THE CONDITIONS Work-in-Progress by LUCY M. MAY F F O N D U H C
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TITLE OF THE PIECE: THE CONDITIONS (WORKING TITLE) CREATION: LUCY M. MAY & GUESTS DIRECTION & PRODUCTION: LUCY M. MAY COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: CANADA CITY: TIOHTIÁ:KE/MOONIYAANG/MONTRÉAL
CREATION PHASE II: PROJECTED FOR FALL 2021-SUMMER 2022 PRESENTATION: PROJECTED FOR 2022-3 SEASON DURATION: TBC SPECTATORS: TBC CREDITS
RESEARCH PHASE: OCTOBER 2019-OCTOBER 2020 CREATION PHASE I: NOVEMBER 2020-FEBRUARY 2021
DIRECTION: LUCY M. MAY DANCE & VOICE: PETER JASKO, JA BRITTON JOHNSON, FRANCESCA CHUDNOFF, MARIE-REINE KABASHA, LUCY M. MAY, SOVANN ROCHON-PROM TEP MUSIC: PATRICK CONAN & VICKY METTLER (KEE AVIL) SCENOGRAPHY & VISUAL ART: MAISIE O'BRIEN LIGHTING DESIGN: JON CLEVELAND ARTISTIC ADVISOR: OLA MACIEJEWSKA TAROT CONSULTANT: EROCA NICOLS VOICE COACH & MENTOR: JUDITH KOLTAI PHOTOGRAPHERS: FRANCESCA CHUDNOFF, KINGA MICHALSKA VIDEOGRAPHERS: FRANCESCA CHUDNOFF, DO PHAN HOI, F. CHRIS GILES VIDEO EDITING: LUCY M. MAY A PRODUCTION OF: LUCY M. MAY
WITH THE SUPPORT OF: CANADA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS, FESTIVAL TRANSAMÉRIQUES (MONTRÉAL), THE BEAVERBROOK ART GALLERY (FREDERICTON), STUDIO 303 (MONTRÉAL), CIRCUIT-EST (MONTRÉAL), GALLERY TPW (TORONTO), MAISON DE LA CULTURE MARIE- UGUAY/CHARLES BRECARD/LE SUD-OUEST (MONTRÉAL) © LUCY M. MAY THE WORK
In collaboration with musician-composers Patrick Conan and Vicky Mettler, choreographer Lucy M. May is currently building a container for new improvisational research. The Conditions (working title) is envisioned as an installation and performance for gallery space, to be complimented by video works. Third in a series of pieces investigating the ecologies of place, it will follow Vivarium (2014/17), created in alleyways and rail yards, and Anima / Darkroom (2019), a Krump solo for black box theatres. Recalling the emotion of dancing alone at the Reversing Falls in New Brunswick (The Lips of the River, 2017) and drawn to the intimacy of gazing in the gallery, Lucy M. May is investigating processes that entrain gesture and feeling. The Conditions seeks to track and induce fleeting sensations (butterflies, shivers) through voice and movement. Experimental Western microtonal scales, as well as new and archaïc methods of sense- perception (Microphenomenology, the Occult) inform the work. Joining the project are freestylers from both contemporary and street dance styles: Ja Britton Johnson (Jigsaw/Ozcar the Grouch), Francesca Chudnoff, Peter Jasko, and Marie-Reine Kabasha. A visual environment for The Conditions is being created by cut-paper artist Maisie O’Brien and lighting designer Jon Cleveland.
