https://www.anandam.ca/news/reflections-by-jenn-goodwin
Ephemeral Artifacts is a cultural chameleon, a shapeshifter. It was pivoting before it was time to pivot. Yet, at its core the work's curiosity remains consistent. Ephemeral Artifacts poses questions through the body about dance practices and lineages that result in a choreographic framework to stage these questions as material for dance.
Ephemeral Artifacts has been presented in multiple forms and spaces and is part of Toronto based dance company ĀNANDAṀ’s repertoire. Choreographer Brandy Leary originally created the work as part of my Curatorial Master’s Thesis show in 2017. When I asked Brandy to be part of the exhibition all our days are full of breath... a record of momentum, I asked the artists (it was a shared exhibition with artist Jessica Karuhanga) to consider; how could dance and the body take and hold space as exhibition in a gallery? Typically, dance and live performances are part of the “programming” to support an exhibition. Curatorially I was exploring the body and choreography as archives and catalogues of histories, forms, and origins. I was curious about what is left behind after the body’s physical presence is absent from a space it once occupied and energized.
Brandy’s work explores the practices and processes held within the body with focused intentionality. Employing the body and movement as an active archive, this work challenges the perception that dance is fundamentally ephemeral. It evokes deep rooted histories retained within the body. It unveils stories within the movements and acknowledges and honours the lineage of what came before this movement, this moment, this dance.
Brandy notes that although each iteration of the work has similar tactics, “at its core is a question around the body as a container that holds and transmits knowledge. The body is the Ephemeral Artifact.”
In 2017, the work was originally created while in deep mourning. Having recently lost her beloved husband Patrick Pendergast to cancer, Brandy was dealing with immense personal absence. It was a tender and heartbreaking time for such a potent work to emerge, and yet beauty, grace and fortitude emerged through practice and presence, as well as profound absence. The performers (including Brandy herself) danced meaningful and courageous questions, filling the space with years of knowledge, wisdom, and experience through their practices and explorations.
Going deeper, Brandy asked the dancers to explore what the body holds. How does this develop over time? Each dancer performed solo for a 3 hour duration, and Brandy details that she “trusted the structure to hold the dancers … and allowed the artists to trust it as a path through the work.” In relation she notes, “It is common to say a work is aiming for authenticity and vulnerability, but there is no magic to attain these goals. These are techniques, and the technique of this piece is choreographically structured to move the performer there. It happens with consciousness and purpose. It is intentional and completely fulfilled with an audience as collaborators.”
This iteration of Ephemeral Artifacts, produced in association with Theatre Passe Muraille, features the ever-mesmerizing tap artist Travis Knights. Brandy and Travis are not interested in the new. They are interested in the deep. When asked about the similarities and differences through the various iterations of the work, Travis passionately says, “It’s all process, process, process! It's remained the same and yet has evolved as I've evolved. As we've evolved, it’s deeper, more specific. It’s daunting… how much can be mined”. Travis goes on to speak about the February 2020 version of the show at Harbourfront Centre as an experience that will go down in his personal history. He says he came in with his plan for the performance and then, “Brandy asked me to bring the people I am referencing in it, into the room with me. To welcome them. My ancestors, my masters. Mary Bruce, Ethel Bruneau, Sammy Davis Jr, Gregory Hines. And woah, that changed everything. The process has been so enriching and changed my process as to how I approach the form itself. Everything has gotten deeper.” He continues and references the multiple aspects of his practice (the podcast, jazz jam, the dancing), “it all crystalized in this show and process.”
Through this iteration of the work, we see Travis, in his presence, passion, and power. And through him, we see his teachers, his inspirations, his mentors and masters. Through him we see them. Through them we see him.
Every tap of Travis’ feet is like
a letter
that in turn creates an alphabet.
that can create
A sentence
A story
A language
A song
As I write, I am aware that this will be my, and likely many people’s, first outing to a public art event in quite some time and Brandy and Travis both have a deep understanding of how the work manifests at this particular time and space. The restrictions on performance and performers, and the restrictions that all of us have had to endure as we have been choreographing our way through public space and navigating distance due to the pandemic are woven into the work. Working with, as Brandy notes, “space as material rather than as venue”, the piece's relationship to the architecture is purposeful and primary. It is particularly poignant at this time that Brandy’s practice is interested in “our ability to be in spaces together,” and that “liveness is not a genre but a material that we work with”.
Through this work Brandy and Travis find freedom within discipline. Expansion within restriction. An unfolding of time, body, and space. A poetry in the body is mined and the stories unfold.
Travis is music.
Travis is History.
Travis is Heritage.
Through the power of practice. Through the power of presence.
Through the strike of the shoe to floor. Metal to wood. Heel to Toe. Toe to heel.
Ephemeral Artifacts reverberates.