Kerwin Barrington
Dance Artist
Kerwin Barrington
Dance Artist
Explore new and subtle ways of understanding the body in motion and create meaningful experiences.
Projects
© 2026 Kerwin Barrington. All right reserved.
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Follow the Roots
To Find the Ground
I am a Quebecoise dance artist originally from the Chateauguay Valley in south west Quebec.These days, I navigate the world as a bilingual artist who is reclaiming her French-speaking lineage and the diversity of her seemingly mono-cultural appearance.
My ancestors on my father's side came from Ireland arriving in Quebec in 1840. English speakers, they are generations of dairy farmers with many acres of crop land between the English and Chateaugay rivers. Through my grandmother Ina's lineage, my family are still living on that same land as when we first arrived.
My mothers side, French Quebecois, come from Scottish and French descent, and arrived earlier in the mid 1700's. They are all still mostly living in the region of the Chateaugay Valley. A family of 11 children, my mothers family were poor and warm hearted people. le.
Because my father was anglophone and they had spent their first years together in western Canada, my mother decided to raise my brothers and I in English. Nonetheless, amidst her family of 11 siblings and all of their children, we were immersed within the richness of rural French Quebecois culture, its expressions and ways of being.
The Quebec political climate of the 1980s and 90s polarised English and French communities and created a subtle yet pervasive divide within my family and ultimately within myself.
Regardless of my roots, growing up I was identified as English and felt the hostility involved with this identity, especially by my own French speaking family.
Over the years, French speaking Quebecois often ask me where I am from, as though it would be impossible for me to be from here because of the way I speak. This made for many moments in my life where I rejected aspects of the culture and the traditions associated with what it means to be Quebecois.
My lived experience brings forth a desire to claim my right to being both English and French Quebecoise and to redefine what that might look like or mean. This drives me to want to know more about the complexity of where I come from and how that might be expressed through my art. Instead of dividing these cultural and linguistic parts of me, I am inspired to create relationships and bridges between them by creating contexts for dialogue and exchange within the community.
For this reason I have developed a project called Follow the Roots to Find the Ground. This dance movement research, performance and cultural mediation project is inspired by the concept of tradition. I am curious about dance traditions and the crucial adaptation/transformation of them over time in order to keep them alive. In doing so I have created relationships with and learned dances from local traditional dance holders and transmitters who are both English and French callers from the region where I am from.
Staying rooted in certain aspects of the traditions, in every project the dance adapts to the PLACE as well as/including the land, weather, instruments, language and the origins of each participant. Keeping with the repetitive structure of the dance as an anchor, the group is moved to express itself in the moment, creating a new version of the dance.
The Home Project
Nuria Bowart initiated a project of creative inquiry around the subject of hOme with 5 other artists: Summer Minnerva, Kriss Rulifson, Lalaina Ravelojaona, Asha Passalaqua and Kerwin Barrington. Some of what we have discovered is :
Home is where the heart is
Home is where you keep your stuff
Home is where you feel safe and also where you were unsafe
Home is a memory
Home is a routine
Home is the body
Home is in relationships
Home is a smell, a sound, a taste
Home is many things we may still long for…
The first stage of the project has been to turn the insights and material emerging from this inquiry into a film, which we have been developing over the past year.
The second stage will be a live performance and immersive event, where we will come together to live, create, and perform collectively over a period of 7–12 days. The first edition will take place in Brooklyn, New York City, with the intention of eventually bringing the project to the West Coast as well.
Credit : Alice Arida
Excusez-là
A dance film in Ripon, Qc
This film and its 6 month creative process was as a part of the hOme Project, produced by Nuria Bowart and directed by Chani Bockwinkle. For this project I invited incredible dance artists :Mathi LP, Susanna Hood, Abe Mijndeer, Antoine Turmine, Lauranne Faubert-Guay, Nuria Bowart. As well as musicians: Christian Brun del re, Davî Simard, Mygale Desrosier, Lalaina Ravelojaona, Lari Jalbert, Moon and Anna Atkinson
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Synapse :
Danse Contemporaine III
with l'Université de Montréal
Seasons 2022/23 & 2023/24 & 2024/25
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.
Mot de passe : synapse02
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Dancing in the Hills
with Kerwin Barrington & Geneviève Dupui
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.
What Does Dancing Outside Bring?
Dancing in the Hills takes on many forms, such as:
1. The Workshop format
2. The Long Dance Walk format
3. Artistic Residency/Research format
4. Travelling Circuit format
Nature is wild and serene, and so am I- Ancient Sanskrit
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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