Radio III / ᎦᏬᏂᏍᎩ ᏦᎢ

Elisa Harkins, Zoë Poluch, and Hanako Hoshimi-Caines
(Stockholm / Montréal/Tiohti:áke / Tulsa, Muscogee Nation)

Radio III / ᎦᏬᏂᏍᎩ ᏦᎢ

DESCRIPTION
Radio III / ᎦᏬᏂᏍᎩ ᏦᎢ is an Indigenous futuristic concert, a beautiful and uncomfortable dance performance, and a perverse triangle of shifting power that seeks to be unfaithful to both minimalism and postmodern dance’s claims to so-called “neutrality.” In this work, we seek to live, layer, and situate form in our bodies, which evoke past, present and future possibilities.

Choreographed and performed by Hanako Hoshimi-Caines, Zoë Poluch, and Elisa Harkins, with music composed by Elisa Harkins, Radio III was borne in part from our common interest in minimalism in art and music. We asked: How can we work on the performativity and spatial principles of minimalism while questioning the universalism associated with this aesthetic? We made a dance that haunts the recognizable toolbox of abstraction, form, repetition, and pattern by striving to make visible what has been kept invisible in colonial systems of recognition and aesthetics.

Interdisciplinary and counter-colonial, Radio III / ᎦᏬᏂᏍᎩ ᏦᎢ questions invisibility and visibility, simultaneity and pluralization. The work explores ways of displacing and situating Western contemporary dance and theory, making it an “as well” and a “next to.” In creating the piece, we did not look for a universal hybrid aesthetic but hoped to create a particular form from our different histories, artistic and cultural educations, and experiences brought together with sensitivity and inquisitiveness.

The intention of Radio III, a larger work that includes Elisa Harkins’ solo Wampum performance, is to create a metaphorical peacekeeping agreement between the performers in the work as well as with people watching the piece, regardless of tribe or race.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Hanako Hoshimi-Caines is a mother, dancer, performance-maker, writer, questioner, enthusiast, and organizer born and based in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal. Her work plays with the pleasure and the haunt of the familiar as strategies of resistance and transformation. She uses her immediate familial relations as a treasure trove of mystical and practical insights into art and performance making. Hanako has collaborated with a range of dance artists, choreographers, and companies, notably the Cullberg Ballet in Stockholm. Her independent and collaborative works have been shown in Canada and internationally. Hanako has organized discussion groups and shared studio frameworks. She co-curated the Focus on Dance Research conference (Concordia University) and Quantum Fur (Studio 303) and recently graduated with an honors degree in Western philosophy from Concordia University. She is currently guest co-curator of the Centre de Création O Vertigo in Montréal, QC.

Zoë Poluch’s artistic practice puts into motion different mediums and takes shape in different rooms. Her relationship with the “contemporary dance” scene is based on a long-term and practice-based interest in the politics and poetics of moving and sensing. She looks forward to the far future, perhaps 2070, when she will inaugurate a dance company for dancing people over 70 years old and tour on a solar airplane. In the past, she studied and worked in Canada and Belgium and could be found dancing and performing with established and emerging choreographers, mostly in Europe and North America. Since 2010 she has been based in Stockholm, Sweden, and works as Assistant Professor and Head of the Bachelor Programme in ance Performance at Stockholm University of the Arts. She is currently on parental leave.

Elisa Harkins is a Native American (Cherokee/Muscogee) artist and composer based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her work is concerned with translation, language preservation, and Indigenous musicology. Harkins uses the Cherokee and Mvskoke languages, electronic music, sculpture, and the body as her tools. Harkins received a BA from Columbia College, Chicago, and an MFA from CalArts. She has since continued her education at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She has exhibited her work at Crystal Bridges, documenta 14, The Hammer Museum, The Heard Museum, and MoMA. Radio III / ᎦᏬᏂᏍᎩ ᏦᎢis a dance performance with Hanako Hoshimi-Caines and Zoë Poluch that features music by Harkins. With support from PICA and Western Front, songs from the performance have been collected into a limited-edition double LP which can be found on Harkins’ Bandcamp. Harkins resides on the Muscogee (Creek) Reservation and is an enrolled member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.

ADDITIONAL NOTES
The work opened at MAI in Montréal on June 3, 2019

With and by Hanako Hoshimi-Caines, Zoë Poluch and Elisa Harkins

Music by: Elisa Harkins

Produced by: Hanako Hoshimi-Caines and Zoë Poluch

Lighting Design: Paul Chambers

Costumes: Jade Tong Cuong

Regalia: Nina Fox and Elisa Harkins

Earrings: Weomepe Designs

International Representation and Production: Norberg Management

Production coordinator: Tiera Joly Pavelich

Technical Direction: Jenessa Raabe

Sound: Mark Kuykendall

Rehearsal Direction: Justin De Luna

Conversation partners: Ivanie Aubin-Malo, Maria Kefirova, k.g. Guttman, James Goddard, Katie Ward

Coproduction partners: MAI, MDT, Dance Victoria.

Made possible with the support of: Conseil des Arts du Canada, Kulturrådet/Swedish Arts Council, Swedish Arts Grants Committee, Tulsa Artist Fellowship, The Stable, and the Agora de la Danse.

SPONSORSHIP
Funded by Canada Council for the Arts, Swedish Arts Council, Swedish Arts Grants Committee, and Tulsa Artist Fellowship.

Residencies, co-production: MAI, MDT, Dance Victoria, Agora de la danse, The Stable.