full power, speed, and athleticism. </span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">I clearly had to learn how to work with these limitations, often forced to accept that</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">dancing “full-out” was not a viable option anymore. Since then, I often told myself</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">“go for 60% tonight” while preparing for a show. To my surprise, I quickly realized</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">that the quality of my performances was not negatively impacted. In fact, it gained in</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">subtlety and maturity. </span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">This was a huge realization for me, as I often relied on pushing myself beyond my limits as a young dancer. More recently, it became evident that, after more than twenty years of placing performance at the core of my artistic life, my main focus is now my pedagogical practice. From this change, a new sense of freedom and perspective emerged from my relationship to the stage.</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">LUCY: And what can you say now as a performer that you couldn't say before?</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">LOUIS: They don’t have to love me.</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">****</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">I love being able to sit in on rehearsals, the rougher the better: seeing more of how things</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">come together, how people problem solve. For me it doesn't take away any of the magic, it</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">actually enhances my awe of the sleight of hand in performance. </span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">I wonder as I watch Louis move with the precision and passion that I have always admired,</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">what makes a good self-made solo? How can you evaluate the choreography separately</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">from the dancer.....As I think this, Louis speaks exactly to this conundrum. </span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">As he continues, I realize, I don't care. I don't care if I think the choreography is good --</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">when a performer works with skill and depth, the roles become inextricable from each other.</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">And isn't that the point: the impact of the performance?</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">I feel that Louis trusts all that his body holds, the traces of those he has danced for,</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">danced with, created on.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">****</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">LUCY: You have danced for some of Canada’s most respected and creative</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">dance-makers, how have they impacted you as a choreographer?</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">LOUIS: I believe we continually carry traces of every person and experience that</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">cross our path. The choreographers for whom I have danced have of course</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">impacted how I move, perform, and create in ways I can’t fully describe, or even</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">comprehend. I imagine that each of them lives within my body memory and</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">therefore is present, in a way or another, in my last choreographic creation.</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">****</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">A repeated gesture that surprises me. Here it is again and yet I am seeing and</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">connecting to it differently each time. I often reject repetition, but here it is</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">refreshing and poignant and clever. A beastly moment on rewind, a slouch that</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">could be decadence, exhaustion, intoxication, an artist's muse....all things at once. I </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">am drawn into this idea that a single movement can have simultaneous and</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">divergent meanings.</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 31pt; margin-right: 11pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-align: center; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><img height="533" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/1UBUia08tMkyH29vstha8MlHUGNDwOeVoKY6fH8ZlSnTZh9yY1QadVm59c_G_qlD5lT8Pp9cEJPLuVnytSXpqfH0IT7cAAuLm_YYFZKFBVeE3RJHuqhAwoiF3dkMdVlWgItHdJgH" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="427" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-align: center; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">photo of Louis Laberge-Coté by Jeremy Mimnagh</span></span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">There is joy in the bittersweetness of Louis' movement and words, the confessions -- both</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">hilarious and heartbreaking-- the ugliness he is willing to show us. And in this willingness it</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">becomes beauty. Some impulses are comedic in their stark humanity. Some impulses are</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">stark in their comedy. And then a sweep of limbs and torso whirls me somewhere new. I</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">am struck by a selfish sadness that Louis is stepping away from the stage as a performer</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">and I have only had the luck of dancing with him once.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">****</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">LUCY: What inspired or provoked a backing away from the stage?</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">LOUIS: A few elements came into play. As previously mentioned, my knee injuries</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">had a significant impact on my ability to move. While I enjoyed the transformative</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">process that ensued, it also became evident that my knees couldn’t support a</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">full-time performance career, even if I learned to move more sustainably. </span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">Even though I didn’t consciously work at changing my career path, I was </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">simultaneously given more teaching and choreographing opportunities, which</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">eventually led to me being recently appointed Assistant Professor of Dance at</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">Ryerson University. At this point, there is no doubt that I have entered a new chapter</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">on my artistic and professional paths and that the peak of my performance career is</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">behind me.</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">****</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">Louis breath-takingly sets compassion and empathy in motion near the beginning of his solo</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">and from then onwards we ride along with him. It seems that any shred of himself that has</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">not been exposed in past performances has been set loose in this one.</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">A solo is never a solo -- it is always so full of others on the path to revealing the one. The</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">stage can seem crowded, from both the perspective of the audience and the performer.</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">Louis' preparation has been years in accumulation. This accumulation, spanning his</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">career thus far, has brought about these conditions and this beauty and this ability to say it</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">all, right now.</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">****</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="color: white;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">LUCY: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> How have you prepared yourself the vulnerability of a full-length solo?</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">LOUIS: To me, solo work doesn’t necessarily require more vulnerability than duet,</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">small group, or even ensemble work. While each of them requires a different set of</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">skills, I find them equally challenging, scary, inspiring, empowering, revealing, and</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">rewarding. </span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">The art of degeneration is particularly challenging to me, not so much because it is</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">a solo, but because a considerable portion of the piece relies on my acting and</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">singing skills. While I have always enjoyed acting and singing, I certainly do not</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">have as much experience with these forms. This represents a significant risk for me,</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">which simultaneously excite and terrify me. </span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">I managed to gather enough resources for an extended creative process with an</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">incredible team of experienced artists. At this point, I must trust that all the work we</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">did over the past years will carry me through the performances.</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 31pt; margin-right: 11pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-align: center; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><img height="533" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/C0Y82vgQSjp6u9QoiW5TuU7LGGysSPH9NcQscEWza--myyTHBVrdvxcqWfQjUxZ44Ro6-c__QeRnFj-L23N-gVY0poBgsq3q5TTpSoPbAstEWPYzKM7zJi5I72JKr5mKTrX5Upev" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="427" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-align: center; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">photo of Louis Laberge-Coté photo by Jeremy Mimnagh</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">In this work, Louis tells you much about himself, but perhaps reveals more through</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">what he tells you about others. Through repetition and variation of a stream of</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">gestures and movements, executed with vulnerability, ferocity and exquisiteness, we</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">begin to feel the breath connecting all these stories, and a certain inevitable mystery</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">that will not be solved.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">We sit through this rehearsal run in an enchanting ambiguity. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">I wonder how audiences will feel spilling out into the night after his performance.</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">Slightly disoriented, I hope. Maybe disorientedly hopeful. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">Let me know how you felt.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">*****</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">SEE LOUIS LABERGE-Coté</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">DanceWorks presents:</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">The art of degeneration</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">October 31-November 3, 2018</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">8pm</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">The Citadel: Ross Centre for Dance</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">304 Parliament St.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">TICKETS:</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<a href="https://my.harbourfrontcentre.com/single/PSDetail.aspx?psn=32973" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">https://my.harbourfrontcentre.com/single/PSDetail.aspx?psn=32973</span></span></a></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">MORE INFO: </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 20pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 20pt; text-indent: -20pt;">
<a href="http://www.danceworks.ca/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">www.danceworks.ca</span></span></a></div>
<br />Lucy Ruperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06687480416463324472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170266216054875252.post-55589540296922049752018-09-28T12:12:00.002-07:002018-09-28T12:16:35.619-07:00Interview with Matt Russo: Science that is inextricable from an artistic process<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">Matt Russo is a Toronto-native, an astrophysicist, musician and astro-musician. After attending the Etobicoke School for the Arts with an focus on music, he attended the University of Toronto, completing a B.A. in Music, and a B.Sc., M. Sc. and PhD in Astrophysics. During his postdoctoral research at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, he founded SYSTEM SOUND, a science-art outreach project that translates the rhythm and harmony of the cosmos into music and sound He has created a sound-based planetarium show at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics -- where he will be hosting an event as part of Nuit Blanche 2018. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">You can find out lots more about him at <a href="https://www.astromattrusso.com/">https://www.astromattrusso.com/</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">But more importantly you should our vibrant interview below....</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
You went to Etobicoke School of the Arts. My son’s teacher last year was such a
believer in ESA that she made sure all three of her children went there. None
of them are artists, but she just believed so much in the integration of the arts
and the “regular subjects” to make them in to great human beings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
Just being around passionate people too. It makes such a difference. The school
next door – I knew kids that went there – and it had prison-like atmosphere.