LUCY M. MAY © FRANCESCA CHUDNOFF LUCY M. MAY © CALOPE
BIOGRAPHY
Lucy M. May is a Contemporary dance artist based in Tiohtiá:ke/Mooniyaang/Montréal since 2003. Attracted to the porousness of collaboration and the vastness of dancing, Lucy has developed choreography for stage, screen, and unusual locations. Her creations, such as Anima / Darkroom (2019), in collaboration with the Krump artist 7Starr, and Vivarium (2014/17) with Noémie Avidar, Patrick Conan, and Paige Culley, often ask how environments thread their way through human movement. She deepened her research in New Brunswick, her native province, during a land-based project entitled Esemplastic Landing (2016-17). Between 2009 and 2016, Lucy was a member of Compagnie Marie Chouinard, creating roles for twelve works and performing across five continents. As a freelance dancer, she has recently worked with such artists as Susanna Hood, Alejandro de Leon, Frédérick Gravel, Ariane Boulet, and Helen Simard. She is an affiliated artist of Margie Gillis’s Legacy Project since 2014 and has been entrusted with two solos, The Complex Simplicity of Love and Give Me Your Heart Tonight. A graduate of EDCM in Montréal and Rotterdamse Dansacademie, she began practicing Krump in 2016. Her work has been programmed in Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Sweden, and the UK. GUEST DANCERS & VOICERS
Francesca Chudnoff is a Toronto based millennial, with a BFA in performance. She is a dance artist, film maker, photographer, a Sagittarius sun and collector of all things shiny. She began her Contemporary dance training working as a company member at Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre. Francesca continued her studies at Ryerson Theatre School while also working independently in street dance forms such as Breaking and House. After graduating, Francesca became Co-Assistant Director of Alias Dance Project until Spring 2017. She has presented her dance work at Dancematters, PS We Are All Here, Flowchart, Wind Down Dance, and Nuit Blanche Toronto. Her film work has been presented at Toronto Urban Film Festival, F-O-R-M, ArtSpin, On Common Ground Festival, Rhubarb Festival, Long Winter, Âjagemô - Canada Council for the Arts, FFDN, and Nuit Blanche Toronto. Francesca is currently working as an Emerging Artist in Residence at Dancemakers Centre for Creation.
Peter Jasko has been involved in the dance community as a performer, choreographer, and teacher in Europe and abroad for over 15 years. He holds a deep desire to revive a space for instinct in dance, with a sincere interest in body-space-connection awareness. He sees beauty everywhere—in all bodies, emotions, and personal histories. Through his choreographies, performances, and workshops, presented around the world, Jasko abolishes the hierarchies and divisions between body and mind by favoring an open dance that encourages deep consciousness, in a difficult and fragile process towards balance. Peter studied and graduated at the Conservatory J.L. Bella, Slovakia. He continued his education at VSMU in Bratislava, before entering P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels. His professional experience includes dancing with artists and companies such as R.Olivan, S.L.Cherkaoui, D.Zambrano, B.Coleman, P.Forman, Clara Furey and more... Peter Jasko is co-founder of Les SlovaKs Dance Collective. He had directed many circus groups such as Svalbard company, Circus Eloize, and several projects of Roberto Magro.
Ja Britton Johnson, aka Jigsaw, is an artist with an extensive knowledge of various street styles, with a focus on Hip Hop and Krump. He began working in hip hop with 2marvelous, then ventured into Krumping in 2006. He has dedicated 10 years to his art, and with determination and dedication Jigsaw has become one of the new generation of leaders of Krump in Canada. He is also part of MKA (Montreal Krump Alliance), a not-for-profit dance organization. He now dances for Ebnflōh Dance Company. He has performed at 100Lux festival in Juxtapose led by Saxon Fraser; also presented at Breakin’ Convention in Toronto in the summer of 2017.
Active in the Montreal dance scene since 2013, Marie-Reine "MQueen" Kabasha combines her love of movement of all kinds with her pleasure of sharing in all her practices. In freestyle as well as in theatre, every opportunity for expression nourishes it. She has collaborated with several prominent street dance figures in Montreal as well as internationally. Notably, in 2014 she joined the company Ebnflōh, founded by Alexandra "Spicey" Landé, as a dancer, and the company Tentacle Tribe in 2016. She has also collaborated with the Parisian waacking collective Ma Dame Paris in 2019. In parallel, she nourishes a growing interest in research and creation, presenting a co-creation with Christina Paquette TNM in 2013 at the 100Lux Street Dance Festival, and Orbite in 2018 as part of the OFFTA. She is currently undertaking a research project on her own movement language called Trigger Point. MARIE-REINE KABASHA 3 0 3
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SOUND
Montréal-born Patrick Conan is a drummer and percussionist who has been playing music professionally for more than twenty years. Since 2013, he has composed music for contemporary dance works by Nate Yaffe, Sarah- Ève Grant-Lefebvre, and longtime collaborator Lucy M. May. Patrick has played as a musician in numerous projects and toured Canada, the United States, and Europe. Notable past acts include Tricky Woo, Sackville, The Carnations, and Valleys. Current projects include Sam Shalabi's Land of Kush and Traces. His compositions use software manipulation, field recordings, and found sounds. He completed his studies in Classical percussion at Vanier College in Montréal.
