CUTHAND, Theo Jean

Performance Art Daily (artist panel)
Friday October 11, 12 pm
Tangled Art + Disability, 401 Richmond Street West, Suite 124

In partnership with Hemispheric Encounters and Tangled Art + Disability
Special thanks to Laura Levin and Tracy Tidgwell

A conversation between Archer Pechawis, Theo Jean Cuthand, and Juma Pariri, whose works highlight diverse contemporary Indigenous experiences through mixed media, performance, pedagogy, and environmental justice. Together, they will explore how performance can serve as a powerful tool for decolonization, healing, and community-building across the Americas

Theo Jean Cuthand (b. 1978 Regina SK) is an experimental/narrative filmmaker, performance artist, and indie game developer working with sexuality, madness, Indigiqueer/2S identity and Indigeneity, which have screened in festivals and galleries internationally. He is Plains Cree/Scots, a member of Little Pine First Nation, residing in Toronto, Canada.

Juma Pariri  is a artivist based in Abya Yala (colonially known as Latin America, more specifically in Brazil) that seeks to listen and learn from forest secrets. They move in the friction between the arts of the body, undisciplined pedagogy, and the Indigenous struggle for environmental justice. Among others, they activate the performance platform AGITPORN! – NO to inequality, for social decolonization!, to learn (and create) from Indigenous ancestors about anti-monocultural processes around sexualities, foods, crops,”cannibalism”, menstruation and rituals and are part of the collective United against colonization: many eyes, one heart: an audiovisual platform for Indigenous self-representation.

Archer Pechawis is a performance, theatre and new media artist, filmmaker, writer, curator and educator. Of Cree and European ancestry, he is a member of Mistawasis First Nation, Saskatchewan. Born in Alert Bay, BC, Pechawis has been a practicing artist since 1984. Archer has worked extensively with Native youth since the start of his art practice, originally teaching juggling and theatre, and now digital media and performance. He is currently a member of the Indigenous Routes collective (www.indigenousroutes.ca), teaching video game development to Native girls.

Love Is The Only Socially Acceptable Psychosis
Wednesday October 3 8:30 pm

Alternating between live and recorded performance, this work presents the artist as a vessel for uncontrollable emotions as she connects her experiences of falling in love with her experiences of manic psychosis. Using ritualistic performance techniques practiced in the privacy of her living room during an early manic episode, she will construct a space of magic and tragedy, of mixing love and mood disorders, using household objects and video projection.

Thirza Jean Cuthand (b. Regina, Saskatchewan, 1978) makes experimental narrative videos and performances, which have been exhibited in festivals and galleries internationally. She completed a BFA in Film and Video at ECUAD, and an MA in Media Production at Ryerson University. She is Plains Cree and Scots, and resides in Toronto.

Critical review RE:FRAMING by Francesco Gagliardi
Critical review Tender Considerations by Geneviève Wallen