Night and day between our schools.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
The willingness to put in the hard work is the manifestation of that passion. I
keep encouraging my kid to notice the things he doesn’t mind working hard at.
Or things that don’t feel like hard work. Then you’ve found what you can do
with your life. Like math – he always prefers doing math homework to any other
kind because he just figures it out in his head in some mysterious way. I don’t
understand it, but his way always gets him to the right answer so I’m not going
to mess with that. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
Yes, I’ve encountered a lot of students like that. It’s ok until about grade 11
and then if they don’t have the systematic method they run into trouble. But
you still need the creative side!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
He’s willing to put a lot time and energy into LEGO....making his own designs
and really trying to accomplish specific things with them. He’s just got to
find something that feels like that to do for a job – because LEGO designer
jobs are few and far between.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
I spent a lot of time with LEGO. Making my own designs, my own blueprints. I
went nuts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
I love to hear that. Makes me hopeful for the possibilities for my kid in the
future.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
thought I’d tell you a bit about why I’m doing all these interviews. It’s been
12 years I’ve been exploring ideas from science through dance but I’m on a new
quest to put it into words what the intersection of art and science means to me.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">It
feels like there’s a deep <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>interest from
both sides to develop this intersection. Knowledge gives you the how, art gives
it the meaning. When they work together, it’s synergistic. It can inspire
people to act for the good of the planet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
want to talk to scientists about creativity and creative process. I think
artists do themselves a disservice when we set ourselves aside. And separate
because of our “process”. We are doing the same thing as everyone else but with
a different skill set.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most jobs and
professions have creativity flowing through them, but it seems science and art
have a 3-dimensional reach that wraps around towards each other.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">So,
I’m interviewing scientists of all kinds, to investigate the intersection of
art and science. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">As
a choreographer and dancer, I find the language of science so evocative. In my
work we ask ourselves how we can embody this language and turn into a
performance that might make people care more about what’s happening on our planet
as well as beyond it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">That’s
my soapbox speech. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">One
of my dancers sent me an article about you last year, because he knows I’m an
astrophysics nerd. So that’s why we’re here. Thanks Sky!! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC2PG_Vo8oddbjG5Cul-wCFol0_Z5fRzBbullyXvOBlekz6KbMB14_UYm45izDjSHBeilp3lze75k9TBfAiFgBjUdGYMGkTaSY65oMptDeJCWd92L_Dwv9Z_hsgM5A5plVvMkzo86Mymb5/s1600/DSC_8053.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="801" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC2PG_Vo8oddbjG5Cul-wCFol0_Z5fRzBbullyXvOBlekz6KbMB14_UYm45izDjSHBeilp3lze75k9TBfAiFgBjUdGYMGkTaSY65oMptDeJCWd92L_Dwv9Z_hsgM5A5plVvMkzo86Mymb5/s320/DSC_8053.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; text-align: center;">Photo
of Sky Fairchild-Waller, Blue Ceiling dance artistic associate and performer in "dead reckoning"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; text-align: center;">Photo by Omer Yukseker</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">How
did your two undergraduate degrees – music and physics --come about?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
I always had some background interest in science and physics. My dad was a math
teacher and I was always fascinated by science, but I didn’t realize I was so
into it. As an angsty teen I got really into music and I didn’t want to go to college.
Just play rock music. Then I got to grade 11 physics – then I started to
understand the universe. There were simple things you could write on your hand
the tell you how the planet moved. It diverted some e of my music attention
back to that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">At
the end of high school you have to make a choice. Teachers couldn’t tell me the
right thing to do. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">So
I did my music degree first, because I realized I could take physics courses
for electives. I still had no idea what path I would take but over time the
physics got more and more stimulating and exciting. Every physics class was a
window in a new pocket of the universe. Music by that point was not like that
so much. By that point I’d mastered the skills and plateaued.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
Your music degree is in performance?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Rvnners, Matt Russo's band!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
Jazz performance, yes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then the
pressures took over and I did my astrophysics degree and formed a band on the
side. They were always parallel but always in conflict. Both time-wise and also
conceptually. There was no connection for 10 or 15 years. I was on the knife
blade that whole period trying to decide what path to take. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
was finishing my post-doc last year and didn’t have anything else lined up, and
then they discovered the Trappist planetary system. I sat on it for a few days,
I saw the musicality of it. I was at my window gazing out over U of T, and for
some reason the person before me in my office left a globe of the celestial
sphere in one corner and a bust of Beethoven in the other --in the astronomy
department, we have no explanation -- and I was in between those two things and
I got the idea to convert Trappist system into music in a certain way and from
there, I got so much more of an emotional connection and response from people
with the combination of astronomy and music than I did with either one separately.
So it was pretty quick, about a week or so, and my life changed. I knew from
then on I had to do this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
That’s quick.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
I wasn’t sleeping. It was so fascinating to me, I couldn’t’ stop doing it. So I
knew it meant something. It wasn’t just me. Other people were responding to it.
I knew it could help. It could help communicate science., to help the visually
impaired. It made so much sense for me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">It
was a huge relief for me to bring together these two words that I’d artificially
kept separate. And they weren’t working so well like that. It’s been almost a
year since that day my life changed. It’s been a whirlwind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">More
and more opportunities are coming and more and more ideas flowing. More and
more collaborations.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Trappist Sounds as arranged by Matt Russo</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
It’s a clue you’re on to something... like that idea of working hard at
something that doesn’t feel like hard work…I really do believe that when
anybody finds that it probably means you’re on to something.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">One
of the things I try to ask everybody and seems very apparent here, is how the
creative process is embedded in your scientific process…Well for you they are
kind of one and the same.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
They are intertwined now. I’m using music to gain a deeper understanding of
astronomical systems. In the past I would have read the papers and listened to
the talks. And now I have this other lens to filter the most musical
systems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I get to do a deep dive in each
of these systems and really understand what makes them work. And there’s no
division for me between the musical side and the physics. To a deep level music
is physics. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t even think that I’m
switching over anymore.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
And when you say it being a different lens…do you feel it’s a more embodied
lens?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
In most cases what I’m doing is about the rhythms of the universe. There’s
rhythm and pitch in music and what most people don’t realize is that they are
the same thing. If you speed up a rhythm it becomes a pitch, your brain just
switches over. So, it’s all just cycles in time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">With
the most natural sonifications I do, I’m not really changing the data. I’m
looking for systems that are rhythmic or harmonious, in exactly the way that
music is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m just speeding them up to
make them audible. The connection with dance is pretty apparent. It’s rhythms
and motion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
It’s translation That’s the way I think of dance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You take something in one language and translate
it into another so that the original “something” can be perceived in a
different way. I have two undergraduate degrees as well, music and dance – I
think those two art forms go straight to the gut, there’s a really visceral
reaction to both music and dance. Probably visual art does this as well. But
literature and theatre kind of go up here in the brain first and then down to
the gut. But with dance it goes to the gut first, bypassing some of our
defences. The guards we can put up with our intellect aren’t activated.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
That’s a nice way to think about it. For the last six years at the plantetarium,
I’ve been doing the regular shows, completely visual and informational. No
music. It was exciting for the presenters, and the visuals were are amazing.