Vicky Mettler is a guitarist and composer based in Montreal, QC. In 2018, she started a songwriting project ‘Kee Avil’, blending the experimental and the familiar through the use of guitar, voice and electronics. The project has since toured the USA, Europe and Canada - sharing the stage with artists such as Marc Ribot, Fly Pan Am, Pere Ubu and Bill Orcutt. She composed music for the contemporary dance piece ‘Modern Woman in Search of Soul’ (Citadel + Compagnie, 2018) by Sasha Ivanochko and is currently collaborating in a research project by choreographer Lucy M. May. Vicky is also a member of ‘Land of Kush’ (Constellation Records) and Miller/Mettler/Foisy (Notice Recordings). Festival appearances include Vancouver Jazz Festival, Sled Island, Pop Montreal, Suoni per il Popolo and Kiezsalon (Digital in Berlin).
SCENOGRAPHY & VISUAL ART
Maisie O'Brien "I could have sprouted out of the ground from Southern China — that’s about all that anyone knows before. I was adopted from Jiujiang and raised in the prairie oasis of Dallas, TX. As the daughter of a film photographer, I sympathized early with the need to frame the world in a soft and sinister Noir. My first flirtations with art were through printmaking and stop-motion animation. An introduction to woodcut and intaglio in high school led me to pursue a lithography-and-woodcut-heavy printmaking major at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. While still in school the most impactful experience was in earning a travel scholarship which I used to study folk art and puppetry across Europe and the United Kingdom. After graduating from PAFA’ s Certificate Program, I took an additional year to complete my BFA at the University of Pennsylvania where I continued to absorb conversations around folklore, anthropology, and Earth science. Seeking the time and community to explore these topics further for my art, I have since had the pleasure of being a 2018 Bread and Puppet Apprentice, and a 2019 artist in residence at Officina Stamperia del Notaio’s studio and printshop in Sicily."
LIGHTING
Jon Cleveland is a Montreal-based Lighting Designer/Visual Artist. Working in theatre and dance, he has worked with The Segal Centre for The Arts, The National Arts Centre, The Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, Tangente, Cabal Theatre, Scapegoat Carinivale, Susanna Hood, Lucy M. May, Rabbit in the Hat, Malik Nashad Sharpe, and Kim-Sanh Chau among others. His design for Tragic Queens with Cabal Theatre was nominated for a 2017 META award for outstanding lighting design. When not designing, he tours as TD and head of lighting with the Tashme Project and Lara Kramer around Canada, Europe, and the South Pacific. 3 0 3
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SCENOGRAPHY
Maisie O'Brien
"My imagery is fluid and migrates with the events in my life. Metamorphosis and liminality are two main themes, conversant with other thoughts on how we view ourselves as both agents and products of our environments. On an intimate scale, these moving parts and shadow stricken stages that I make are vehicles to assert my own narratives. Their final performance is a passage..."
"Using ethereal black silk organza, I began with a literal embodiment of sensations, stitching together evocative human shells and silhouettes that were meant to shiver, float, and vacillate in response to the dance artists’ actions, their passing, their embrace, even their breathing."
"By rearranging these little mountains, bumps, and cones on a floor and then projecting a strong point-source light through them onto a wall, geographical regions were thrown into existence." N E I R B ' O
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Jon Cleveland
"The basis of my concept is to play off natural processes: something that can be controlled but is also wild. Something that introduces surprise and unexpected turns, but can be tamed and quelled until it changes again [...] to make visual what may have been invisible, as reactions to the action.
"With the hit of the kick drum, the reverberation of the bass, and the stomps of the dancers, a small glass box full of water in front of lamps, for example, would physically react to different movements. Light projecting through the water will show this effect reverberating throughout the space.
"Whether using motion sensors, sound sensors, or proximity sensors, Arduino devices will add an element of complexity that could be perceived as random, putting the comprehension of the system just beyond the viewer’s understanding. By introducing this element, “the conditions” will be something that are always reacting to what is happening in the space, while throwing seemingly random elements into the mix, mimicking natural processes." Research imagesprovidedbyJonCleveland PRODUCTION CALENDAR
THE CONDITIONS - WIP
2021-2022 CREATION PHASE II
2020-2021 CREATION PHASE I CREATION RESIDENCY - STUDIO 303 - MONTRÉAL - JANUARY 2021 CREATION RESIDENCY - MARIE-UGUAY - MONTRÉAL - NOVEMBER 2020 RESEARCH RESIDENCY - CIRCUIT-EST - MONTRÉAL - MARCH-AUGUST 2020 RESEARCH RESIDENCY - GALLERY TPW - TORONTO - MARCH 2020
2019 SOLO RESIDENCY - BEAVERBROOK ART GALLERY - FREDERICTON - OCTOBER 2019
JA BRITTON JOHNSON, VICKY METTLER VIDEO
*Please watch at the highest quality settings possible.
