Kerwin Barrington
Dance Artist
Kerwin Barrington
Dance Artist
_preview_rev_1.png "Illustration made by Adele Reeves")
Projects
Synapse :
Danse Contemporaine III
with l'Université de Montréal
Seasons 2022/23 & 2023/24
This 6 month long workshop offers humans with a background in contemporary dance the opportunity to participate in a creative process to co-create a choreographic work. The weekly workshop includes a warm-up, technical exercises and improvisation, creation and interpretation exercises to fuel the creative process.
There is an emphasis on the creative and interpretative process where creative tasks are shared between dancers and choreographer in an open, inclusive approach. The choreography is presented as the first part of the end of year show, on the stage of the Centre d'essaie de l'Université de Montréal.
Synapse 2023/24
Titre: Suivre les racines pour trouver la terre
Chorégraphe
Kerwin Barrington
En collaboration avec:
Alicia Fex
Émilie Espagne
German Trujillo
Hortense Paquet
Julie Sage
Lysanne Morissette
Mathilde Perahia
Marie Tissot
Nicolas Couto
Raphaëlle Hébert
Roxanne Blanchette
Direction musicale
Anthony John Aboud
Musiciens
Anthony John Aboud
Simon Grenier
Œil extérieur
Marijoe Foucher
Œil intérieur
Corinne Skaff
La création et l'apprentissage d'une danse sont un exercice de connexion avec les autres. Ce processus d'incarnation est une occasion d'apprendre sur soi-même et sur les façons d’entrer en relation.
La Tradition
La tradition est généralement définie comme ce qui perdure dans un groupe ou une collectivité par un ensemble d’usages ou de savoir-faire. Elle serait l’expression d’une culture, de l’esprit d’un peuple, de sa manière propre de vivre et de penser (Lenclub 1987).
La transmission des traditions est toujours une recréation ou une reconstruction créatrice; il n’y a jamais reproduction identique (Goody 1977).
Suivre les racines pour trouver la terre est un processus créatif qui émerge de certaines traditions de la danse dans la vallée de la rivière de Châteauguay, au sud-ouest du Québec, racines bien vivantes de Barrington. Ces danses se transforment par la transmission, par le passage du temps et par l'influence des racines des danseur.ses. Par ces rencontres, nous (re)créons de nouvelles traditions dansantes et musicales.
Alors que nous apprenons, vivons et incarnons ces traditions ensemble, que choisissons-nous? À quoi nous attachons-nous ? De quoi nous libérons-nous? Comment s’exprime et se révèle cette sous-culture Synapses 2023/2024?
Ensemble nous créons un espace intentionnel de co-création, laissons vivre la danse, la musique. Nous honorons nos ancêtres et nos racines multiples. Et là, nous nous souvenons que la danse était autrefois vie quotidienne. À quel point la danse fait partie du vivant, des corps. À quel point elle vit toujours en nous. Peut-être vivons-nous par elle…
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Synapse 2022-2023
Dancing in the Hills
with Kerwin Barrington & Geneviève Dupuis
2019-2022
Ripon, Hudson, Coteau du lac, Inverness, Cape Cod,
Abitibi and Saint Rose du Nord.
What is it?
Dancing in the Hills is a nomadic dance project, exploring the relationship between movement, storytelling and territory.
The original impulse for this project was to develop long-lasting creative connections with nature and community through the practice of dance. Since then, this project has become not only an artistic project but a way of life, encouraging those who are interested to take the time to inhabit an environment in a profound way with an artistic sensibility. Since 2019, this nomadic project has occurred in various parts of Quebec, cultivating meaningful relationships with many local dance enthusiasts who have shown support, kindness and generosity along the way.
Dancing in the Hills takes on many forms. Here are some examples:
1. The Workshop format:
In this Dancing in the Hills workshop, participants are invited to join us for 3 hours in the territory we were inhabiting. We start with a somatic exploration 2x2, blind folded for 15 minutes each, where the participants take a walk and sense the environment through other senses than vision. The blindfolded participant guides their partner on a journey, and the seeing partner takes care that they are safe. To close, 20 minutes are given to express and map their experience through drawing and writing in silence. There is the option to describe the practical description of their walk (over a hill, around the corner, down a long road etc.. ), what their body felt like (a sore hip, smells like the forest, I was tired etc. ) and their felt-sense of it (feelings, images, memories).
(60 minutes)
After a 10 minute break, the dancers are then guided through movement propositions which invite them to play and discover what their own body can do in relation to the land itself: such as walking on and adapting to uneven ground, climbing up hill and falling down hill, rolling on the ground, jumping across/coming in contact with obstacles, running in tall grass, pushing against or being moved by the wind. Then as a way to integrate all of the information through a guided improvisation (60-90 minutes depending on number of participants)
Finally, there is a group sharing where each person is invited to share their maps as well as their physical and emotional states. This safe space is insured by given the chance for each person to be heard and have the opportunity to tell the story of their experience.
(30-60 minutes minimum depending on number of participants)
Depending on the weather and the location, after the workshop, the participants have the option to join us for lunch and a swim in a river, lake or pond nearby.