But now I’ve integrated the music into it – I’m kind of hitting audiences from
both angles. They respond emotionally to it. There’s information, but there’s also
an emotional connection to what they’re learning. It’s a completely different
experience incorporating those two.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Dance,
music <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and theatre because they are
happening in time, they synchronize people’s experiences.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
There was a study done recently – I’m not sure how they did this, probably with
heart monitors on an audience – but the researchers tracked heart beats and
after a certain point in the duration of a performance – dance, theatre, music,
whatever – they found the audience members’ heart beats started to synchronize.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
That would be a good thing to sonify or resonify!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
We need to send this information to the powers that be in government –<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>if you want a harmonious society you need to
support these activities. Or at least a more harmonious society. You need some
disharmony to know what harmony is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
That word, harmony, isn’t just a metaphor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
This is what I find fascinating about learning about the universe. No matter
how far you go, there’s always a new edge of the unknown. I’m not a religious
person whatsoever but I will say that when my parents died, in both cases I
turned to reading Carl Sagan and Darwin. There was no way for me to make sense
of what had happened but to learn about the mystery. To learn about what we
know, but also that there’s still so much to know. There always will be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
Sagan was all about the cosmic perspective. Seeing things from the outside, not
as yourself. The potential in perspective change.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reading about cosmology and evolution serves
a similar purpose for me that religion must serve for other people. To find
something bigger than myself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
There’s enough spirituality and wonder in science, you don’t need to invent
things to make you feel connected. You are already connected. That’s kind of
the whole basis behind what I’m doing. It’s really hard to experience something
like Saturn’s rings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are on such a
different scale in time and size and distance and qualities and everything is
so foreign to what we deal with on a day to day basis. I think what people are
responding to when I’ve converted it into music is that it’s very direct and at
home. And it’s not a lie. You’re really getting a deeper understanding of
something you have no personal contact with.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
That makes a lot of sense Last year I was involved in two shows that used
sounds of space in their scores. One was my company’s show Animal Vegetable
Mineral and the other was Theatre Rusticle’s production of Our Town. I used NASA’s
recording of the sound of the earth rotating from the International Space
Station. Theatre Rusticle used the sound of Jupiter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
The radio waves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes. The audience had such a strong response
to these sounds in both shows. The sounds were under the action, rather than a
rhythmic score echoed by our movements. It percolated in the background, the
way I think a desire is percolating in the general public to know more about
the universe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
All sorts of art/science organizations are popping up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
And the reboot of Cosmos. It makes me teary. That I watched Carl Sagan’s Cosmos
with my parents and now my son is watching it with me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
And Neil Degrasse Tyson talks about Carl Sagan’s influence on him in the
reboot. It’s quite moving.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
One thing I appreciate about Neil DeGrasse Tyson is the role he has taken on in
a broader way now. He’s a very political figure. He doesn’t really have an
option. But he’s speaking out to defend and support scientific research against
the forces that want to silence or subvert it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
He’s more effective than Bill Nye.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
Ah. Bill Nye. Love him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
I love him too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But he just doesn’t have the same kind
of swagger, does he? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">The
threat to art and science funding by the current political climate, is really ramping
up my desire to speak to our capacity to change what’s wrong here, with our
planet. For instance, I don’t think we should be investing all this time and
money in colonizing Mars. I feel like there’s a group of people who are just
ready to pull the chute on this planet. But there’s still time to fix things!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
I agree.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
I appreciate the efforts and the research and innovation…Like Elon Musk. He’s
getting amazing things accomplished just by being this crazy guy with a lot of
money.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
But you can’t put a price on inspiration. You can’t just do inspiration for its
own sake and damn the planet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
Right!? I thought everyone saw WALL-E – didn’t that movie teach us all not to
abandon this planet?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
I haven’t seen it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
Maybe it should be mandatory viewing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">When
I was looking into your music videos and files, I found you’d adapted the solar
system’s sound into “True Love Waits”, a Radiohead song. I have a little inside
joke in all my choreographies: there’s bit of a Radiohead song embedded in each
one, in one way or another. How did you translate the universe into a Radiohead
song?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Radiohead "True Love Waits"</div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
A lot of chance involved. With the Trappist sound we wrote a program that could
apply to any system– you tell it what system, the starting note and tempo you
want, and it plays the system. After Trappist, everyone wants to know what the
universe sounds like. It’s actually an old idea, it goes back to Keppler. The music
of the spheres. We put it through our algorithm. We decided to work with the
inner solar system and it just so happened that the way it came out of our
program was very close to True Love Waits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Like
all the projects I do there’s got to be a creative spark. There has to be a
basic emotional connection to what the sound system is. It took me eight months
to put the pieces together. It’s a weird connection and it meant a lot to me.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
fell in love with the project. There’s something so haunting about the planets
hanging in the solar system telling each other not to leave.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Matt Russo's System Sound covers True Love Waits</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
When it gets put together that way and with that meaning, suddenly it gives a
deeper understanding of what’s going on out there, even if there are no words
for it. You just sort of get it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
The other way to think of it – and it might be trivial to artists like you – part
of what drives art is constraints, limitations. It was a really fruitful set of
constraints knowing I had to work with astronomical data and communicate
something that was congruous with that system and mean something for people.
It’s not like when I would sit with my guitar and wait for a song to come. I
have a really clear starting point with this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR: I
feel the more constraints the better, especially as I get older. Youthful angst
can’t fuel me anymore. There are so many possibilities of what I could research
and explore so if I eliminate a whole bunch of them by setting constraints on
my creation, then the way through is going to be a lot more interesting for me
and for the audience<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
And you’ll surprise yourself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR: The
question of whether this is good or not goes out the window because you’re
attending to the task at hand which gets more and more specific as you add
constraints.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">From
my limited experience of high school science, this seems close to scientific
experimental method. You have to put many controls and constraints on your
experiment in order to get a really specific result and prove or disprove a
thesis, find results that will be meaningful in developing a theory.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Ha!
One of the questions I wrote down to ask you is “how do constraints support
your research?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
Research is a separate thing. I don’t do research any more, but it really was
like doing science. It didn’t feel so different from creating an artistic
piece. You develop your own world. You’re creating the model and you hope it
maps onto reality, but you have to keep adding gears and switches and elements.
