7A*11D festival ofinternational perfo internationalrmance art2012 internationalToronto MARGARET DRAGU, Rose: Memorial for 20th Anniversary Ecole Polytechnique Massacre, 2009 PHOTO Mikki Herbold contents , 4 Festival Schedule Tu ne diras point Tu , NE S RA 6 Welcome F U D N I 9 Éminences Grises ART M and 18 Participating Artists HARD C 64 Performance Art Daily OU B 66 Festival Eyes and Ears ARL C 2004 courtesy of the artists 2004 courtesy of 68 Parallel Events 70 In Memoriam 74 7a*11d Collective Biographies 79 Festival Venues Festival Schedule 2012 Wedesday Oct 24 Thursday Oct 25 Friday Oct 26 Saturday Oct 27 Sunday Oct 28 10 am | TORONTO FREE 10 am | TORONTO FREE 10 am | TORONTO FREE 10 am | TORONTO 10 am | TORONTO FREE GALLERY GALLERY GALLERY FREE GALLERY GALLERY Margaret Dragu Margaret Dragu Margaret Dragu Margaret Dragu Margaret Dragu (yoga) (yoga) (yoga) (yoga) (yoga) 11 am | TORONTO FREE 11 am | TORONTO FREE 11 am | TORONTO FREE 11 am | TORONTO FREE 11 am | TORONTO FREE GALLERY GALLERY GALLERY GALLERY GALLERY Margaret Dragu Margaret Dragu Margaret Dragu Margaret Dragu Margaret Dragu Mercer Union 11D 1286 Bloor St W (Lansdowne subway) 12 pm | TORONTO 12 pm | TORONTO FREE 12 pm | TORONTO FREE 12 pm | TORONTO FREE 12 pm | TORONTO FREE FREE GALLERY GALLERY GALLERY GALLERY GALLERY Toronto Free Gallery Performance Art Performance Art Performance Art Performance Art Performance Art 1277 Bloor St W * Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily (Lansdowne subway) 8 pm | MERCER UNION 8 pm | MERCER UNION 2:30 pm | MERCER 4 pm | OFFSITE 2:30 pm | TORONTO OCAD University Carl Bouchard & Maria Hupfield UNION Denis Romanovski FREE GALLERY 100 McCaul St (St Patrick subway) Martin Dufrasne Anna Kalwajtys Camille Turner Paul Hurley 6 pm | BUTTERFIELD 4 to 8 pm | TORONTO PARK (OCADU) 4 pm | MERCER UNION Magnús Logi FESTIVAL ADMISSION Guadalupe Neves FREE GALLERY Kristinsson Christof Migone Márcio Carvalho 7a*11d is a volunteer Denis Romanovski Sylvie Cotton organization and Nobuo Kubota 8 pm | MERCER UNION Nobuo Kubota & audience support is 11D 8 pm | MERCER UNION David Sait most appreciated. Agnes Yit Patrycja German b. burroughs Admission for all 7A Nyan Lin Htet programming is Rachel Echenberg pay-what-you-can. Jeff Huckleberry Suggested starting * Nobuo Kubota donation for evening Irene Loughlin programming is $10 Nopawan Sirivejkul Tomasz Szrama 2012 7A welcome 6 Each festival is a unique never-to-be-repeated of experience, and they pursue a wide range of 7 configuration of artists’ energies brought working methods. But they are all here because together in a single location for a limited time. somehow, sometime, somewhere, their work has This year we are honoured to host twenty-five touched us, inspired us, thrilled us, and provoked artists from over a dozen countries. If ”over a us – and we hope it will do the same for you. dozen” sounds vague, it is in part because we This year’s festival is a packed five days starting sometimes find it hard to identify just what at 10 am with yoga sessions led by Governor ‘home’ to ascribe to these global citizens, these General’s Award winner, Margaret Dragu (bring WELCOME nomads. Should we point to the country they your own mat!), followed by her morning were born in? The one(s) where they hold performance aktions, and then the Performance citizenship? Or to the place where they currently Art Daily (the lunchtime talk series initiated in live and work? Identifying artists by nationality is 2010 at Toronto Free Gallery), afternoon events common practice for all kinds of festivals (we’re (walks, talks, interventions, etc.), and an evening writing this during the Olympics, that apotheosis program at Mercer Union. We are excited to be of nationalist pride). We are not about national working once again with our long-time festival pride but instead about recognizing that we partner, FADO Performance Art Centre, who come from vastly different circumstances – and will be presenting three artists at the festival. that’s what makes this festival so extraordinary. The festival also features two Éminences This year’s featured artists come from Grises (Margaret Dragu and Nobuo Kubota), countries including Burma, Thailand, Iceland, senior Canadian artists whose work will weave Argentina and Canada. They have different levels throughout the festival. We’ve redesigned our website www.7a-11d.ca, where you’ll find the Éminences grises festival blog, with daily reports by commissioned writers, Sylvie Ferré, Randy Gledhill and Christine Korte, and photo documentation by Henry Chan (see Festival Eyes and Ears). Many of the invited artists organize events and festivals or run organizations in their own communities, and they are eager to find out more about Toronto artists and activity. As a new 8 initiative we’ve invited curators Jonas Stampe n. someone who exercises great power or 9 (Sweden/China) and Miriam Ginestier (Montréal) influence secretly or unofficially. as guests this year. Part of their role is to make contact with local artists to find out more about Inaugurated in 2002, this program highlights their work. If that sounds like something you’d 7a*11d’s commitment to bringing forward a lived like to take advantage of, we encourage you to history of performance art by presenting the contact us through the website and we will put work of seminal Canadian previous Éminences you in touch. artists. 