Community Engagement with Tiffany and David: Smithers

Out Innerspace has arrived in Smithers! We spent Thursday introducing the stories of touring artists to the stories of our community.

David and me at the CICK studio, a refurbished train car.

David and I began the day with a live radio interview hosted by community partner: CICK 93.9FM Smithers Community Radio. Thank you to Glen Ingram for handling tech so David and I could just talk about art, dance making and the evolution of Vessel. The interview was recorded and will have a life on Northwest at Noon programming over the next few months.

We ended the day with a workshop that wandered between the Smithers Art Gallery and a dance studio in the Central Park Building.

Tiffany and I welcomed 16 community members of all ages, interests and walks of life.  We introduced ourselves and why we are interested in movement. Answers ranged from "dance is my life" to "I'm at a point where I am signing up for anything that feels like a RISK."

Tiffany led us through aspects of the engaging process which Out Innerspace uses to source movement from visual imagery.

Playing with perspective, opening the imagination to fitting the body into landscape or visualizing landscape in the body.

Then, we traveled upstairs to the dance studio to play with movement from the elements: wood, fire, clay, water, air.

Making group sculptures, playing with a sculpting movement process the Vessel dancers use in the performance.

We ended the workshop back in the Art Gallery. Tiffany led us through some collaborative creation and decision making.  FUN!

We played with individual artistic choices effecting a group creation.

Overall, I feel these activities gave our community a glimpse into the creative minds of Out Innerspace. I am appreciative that David and Tiffany candidly shared their artistic processes. It is great to have the six dancers and tech crew here - meeting new people and welcoming back friendly faces (Josh Martin!).

I have the feeling that that the community members who heard the interview and/or attended the workshop will have insights into Vessel, seeing it through their own experiences of investigation and imagination. I know I will.