And in the end, you don’t know if you’re following your own imagination – it’s
a logical, mathematical world, but it’s all your own creation and you just
don’t know if it maps on to reality.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
That’s how I feel choreographing. An absolute internal logic, that maybe even
my dancers don’t understand. I know it is a true mapping of my head, my curiosity
on a particular theme, but does it touch the audience, the reality?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
In order to do that you have to explore first and then test it in reality. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
Exactly. That’s art! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR: In
theoretical physics it’s not so much about testing things that exist but about
making a new model and comparing it to what we experience afterwards. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR: I
love reading about theoretical physics and I’m so grateful for those writers
who can write books in ways that I can understand. The world of theoretical
physics is so interesting to me. Like the quantum guys – the basic building
block of matter is sound waves?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
The idea behind string theory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
String theory as much as I’ve been able to absorb it – mostly seems too
mystical for me. But the idea of sound building matter from something we don’t
think of as having matter. It makes my brain bend, in a good way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">One night
last summer, my kid – he had just turned 8 -- was falling asleep and stumbled
onto talking about parallel universes and kept talking his way through it until
he said “What if every cell of our body is a parallel universe? So, matter is parallel
universes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
He’s a little like me. But I don’t think I got that far in my thinking when I
was his age.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
He’d be mortified to know I told you. He wouldn’t even let me tell his dad –
which I did anyway. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wasn’t thinking of
cool things like that when I was his age, and I had a pretty vivid and
overactive imagination. It’s amazing he’s thinking these things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
He’s very in line with things Lee Smolin is writing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR: The
world needs crazy ideas like this. Try it and see what happens. It obviously
has some footing in reality if people are having a response to it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">To go
off on another tack: I really responded to some of the research areas listed on
your website: Magnetized astrophysical flows…That’s such an amazing phrase.
What is that?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
The vast majority of the universe is plasma. Fire is an example of plasma – it
just means the electrons and protons are not attached anymore, they are free
floating. Most empty space is a version of that. When you have a bunch of free
charges they respond to magnetic fields. The universe is permeated by magnetic
fields and charged particles The fields make the particles move a certain way.
The particles effect the magnetic fields. The universe is magnetic fields
interacting with plasma – it effects a lot of things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
During the creation of my last project Animal Vegetable Mineral, we got talking
about magnetic fields and how birds use them etc. and also about how our organs
have magnetic fields. That has transcended into all the performance I do now. Thinking
of the overlapping and meeting of our magnetic fields creates relationships and
tensions between performers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">But using
that image, we are really just tapping into what’s constantly there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
On all scales too. A single atom has a magnetic field and the largest scale
possible – the whole universe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">The other
thing I love about magnetic fields is that we don’t notice them, but they are
really the reason we’re alive. The magnetic field protects us from solar
particles. Mars once had oceans, but it doesn’t have a magnetic field, and it
was stripped it of its oceans. Our magnetic field is our life support.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
That’s cool. Well, not cool for Mars. Poor Mars. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">In
rehearsal one of my dancers was talking about how the magnetic fields protect
us. That’s how I know I’ve got a good team, when they research this stuff on
their own. I’ve got all my dancers following NASA on Instagram. They post such
beautiful images. It’s art, and emotional response.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
You’ve got to wonder what makes us respond to things that are beautiful, things
that we have no access to for most of our history.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR: At
some point in our evolution looking up became a thing. We look up to find the
sunlight. The longing for the sunlight, to tilt the face up there. It must have
served a purpose and became a search for beauty. And mystery.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
You’ve heard the Voyager recording? From 2013 – when it finally left the solar
system? That’s in my planetarium show too…. it’s like a squeal. And then
silence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
It’s heartbreaking. That Voyager moment is an embodiment or a metaphor for
mortality. You just keep going on, but we can’t hear you anymore.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
With Voyager there was the golden record, a piece of its history that would
always be with it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
That was Sagan right?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
Yes. He commissioned it. His son is the first human voice in the recordings on
it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR: I
find that funny that we thought that whatever might encounter the record would
know how to use it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
There’s instructions on how to build the record player and play the record. But
I can’t even follow it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR: I
guess it could be like LEGO instructions –no words just pictures of the pieces
and where they go. But even then, there are times that the drawing’s depiction
of the 3-D is really challenging to see properly….so we’re even assuming that
some intelligent life out there would have 3-dimensional perception on a 2-dimensional
surface. I mean our eyes are really complicated mechanisms and they kind of
don’t make sense.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">My
last question is where do you hope your art and your science to go? What’s your
dream for it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR: I
haven’t really thought about it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">LR:
Well it’s still very new.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">MR:
There’s no defined end goal. I just want to reach as many people as possible. I
want to reach the visually impaired community. It’s a huge gap in astronomy
outreach. Astronomy is a very visually oriented field. Even if it’s not a huge
community, I can help out a lot with my work and I get a great the response.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">It’s
the trifecta: you want to find something that you’re good at, something you are
passionate about and that helps people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Experience
Matt Russo and SYSTEM SOUND </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">as part of Nuit Blanche 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">At the
Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">University
of Toronto<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">50
St. George Street<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Toronto</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">7pm-7am September 29/30th, </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;"><a href="https://rascto.ca/content/system-sounds-nuit-blanche-2018-one-sky">https://rascto.ca/content/system-sounds-nuit-blanche-2018-one-sky</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />Lucy Ruperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06687480416463324472noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170266216054875252.post-38829748586135249342018-09-13T14:37:00.003-07:002023-06-17T14:08:20.711-07:00A Scientist's Encounters with Novelty and Art: an interview with world-renowned scientist and author Lee Smolin<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFUo1WW0Ud1Fxl2RCuv2SeVW2UnNJ9gPJBKZgf39L-At1Je5h6SNF2aJK8o7TVZclTSqA97Wbp8IYQJDSe7TahX8TtDa0XtR3IXu6gejHHCuRfdgmrclZD14s4I_gRX_pASJb9Lj_v_STc/s1600/2026_33347_web_rightrail.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFUo1WW0Ud1Fxl2RCuv2SeVW2UnNJ9gPJBKZgf39L-At1Je5h6SNF2aJK8o7TVZclTSqA97Wbp8IYQJDSe7TahX8TtDa0XtR3IXu6gejHHCuRfdgmrclZD14s4I_gRX_pASJb9Lj_v_STc/s1600/2026_33347_web_rightrail.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">photo courtesy of NASA</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
So here we are, my first interview with a scientist. And Lee