2. The Long Dance Walk format:
Within this format, we chose and visit a trail (preferably one that loops on itself) in a forest near by were we are living based on recommendations from the local outdoor connoisseurs in the days before the activity. Then, with the participants, the proposition is to start walking in intervals of 15 minutes all from the same starting point. We have the same trajectory, but we live the experience at our own rhythm with the goal of meeting at the finish at the end.
The participant is guided by a musical playlist which they downloaded in advance into their personal devices. They are equipped with a list of options that they can choose from, including prompts for movement encounters and somatic explorations of the nature which surrounds them (plants, animals, trees, rocks etc.).The participant can choose from this list to create their personal experience of the walk. At the end of the walk, the participant is invited to draw a map of their experience in silence. They are given the option to describe the practical description of their walk (over a hill, around the corner, down a long road etc.), what their body felt like (a sore hip, smells like the forest, I was tired etc.) and their felt-sense of it (feelings, images, memories). Once everyone has returned and had a chance to document their walk, we exchange stories about our individual experiences of the same walk.
3. Artistic Residency/Research format:
In this case, we inhabit a natural environment with the intention to try different ideas. We experiment movement propositions by trying them at different times of the day, on different surfaces in different weather. We observe the effects of immersing ourselves in an environment and the effects it has on our bodies. We look for other ways we could learn about a place such as long periods of close observation of a small surface and paying attention to its cycles at different times of the day. We look for evidence of when the ground is most inviting for bare feet or for rolling. We take time to notice which plants live there at what stage of growth they are at. If we can eat them or not. Are there animals or insects which already live there? What are their patterns? How does our presence interfere with their daily lives? We spend time with locals and learn through their answers to our questions, their stories and recommendations.
4. Travelling Circuit format:
Most recently, Dancing in the Hills 2022, travelled a circuit of three regions of Quebec (Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean, Abitibi-Témiscamingue and Outaouais), from July 25 to August 22, 2022. We collected stories from these regions and shared some from past Dancing in the Hills as we travelled through. During each one-week stay, we immersed ourselves in a place, which meant: inhabiting the territory where the performance/installation and workshop-laboratory took place. This gave time for discovering the environment before, feeding the propositions and structure of the event.
The proposed event unfolded in two stages: a two-hour story telling performance-installation in the evening by a fire and, the next day, a three-hour workshop-laboratory plus swim in a nearby body of water; all part of an immersive 24 hours which invites participants to experience what Dancing in the Hills can be.
Nature is wild and serene, and so am I- Ancient Sanskrit
What Does Dancing Outside Bring?
Je me découvre devant vous, là.
(I am discovering myself in front of you, now)
(2017-2019)
Choreographed by Kerwin Barrington and Geneviève Dupuis
with
Aube Matte
Gaia Matte
Raphaelle Hébert
This 2 year creative process came from the desire to dive into the inner world of three teenage girls who had been dancing with me since they were 3-5 years old by going beyond the dance class conventions and teacher/student dynamics.
We were fortunate that at different times throughout the process, we spent intensive periods of time moving, creating and being together immersed in the world we were creating. Because of this, we were able to get to know each other as human beings, building trust and working with the dancers' lives as the material for the show. This brought a particularly intimate dimension and tone to the project.
The dancers were encouraged to collaborate in the creation of the work as well, helping make choices engaging with their artistic sensibilities and lived experience of the project. They were encouraged to be themselves, and to be aware of the constant transformation they were living, which would eventually become a part of the material.
The project ended in a week-long residency with a final showing held at the Coopérative Place du Marché in Ripon, Quebec. The local community as well as the team's loved ones were invited to witness a final sharing of a dance piece born out of this rich process together.
résidence- Pointe-du-Buisson / Québec Museum of Archeology (Pointe-du-Buisson/Musée québécois d'archéologie) and the Coopérative Place du Marché ,Ripon
Presentation/Sharing-
pointe du buisson 2018, Ripon -
la fin du projet avril 2019.
The Sound She Makes-Resonance
2017
Choreography Kerwin Barrington and Geneviève Dupuis
Costumes and Visual art Adele Reeves
with
Caitlin Palmer
Julie Chiariello
Terry Orlando
Tracy Eades
Adele Reeves
Tracey Mearns
Kerwin Barrington
Geneviève Dupuis
The Sound She Makes- Resonance, a dance project of 8 women in their 30s, 40s and 50s who met through Monday Night Dance class between 2008 and 2017. Over the course of 6 months, the dancers learned and abstracted a score of 12 directives which included a mix of words to be interpreted inspired by nature, the body and Donna Eden's energy medicine daily routines for energy healing.
This experience included a process of embodying and transforming this score to make it their own. The final showing on Friday May 5th 2017, at the Unbound Festival in Cape Cod U.S.A, revealed 7 inner worlds expressed through dance, visual art, light design and music.
The performance was a configuration of vibrant individual worlds co-existing in a common performance space in which the audience was invited to walk through and be immersed
in how they co-existed.
Fessenden Follies
November 2018
Choreography Kerwin Barrington
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