Festival updates: opening day

Throughout the festival, check the 7a*11d website for updates. Today’s news releases include new info regarding the collaborative performances by Sylive Tourangeau and the offsite location for Karen Elaine Spencer.

Sylvie Tourangeau

In response to her proposal to collaborate with local artists as her residency project for this year’s 7a*11d festival, Éminence grise Sylvie Tourangeau has selected Simon Rabyniuk and Claudia Wittmann.

In 2006, Sylvie Tourangeau began a collaboration cycle with different performance artists based on shared dialogue, where the performative attitude forms an integral part of the principles of co-creation. For 7a*11d, Tourangeau proposed to develop performative actions in collaboration with two performance artists from Toronto with whom she has never previously worked, knowing that she is not fluent in their language.

The results of these collaborations, which began through email communication and have continued through intensive face-to-face interaction since Tourangeau’s arrival in Toronto on October 17, will be presented in separate events on October 22 (working with Simon Rabyniuk) and October 29 (working with Claudia Wittmann). Check the website schedule for details.

Simon Rabyniuk is a Toronto-based artist who occasionally sub-contracts himself to Department of Unusual Certainties. He predominately creates context specific projects exploring urban form as both process and object. His work takes a variety of forms including walking projects, participatory events, performance for video, and sculpture. He has presented work across Canada including as part of the Harbourfront Centre’s Hatch Emerging Performance Series, at Ryerson University’s Modernity Unbound Symposium, and as part of Broken City Labs’ Storefront Residency for Social Innovation.

Claudia Wittmann has been performing since 2003. Her work explores identity through visiting body memories, transformations and intimate moments with witnesses/audiences. It is based on her butoh training with SU-EN and on her work with artist Paul Couillard who has acted as her source coach since 2006.

Karen Elaine Spencer

As her performance project for 7a*11d, Karen Elaine Spencer has chosen to spend eight hours a day in a single location throughout the festival—not quite a squatter, but a sitter, inflecting her presence as observer and (un)observed. After spending a day walking the streets of Toronto, Spencer has chosen her point of arrival, Union Station, as the location for this inhabitation. At the end of each day she will post her reflection on the day’s experience on the 7a*11d website, distilled to a single sentence.

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