Smolin, no less. If you don’t know who he is, stop and google his name now.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Did you do it?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I did this while on my way to interview him. I had read all
of his books and had invited him to my shows about Einstein and solar flares, but there it was on the
internet – one of the four most famous and important writers of cosmology and
physics for the general public. Right up there with Stephen Hawking, Brian
Greene, and Neil DeGrasse Tyson.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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No pressure, Lucy. Pretend you didn’t read that and keep
walking up to the front door of his house and ring that doorbell.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I am so glad I did.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Although Lee never describes a particular process he follows
in his work, his reminiscences of encounters with artists and their processes are imbued with the creative spark. Not the spark of solution
or answer, but the spark of origin, a thing that propels him into a deeper
query. It pushes him to evolve from a hill climber to a valley crosser and vice
versa – that will make sense later --<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>and to keep the tension of exploration adjusting and readjusting.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p> *****</o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCE-F-24n_p3OH5vwqHZUnhgMB_m1HFajMPFjN49ypDAF8vnP8B4p5zYYfWHyZ_z5savuPX5xmZlQ2TJ4HjXKQhWTHIvKm_2Z7A8ZpB5skF8RUZD2c2xIb5LMgVtvneesIKIMR6JBbD9Hw/s1600/leesmolin.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="191" data-original-width="144" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCE-F-24n_p3OH5vwqHZUnhgMB_m1HFajMPFjN49ypDAF8vnP8B4p5zYYfWHyZ_z5savuPX5xmZlQ2TJ4HjXKQhWTHIvKm_2Z7A8ZpB5skF8RUZD2c2xIb5LMgVtvneesIKIMR6JBbD9Hw/s1600/leesmolin.jpg" /></a></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-size: x-small;"> photo of Lee Smolin courtesy of <a href="http://leesmolin.com/">leesmolin.com</a></span></o:p></div>
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LUCY: Part of my journey into the intersection of art and science came from reading a scientist's description of the scientific process as four stages: Saturate,
Incubate, Illuminate, Verify. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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LEE: Hhmmmm.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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LUCY: When I read that I instantly felt that’s what
I do when I’m choreographing and dancing. I’ve tried to formalize the four stages into my
creative process, I let them guide me when I
launch into a new project.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
LEE: I’ve never heard that description. What were those
stages?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
LUCY: Saturate, Incubate, Illuminate, Verify. I cannot
remember who said it.<br />
<br />
LEEE: I don’t think there is a scientific method, but that’s not a bad
description.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
LUCY: Maybe that’s an advantage science has over art: even if there isn't a set method, there’s an expectation you will formalize things into a quantifiable or defined process?<o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: But that’s not the process of making science.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’m going to tell you my one dance story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A long time ago I was living in New York, I became enamoured of the <a href="http://www.marthagraham.org/" target="_blank">Martha Graham Company</a>. I saw
her. She didn’t perform but she came out and took a bow. It was the late 80s or
early 90s. And then I was in Argentina for a conference and I went to see the
Graham company perform there. We ran into some of the principal dancers in the
street and started chatting<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We made a bet as to whether quantum mechanics or Martha Graham’s
dances would last longer. Each of us betting on the other. Their view was that
the dances were very fragile. And it requires people who have living knowledge
to keep it alive. Even though there’s notation, they were very worried that
when they retired the dances would be lost. They were the last generation who
were trained by Martha Graham. The dances were going to disappear. We, on the
other hand, were very hopeful that quantum mechanics would be super-ceded.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
LUCY: And I guess <a href="https://www.livescience.com/33816-quantum-mechanics-explanation.html" target="_blank">quantum mechanics </a>hasn’t really been super-ceded.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
LEE: Unfortunately no. And I don’t know what the status of
the Martha Graham company is.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
LUCY: The company is struggling to find a way to keep going without becoming a museum company, just re-staging Graham's old works. There are dancers
in their 60s and 70s who were trained by Martha who can pass on their knowledge
to younger dancers, but there must be some kind diluting effect as it
happens. The company wants to stay relevant, yet it bears the name of this
woman who is an indelible historical mark on the development of modern dance in
North America….<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So to you....what drew you into physics?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
LEE: I’ve told that story a few times.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
LUCY: I’m sure. I apologize for asking again!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
LEE: When I was in high school I was into rock and roll. I
was a bad musician. My mother was a playwright and I was into writing too. I
was very rebellious. We did some testing in grade 8 that said I wasn’t good
enough to go into advanced math. But we had a friend who was a professor of
mathematics, in Cincinnati and he arranged for me to do advanced math in the university
and so I got to calculus very early and I had use of a computer when very few
kids did. Now it’s universal but back then it was something to make a fuss
over.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I wasn’t interested in it [math/science] as something to do. Then I met and
heard a talk with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller" target="_blank">Buckminster Fuller</a>. My father had wanted to be an architect
and saw he was speaking and my friend and I were in charge of a Speakers Program
at the high school so I called the hotel he was staying at and left a message
that if he wanted to speak at the high school he should call….I got called to
the school office in second period. The principal told me I should pick him up
at 2. So we went down and picked him. He just got in the car with a couple of
kids.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The principal had called an assembly for the last period.
Mr. Fuller came out looked around, went back stage and got a chair, put it on
stage, went to the podium and put one microphone in each breast pocket, sat
down, took out his hearing aid, took off his glasses, closed his eyes and
talked for six hours.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span><a name='more'></a></span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM05d9Nuylk" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="197" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_ZsQ0gZqdS9EHdl2h51zj0zxlLm3rpmzYOnWM4a3hXtTOKU4EspS5ET7O1NeHWJJusTHFq_1NIQcdH1InEf_xZX34vmfQ5B_JVysoKmFgiSkDKxKj3FLX03B1HCKBIY6Ej_byBGid9HJ1a9BnGpFhH8oOfLcioyg9-y4PUH3LDiyy0YSB5wHHOgHdqg/s1600/images.jpg" width="197" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">click on photo for </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span face=""helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: x-small;">Buckminster Fuller documentary</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
I got very inspired. And shortly after that I dropped
out of high school. I started working with structures, with curved surfaces.
And I applied for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampshire_College" target="_blank">Hampshire College</a> which was a small experimental school on
the basis of my playing around with architecture They accepted me and then I
got into designing curved surfaces, arbitrary surfaces, writing computer code
to do structural confirmations of curved surfaces, dividing them up into
triangles. Which is very ironic because the models we make for quantum space
look like triangles, triangulated structures.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was getting books from the public library, math books. All
the books on curved surfaces had chapters on relativity. So I got a book of
essays about Einstein. An essay by Einstein about why he went into physics… I
just got this feeling that I could do this. Of course, I had never taken a physics
course. I just got this feeling maybe, not maybe --just a calm feeling that I
could.<o:p></o:p></div>
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He laid out what were for him the open problems at that
time: quantum mechanics, beyond quantum mechanics and combine that with
relativity. It’s like I got an assignment. And that’s what I’ve done ever since.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: Einstein is a touchstone for so many people in- and out-side of science. I started reading his works while finishing my
history degree. I wound up making a dance about –in an abstract way -- about Einstein's thought experiments.