2002 Welcome to the Ninth 7a*11d International This year we are honoured Bruce Barber (Nova Scotia) Festival of Performance Art. to have two recipients of the 2004 Governor General’s Award Cheryl l’Hirondelle (Saskatchewan) — [PC and JH for the] 7a*11d Collective in Visual and Media Arts: 2006 Margaret Dragu (2012) and Rita McKeough (Nova Scotia) Nobuo Kubota (2009) 2008 Robin Poitras (Saskatchewan) and Glenn Lewis (British Colombia) 2010 Michael Fernandes (Nova Scotia) and Sylvie Tourangeau (Québec) Margaret Dragu Forgetting & Remembering I yearn to be pure. But I am so messy. I worked in the dance world from 1969-72, but Modern Dance was conservative, narrow; there was no place for me. I was introduced to the eureux H ’ L ideas in Yvonne Rainier’s “No Manifesto” (1965) by uy making art with visual artists who were jumping G off the walls to make Happenings with poets, 11 theatre artists, photographers, sculptors: PHOTO No to spectacle no to virtuosity no to , 2006 transformations and magic and make believe no to glamour and transcendency of the star image S E no to the heroic no to the anti-heroic no to IS trash imagery no to involvement of performer or GR S E spectator no to style no to camp no to seduction C of spectator by the wiles of the performer no to NEN MI eccentricity no to moving or being moved. É Sexe! Action/VIVA! Art Action Action/VIVA! Sexe! I was only dimly aware that the manifesto originated from Rainier. These ideas were mirrored and infused with what was happening in the real world – marches, grassroots organizing, social and educational upheaval, anti-Viet Nam War and Civil Rights Movements, the birth of feminism and gay rights, Back to the Land Communes. It wasn’t a time of labels, definitions or authorship. One of the techniques used to find new movement Yvonne Rainier’s move from dance to film was patterns was chance-choreography. Merce fed by an interest in narrative (deconstructed or Cunningham and John Cage employed chance manipulated) and a desire to break away from operations in the early 1950s at Black Mountain the body-as-object coolness and purity. To get College with avant-garde, modern, and minimalist messy. In fact, a need to be and express the visual artists, architects, sculptors, writers and female. I don’t know. I am probably projecting intellectuals. John Cage said that improvisation was myself onto her because I identify with her in not as interesting a method to find new movement some ways and share some common history. (or music or aktion), as the artist always improvises 12 by doing what he/she knows or with what she/he is Part of me longs to be pure and make work 13 comfortable. Chance breaks through that comfort. It is that follows Rainier’s manifesto and Cage-ian pure and head-driven. parameters. But somehow real life, the body, and discordant aesthetics always come into I still use chance techniques for performance. I find play, making my work messy. Even Yvonne, in it freeing. Still. The way durational work is freeing Feelings are Facts published in 2006 by MIT Press, S E because you have a real task that you must apply expresses some regret over her notorious “No IS yourself to by merely doing it – again, again, again Manifesto.” GR S E for a long time. This combined with exploring eastern C religions surely is what led to durational/relational I yearn to be pure. But I am so messy. NEN MI practices (e.g. Vito Acconcci’s 1969 work Following É Piece). — MARGARET DRAGU There remains a coolness, a purity and a head-first aesthetic/value to chance work(s) like Cage’s 4’33” (1952), Water Walk performed on a 1960 TV episode of “I’ve Got a Secret,” and Rainier’s Continuous Project – Altered Daily (1970), anything from the 800 performance “events” by Merce Cunningham. This in contrast to infamous frenzied outcomes like Carolee Schneemann’s 1964 Meat Joy work. Perhaps Nobuo Kubota Nobuo Kubota (b. 1932) left behind a 10-year career as an architect in 1969 to become one of Canada’s pre-eminent intermedia artists. For the past 50 years Kubota has performed, recorded, published, and exhibited internationally.