THE CONDITIONS - 2021 Research Excerpts (Private link) April 6, 2021 https://vimeo.com/533792610/59919d95b9
THE CONDITIONS - 2020 Circuit-Est Residency Interview (Public) September 25, 2020 https://youtu.be/tSxD5jK37BM
SOUND
FOR PRIVATE CONSULTATION ONLY
Recorded at Studio Concrete, Montréal 15 November 2020 Patrick Conan, Vicky Mettler, Lucy M. May PRAISE FOR LUCY M. MAY
"She is of fabulous sensitivity, of great emotional richness, she is both powerful and very fluid, both of fire and milk." — Marie Chouinard, Choreographer *
"Lucy M. May in the opening solo was jaw-dropping...” — The Inquirer (Philadelphia)
"The piece's energy also springs directly from its astonishingly gifted dancers. [...] Lucy M. May leads off with an undulating feline-flavored solo in exquisitely sharp time with the music.” — Seattle Times (Seattle)
"Lucy danced, birds calling, tiger lilies, bergamot and a towering willow in the background. Spellbinding. After she finished, she asked me to dance. It was a magical experience.” — Nancy Bauer, Telegraph Journal (New Brunswick)
"Captivating on screen...” — Les Méconnus (Montréal) *
"...her explosive dancing invokes powerful emotions.” — STU Files (Fredericton)
2007 "Creativité Idol" — Nightlife Magazine (Montréal) *
PRAISE FOR ANIMA / DARKROOM
“Lucy M. May has created the perfect frame in which to gather our focus, to honour and illuminate this unique genius. [...] The audience tumbles into a world of raw honest strength and compassion. One finds oneself held by revealed truth and in awe of human experience. It is storytelling of authenticity and power. The work resonates and remains with me, and still has me marveling weeks later. [...] Seamless and radiant.” — Margie Gillis, Canadian choreographer
"A totally raw creation [...] Each staccato gesture on stage reveals the very essence of this dance which seems so violent, but which is, deep down, a cry from the heart to be heard. » — 24 Heures / Journal de Montréal (Montréal) *
*Translated from French PRAISE FOR ANIMA / DARKROOM (suite)
"It's a show that makes you think while it does you good - and you leave completely electrified." — Arts & Culture (Montréal) * "The piece was so powerful it moved a man like myself that unexpectedly! The entire production was very smart, the timing, music, dancing was top notch and true art! [The artists' work made] me feel proud of my own personal journey and I’m 100% sure it can make others feel the same.” — Slick Dogg, Popping OG "This is a chance to witness something truly special. [...] A unique emotional experience that cannot adequately be put into words." — Montreal Theatre Hub (Montréal) "It' s as if [the dancer's] soul is visible in "this black box", in this coming and going between darkness and light that reveals and hides at the same time. [...] A danced moment of rare power." — VOIR (Montréal) * "Channeling to expand, marking to unleash, revealing oneself to share: with respect, these two artists take a deep look at their contrasting scenic styles. An hour of shared introspection that opens many new perspectives." — Les ArtsZé (Montréal) *
PRAISE FOR VIVARIUM
"We observe this scene in a semi-darkness, and we let ourselves be caught up in the game of reconstructing a New World, a new way of approaching matter, of becoming aware of movement, time and space. There is the desire to heighten awareness of the importance of the environment and its components. The forms in movement, the light that passes through them and the living interactions that embody them." — DF Danse (Montréal) *
“In this hyperbolic proposal [...] it is impossible not to make the link with the destiny of this world. And also to this universe that originated in the Big Bang and could end up on a Big Crunch. I felt the meaning of life and of our presence on this planet strongly [...] do we still take the environment into account, even today, when we trample it for our needs? To ask the question is to answer it, and Vivarium, if we are attentive, supports us in this sense." — Sur Les pas du spectateur (Montréal) *
*Translated from French CONTACT
L U C Y M . M A Y s h e / h e r / e l l e
+ 1 . 5 1 4 - 7 5 6 - 1 8 7 6 L U C Y . M A R I O N . M A Y @ G M A I L . C O M L U C Y M M A Y . C O M
Lucy M. May ©Francesca Chudnoff