I felt like you: like I got an assignment. Can you go on stage and do a thought
experiment? Maybe the end result of this thought experiment will be that it
feels different every time, the movements will link together differently….It
opened up my way of making and performing dance. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Then I read his writings on peace and was extremely moved. I go
back to his writing when I feel a little lost. Einstein, <a href="https://aeon.co/videos/a-fanatic-against-fanaticism-and-other-pleasures-of-bertrand-russell-in-his-own-words" target="_blank">Bertrand Russell</a> and
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=y6wy4wSfuQA" target="_blank">Henry Miller</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: That’s an interesting trio. Einstein, Miller,
Russell…all pre-modern in a way. The last classics.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s interesting too that Einstein never got modern. People
tried to get him to move forward but he wouldn’t. People are trying to figure
out if he ever went to hear jazz. It would have been easy for him to have gone
into New York and heard Coltrane or Monk.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: It would’ve been interesting to know his response to
jazz. <o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: There’s no evidence he ever attended any concerts.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: Jazz appeals to very analytical minds… a certain
mathematical element to it?<o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: Yes. <o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: A mind that can see the world in mathematics really
can plug into the music.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: One of the things [composer/musician/producer] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melvin_Gibbs" target="_blank">Melvin Gibbs</a> talked about was that for African-Americans who were mathematical there weren’t career
paths into mathematics, science or engineering but they had career paths into
jazz. So several of them like Coltrane, like Ornette Coleman, had very mathematical theories of harmony.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span face=""calibri" , sans-serif" style="font-size: x-small;">Melvin Gibbs in a vintage NYC performance, 1988</span></div>
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LUCY: I never thought about it that way before. But that
makes a lot of sense.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: Do you think <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_on_the_Beach" target="_blank">Einstein on the Beach</a> was a series of thought experiments?<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: I would imagine so. It seems like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Glass" target="_blank">Philip Glass </a>would do
something like that.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: And the choreographer?<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: <a href="http://www.lucindachilds.com/" target="_blank">Lucinda Childs</a>? I don’t know. What I know of her, it
seems she has a very analytical, mathematical and highly-structured mind, very
intentional. I just saw her choreography for the opera <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Atomic" target="_blank">Doctor Atomic</a> about Robert Oppenheimer.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: I didn’t know there was an opera about Oppenheimer!<o:p></o:p><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/AlUHKHLk_VU/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AlUHKHLk_VU?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;"> Canadian singer Gerald Finley in "Batter My Heart" from John Adams' Doctor Atomic</span><br />
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LUCY: Oh it’s beautiful. In the choreography the dancers are
generally behind the action of the main characters, behind a veil, either
literally or metaphorically. It took me a few scenes of thinking “Why are they so
far back, just moving around?” and then I realized that they were moving as the
atoms. <o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: One of the dances in Einstein on the Beach has a dancer
being a photon. In a kind of thought experiment about light.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: I suspect that was a choreographed version of a
thought experiment but I don’t think the dancers themselves were undergoing a
thought experiment as they were dancing. Probably the thought experiment was
the choreographer’s creative process rather than the way the dancers approached
performing it. Even Einstein on the Beach being such a phenomenon of epic
performance. So well-known by so many people who don’t know about opera and new
music…<o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: Who composed the Oppenheimer opera?<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: John Adams. It’s so beautiful. How can you
make an opera about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Robert_Oppenheimer" target="_blank">Oppenheimer</a>’s inner struggle with the Manhattan Project and
make it interesting?<o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: And you’d have to deal with….well...Oppenheimer’s a very
problematic personality and he did a lot of damage. A lot of people got hurt.
Not just the people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: It's a time and an issue that is still problematic and unresolved. It
never will be resolved. It was a tricky time. <o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: It was a complicated thing.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: Do you feel that you have a shape of a process that
you go through? I’ll call it a creative process rather than separating artistic
and scientific since they are both creative.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: They’re both creative…Well, first of all I believe that
novelty is real and that nature has the capacity to generate novel forms of
matter, novel structures, novel patterns. Human beings have the capacity to
invent novel ideas and novel explanations as an expression of the general
capacity of nature to create novel forms. Novel means not anticipatable, not
predictable from knowledge from the past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That’s a very strong form of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence" target="_blank">emergence</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So what’s the creative process? Any process which creates
novelty. Art is a particularly refined, purified form of the invention of
novelty. Science is less so. Science is the search for good explanations about
the natural world and as such…I mean I know there is rigour in art and it is
hard to do well. There’s progress and criticism, but science is demanding in a
different way. Science has a very conservative element and a very radical
element and they have to coexist in tension. A good scientist is conservative
and a rebel as well.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Scientific process is very labour intensive, very emotional.
Any breakthroughs you have in the understanding of something are surrounded by
doubt and criticism and it’s very much back and forth.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’m somebody who is relatively good at inventing new ideas
and hypotheses, which is rare. Science gets by with 90% of scientists as incrementalists.
They advance a given research paradigm incrementally.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: What do you mean by incrementalist in this context?<o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: If knowledge is a landscape and better knowledge is a higher
hill there are hill climbers who don’t know how to get down the other side.
They are very good at climbing but get confused and don’t know what to do when
they get to the top, so they tend to stay there and defend, making fun of
people sitting on top of other hills. The minority of people are valley
crossers. <o:p></o:p></div>
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That seems to be part of the dynamic that makes science
successful: if we were all valley crossers it would collapse, if we were all
hill climbers it would collapse.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And a good scientist has to be able to do both to some
extent. Everyone has different balances, different amounts of tension.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: That’s a beautiful word, tension. Tension gets talked about a lot in theatre,
not so much in dance. How to keep tension alive between movements, bodies. Not
physical tension, more energetic. If there’s not enough tension, it leaves
audiences caring a little less about what they are witnessing. A degree of risk
or high-stakes is involved when there is tension. <o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: I think the hill climbers and valley crossers exist in
art too. But it’s inherent in many scientific fields. The tensions within
oneself and also within the community of one particular discipline of science.
That gets lost sometimes in the arts. We don’t have to be all radicals. We need
the tensions within ourselves and amongst each other.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: In terms of science, art and more generally in our
world. It wouldn’t work if we were all valley crossers.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So when I read your book <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Reborn" target="_blank">Time Reborn</a>. I cried during the last chapter of
this book.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: The epilogue.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: Yes. I would read the book in before going to sleep, in bed, and I'd roll over to my husband and say, “Ok
listen to this.” These are the conversations we have at night, just before we fall asleep
we get on to the nature of the universe and philosophy of the world. But when I
read Time Reborn I was also reading <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._O._Wilson" target="_blank">Edward O. Wilson's</a> books, encountering these different
disciplines talking the same way about being responsible for the world. Saying
this is how it’s possible for us to make changes that will make things better.
It came out of left field – the turn of energy in your epilogue and when I got to the end it, it took
my breath away.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: Thank you. I’m glad because I coded very personal stuff
in there. My first book <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_of_the_Cosmos" target="_blank">Life in the Cosmos</a>…I don’t know if you read it…<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: Oh yes.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: The epilogue in Time Reborn is a response to the
epilogue of Life in the Cosmos. That entire epilogue was inspired by the remark
of a friend, Paul Sinclair St. Moon, a Brazilian sculptor. We were at a party
where I asked him what post modernism was…I think can quote him by heart:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“If the point of modernism was to burn down the old house of
classicism then all post-modernism has been doing is playing with the charred
little pieces that were left. Which is a very purile thing to be doing
considering that winter is coming.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: Whooooooooaaaaa.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: That resonated with me somehow and on the subway home
from that party, I wrote the epilogue. It came out in one thing, in a notebook
on the subway.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So that book is partly an application of ideas from biology
to evolutionary physics, but it was very much inspired by my interactions with artists,
especially visual artists in New York in the 90s.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: It’s like there’s a post-modern vortex… it can suck
people in. Steve Reich and Philip Glass – even their music creates an aural
vortex.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: I don’t know music really well, but I have had two
experiences with Philip Glass – Einstein on the Beach and a solo dance
performance in the 90s – I can’t remember the dancer. I liked dance but I never
knew that much about it. It was a pretty formal dancer, intriguing and she came
to the end and there was call for an encore and she came in front of the
curtain, she said she’d like to do a piece she’d been working on…The curtain
opened and there was a piano and sitting at it was Philip Glass.<o:p></o:p></div>
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His music is highly emotional. It’s highly structured and
within that it was extremely expressive and probably a lot of lesser composers
with the same structure made things that were not interesting, not expressive.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: There’s something about those two – Reich and Glass --
where they did it so well that it transcends its own formalism.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: Yes. Do you know who that dancer might have been?<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: It was probably Lucinda Childs, who choreographed
Einstein on the Beach. Or Trisha Brown. Did you see Einstein on the Beach in
Toronto recently?<o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: Yes. I expected to hate it. [Director] Robert Wilson
wanted to have a session of response from physicists at the Perimeter
Institute. Dina, my wife, wanted to go because she’s connected with music, on
the board of Array Music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was to
be a session of commentary after the performance. I insisted on an aisle seat
so I could leave, because I was sure I was going to hate it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As soon as they started I was captivated. <o:p></o:p></div>
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choreography by Lucinda Childs from Philip Glass "Einstein on the Beach"</div>
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LUCY: Why did you think you would hate it?<o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: Because it was post-modern and minimalist and 5 hours.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: Yeah, if you’re going to ask people to be there for 5
hours it better be good.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: And no intermission. But there is the assumption that
people will leave and come back. I did leave a little bit, but I was mostly
there.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: Part of the reason I didn’t go to see it is because I
thought there was no way I could sit still for 5 hours. I would need to go for
a run and come back.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: You could have! It would be interesting to know what
you thought of the choreography.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: I would expect it was unrelenting. Her work starts and
just goes, usually.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: Also for the singers.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: I can’t imagine singing for 5 hours….I’ve had to dance
that long, but singing? Although I guess if I trained for that kind of performance
I would have strategies.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: There are tricks I understand. We asked the performers,
because the “words” are mostly nonsenses syllables and the time signatures
change constantly. There are counting tricks that Glass developed for the
singers. They said if you sing contemporary music you get used that kind of
challenge.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: For dancers too. There’s that joke that dancers can only
count to 8. But contemporary dancers have to switch all the time and so much of
it we don’t even count anymore, so the sense of time is created by personal
rhythm and proprioceptive devices, a collective experience of time. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So what are you working on now, do you have a new area?</div>
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LEE: I have one thing which is very risky – it’s the
craziest thing I’ve done in a long time and it has to do with seeing if an
effect of quantum gravity could explain something of what dark matter is. I
can’t talk about it very much….but it’s addressing the failure of dark matter
to explain everything that it’s supposed to explain.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: That feels like a frontier right now. I just
read Lisa Randall’s book…<o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: Her book about dark matter and the dinosaurs?<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: Yes. I need to read a bit more because I have flashes
of visceral understanding but I need to read more so that I can really wrap my
brain around it. I get drawn to the edge of science to explain what we see and
experience and I love the mystery that is out on that edge.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The reason I’ve been drawn into reading on cosmology etc., is because my parents used to get my sister and me up in the
middle of the night to watch meteor showers. I grew up in a house where we
never watched TV while eating unless it was the Muppet Show, National Geographic
specials or Carl Sagan's Cosmos. My mum died when I was 15 and my dad when I was 22. I had just finished university, just finished my dance degree, about to launch into
the world and not at all ready to be without parents. I spent the whole summer
after my dad died reading The Origin of Species, the Voyage of the Beagle and
every book by Carl Sagan that was in our house – we had all of them that had
been written to that point. <o:p></o:p><br />
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Reading about the natural laws of the universe helped me cope.</div>
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When I had my son a great deal of anxiety arose in me –
worrying about my mortality and the future and time passing – and it is reading
your books, and others like them, that helps me release from the anxiety of my
little place in the universe. <o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: That parental anxiety is what's coded into the epilogue of
Time Reborn, without it saying so explicitly. That was a motivation.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: I can see for my son too, that touchstones for him
with his anxiety is learning about the world.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: Anything else you want to ask?<o:p></o:p></div>
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LUCY: So many things….but we should wrap it up. It’s
wonderful to hear you speak. It’s very reassuring to hear people speak about
their work. I like to know how people do what they do. <o:p></o:p></div>
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LEE: There’s more to say about that. It’s hard to have good
ideas. They come in a moment…I like those four stages…what was the first? Saturate.
Very good ideas they come in a moment. Cosmological natural selection came one
day when I was sailing. I have a visual memory of that sail. I had a very good
idea in the White Squirrel café…only time I went there. I don’t want to go back
and jinx it. Bad ideas come just floating on the wind. Good ideas take an
immersion in the problem.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Then you are responsible for it. It takes months, years, to
turn an idea into a legitimate scientific hypothesis.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqc_UY6AUwci1BvKbGyUb3_0A16UkFXLEU6f50G0PLTgP-IJKBwKaVMwCZgt5tJZN0zJ-mtK-vZuBY6Zs9sqph9J9Fm0P2DY5xaxwOQNkv5KQu18XnlDptHf3222qyzEtuU3FuuS-GqLG8/s1600/_mg_4505.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqc_UY6AUwci1BvKbGyUb3_0A16UkFXLEU6f50G0PLTgP-IJKBwKaVMwCZgt5tJZN0zJ-mtK-vZuBY6Zs9sqph9J9Fm0P2DY5xaxwOQNkv5KQu18XnlDptHf3222qyzEtuU3FuuS-GqLG8/s400/_mg_4505.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> Lucy Rupert in her work investigating Einstein's thought experiments </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"The speed of our vertigoes" photo by Jeremy Brace</span></div>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
LUCY: Ideas are all consuming. You don’t leave it on your
desk at the end of an 8-hour day. It travels along inside you. Truly an embodied action.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Do you see it as a good thing that there seems to be a surge
in popular interest in understanding the universe?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
LEE: This might be a bit deflationary on that count: If you
look behind it, there’s one person, a literary agent. Almost everybody you’ve
mentioned, we share the same agent. He’s a great business man, a great
storyteller and a person of great vision. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brockman_(literary_agent)" target="_blank">John Brockman</a>. His vision is
something like this: there used to be a place in North American culture for public
intellectuals: Susan Sontag, Lionel Trilling etc....John’s analysis is that
post-modernism focused the attention inward and intellectuals forgot how to
communicate to the public at large. And that role now is empty. He proposes the
third culture take up that space. Third culture is artists, scientists and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digerati" target="_blank">digerati</a> together. He
sought out us all out, people who had new ideas for books that could be written
as though for our colleagues, but with the general public looking over their
shoulders.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
LUCY: I don’t think that’s deflationary at all. That one
agent is bringing the mystery and the new ideas to the public. We need it. We
need to share the mystery.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
LEE: Well then let’s end there.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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LUCY: Beautiful.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p>***</o:p><br />
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p>Lee's newest book "<i>Einstein's unfinished revolution: the search for what lies behind the quantum" </i>will be published next spring. Stay tuned to blueceilingdancer.blogspot.com for more with Lee closer to his book's release! </o:p><br />
<o:p><br /></o:p>
<o:p><a href="http://www.leesmolin.com/">www.leesmolin.com</a></o:p><br />
<br />
<o:p><br /></o:p>
<o:p>For more on Lucy Rupert's choreography and dancing check out her company's website:</o:p><br />
<o:p><br /></o:p>
<o:p><a href="http://www.blueceilingdance.com/">www.blueceilingdance.com</a></o:p><br />
<br />
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The world is full of interesting people. For almost 15 years
I’ve been interviewing artists and finding out about creative process,
inspiration and perseverance in that line of work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I’m not bored.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But I am ready something a little different.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For over a decade I’ve been obsessed with trying to
understand the goings-on in the world of theoretical physics, specifically in
cosmology and astrophysics. And more tentatively branching out into
neuroscience and evolution.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv6Y5B7jftIVW4qunqpL7xVt2T2tsOJvGmPgRcLfUUDu1kL_mUrNjYq_WSjZg8SJJ6hrwndOuyHhkdUCZNEDqI5ek-_Eij466ijjdwYZTZ-AJRLzRP1VPx6QL0ingkxqtr8xMdYbCLT6qZ/s1600/DSC_8248.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="881" data-original-width="1200" height="468" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv6Y5B7jftIVW4qunqpL7xVt2T2tsOJvGmPgRcLfUUDu1kL_mUrNjYq_WSjZg8SJJ6hrwndOuyHhkdUCZNEDqI5ek-_Eij466ijjdwYZTZ-AJRLzRP1VPx6QL0ingkxqtr8xMdYbCLT6qZ/s640/DSC_8248.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Blue Ceiling dance in Dead Reckoning. Sky Fairchild-Waller, Peter Quanz, Elke Schroeder and Lucy Rupert. (Photo by Omer Yukseker)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
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I’ve made several works of choreography with these
investigations as their undercurrents and gushing waves. I’ve tried to surf
through the embodiment possible in dance: the third man factor, the thought
experiments of Einstein, the compulsive brains of solo pilots, the
interdependence and adaptations of ecosystems, the uglier animal instincts that
are seeded within “civilized” humans.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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My next choreographic project for my company Blue Ceiling dance is an exploration of light: how it behaves
in space and in experimental conditions, how the words scientists have used for
light are as utterly human as our bodies: wave and particle, measuring duration
and distance, creative and destructive, constant duality and simultaneity.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWhUhTJkLENPBaGiL3Oa6pZZ8g0khkwIg2A-_piiQJ1Uj_T23gIju8tA2F0cD1eIF2Uia77SRWQNnNR_FL6MX88Q0Tp6gh1yagW0cVCSITN3w_lgFnJXLOmDUvRtkwKda2v1mnUorcm6yO/s1600/DSC_7749.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWhUhTJkLENPBaGiL3Oa6pZZ8g0khkwIg2A-_piiQJ1Uj_T23gIju8tA2F0cD1eIF2Uia77SRWQNnNR_FL6MX88Q0Tp6gh1yagW0cVCSITN3w_lgFnJXLOmDUvRtkwKda2v1mnUorcm6yO/s640/DSC_7749.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Blue Ceiling dance in rehearsal for 8 minutes 17 seconds. Kaitlin Standeven, Elke Schroeder and Lucy Rupert (photo by Drew Berry)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
The new choreographic work, titled "8 minutes 17 seconds" (the time it takes light to travel from the Sun to Earth), interweaves 8 separate dances (each 8:17 in length) into one stream of weather, time, luminosity and mortality. It will premiere at The Theatre Centre in January 2020 with a cast of 13 and a team of 7 other collaborators. It's a massive project for me and I want the research and imagery supporting it to be just as expansive.<br />
<br />
It
can’t be a coincidence that there is such poetry in the language of science,
which we often conceive of as being sterile, objective, definitive.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A friend of mine, a PhD in Molecular Biology, once conspiratorially said to me,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Real scientists are always looking for the unknown. Once we
figure something out we want to go to the next edge of unknown. Like artists,
right?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maybe that’s the difference between entertainment and art?
Both have great value to society. But one shows us what we know and the other
pokes at what we maybe don’t know. I had always felt the magnetic pull between
art and science – I chalked that up to my parents, both their nature and
nurture -- but my friend’s words congealed the connection in a way that I hadn’t
previously seen.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnkJhAA7Tz-_5EmTLL93kqfxSdezSZMtfvIUMPAZobIgPIRZcp5FniPp4zVJqCNvFr6b-A72JhJPI_DDAJl6v-YZqe6MVOg1K4qxK5ciSSTW_EqUlTQyI09Sv6GerQTWu-WXA4pYeBke4D/s1600/IMG_9948+3.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="180" data-original-width="320" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnkJhAA7Tz-_5EmTLL93kqfxSdezSZMtfvIUMPAZobIgPIRZcp5FniPp4zVJqCNvFr6b-A72JhJPI_DDAJl6v-YZqe6MVOg1K4qxK5ciSSTW_EqUlTQyI09Sv6GerQTWu-WXA4pYeBke4D/s640/IMG_9948+3.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Blue Ceiling dance in rehearsal of 8 minutes 17 seconds, choreographic section by Karen Kaeja. (Photo of Lucy Rupert taken by Karen Kaeja)</span></div>
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Of course: art and science are trying to describe the world
that we know and the possibilities of what else there may be. Are we pawing at
the same door but coming at it down different hallways?<o:p></o:p></div>
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I read many years ago – and I can’t remember which scientist
put it this way – that art and science undergo similar stages in their
processes: Saturate, Incubate and Illuminate. This scientist went on to say
that science has one more stage: Verify. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But I think art has Verify as well. That is sharing of our
work. Whether on stage, on a wall in a gallery, in a public park, or a rarely-visited
blog, when you put your work out into the world to see where and how it lands,
this is Verify.<o:p></o:p><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiec_gwn8fb5764tLQOxgTQ9036flFQ22NAzspyxfPAa3KS1lhprJUCsdK0Q0Ul07_c3R8vRhQKolUD60fnO3VDyQx7MEi43uEP8GlvkPyA_t05kdy-uLs54ws-1NS10v3Qijy5Pdx3wi1s/s1600/20900886_1416265528426724_3787619065653074607_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiec_gwn8fb5764tLQOxgTQ9036flFQ22NAzspyxfPAa3KS1lhprJUCsdK0Q0Ul07_c3R8vRhQKolUD60fnO3VDyQx7MEi43uEP8GlvkPyA_t05kdy-uLs54ws-1NS10v3Qijy5Pdx3wi1s/s640/20900886_1416265528426724_3787619065653074607_o.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Blue Ceiling dance/Lucy Rupert in Frankenstein Fragments. (Photo by Zahra Salecki)</span></div>
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In my experience, there is scientific process, even as
simplistically as I learned it in high school, embedded in the creative
process. Hypothesis, constraints, repeatable conditions, observing/measuring
the outcome. Then you do it again. Compare results. Share.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So I want to talk with scientists to see how they view the
creative act in their scientific processes and how they view the scientific act
embedded in artistic processes. Perhaps I want to find out that these divisions
aren’t practically relevant.</div>
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What's coming?<br />
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Interviews with some of the most creative scientific minds, people working at the mysterious and imaginative edges of their fields. And I'm still looking for more, so send me your suggestions, if you have some!<br />
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I want to know how people do their work, what are their rigours and eurekas?<br />
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Stay tuned....Lucy Ruperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06687480416463324472noreply@blogger.com0