What are the boundaries of “circus”? Is it defined by its apparatus, its history, a set of forms? Do we accept and demand a certain type of virtuosity or overarching structure? Can circus appreciate small moments on par with spectacle? Could it be framed as an outlook… a mission to transcend human limits? Anandam Dancetheatre, Toronto’s cutting-edge collective entity under the direction of choreographer Brandy Leary puts the term “circus” to task, creating work that occupies disciplinary grey spaces. Rightfully so, with grace and force the company draws from a deep well of eastern philosophy and movement, earned through Leary’s significant intercontinental immersion in Indian culture. The company’s aerial rope-infused theater resists traditional classification, often assembling large ensembles and a minimalist aesthetic that connects ground and air, while experimenting with technology, light, and sound; site-specificity; and alternative audience engagement. To understand the heart of this work one has only to look to its linguistic roots. “Anandam” is Sanskrit for “liminal bliss,” but more accurately this is a space prior to awareness, as Leary describes, “Before the brain makes any kind of rational or concrete judgment.” Operating out of Collective Space, an intimate rehearsal space and venue, the company recently co-hosted Toronto’s third Contemporary Circus Arts Festival withA Girl in the Sky Productions, manifesting a consciously broad-minded view of what circus is and can be. Polish is not always the goal, setting Toronto aesthetics apart from nearby circus magnate Montreal. While the latter puts youth and acrobatic athleticism atop its formal pyramid, it is clear from the scene in Toronto that virtuosity is an entirely different animal—deconstructed, layered, valued as heavily as concept and artistry, and evaluated by the communicability of its embodied form. All involved, one would hardly argue that Anandam’s work is not spectacular. Recent project Cascade overtook the former site of the Toronto Circus School, The Globe and Mail Press Hall, installing 60+ independent rope artists in a duration based exploration of the slow act of falling, held for the length of festivalNuit Blanche Toronto. Featuring a unique disco-ball projection scheme by collaborator Eamon MacMahon and meditative score by composer James Bunton, the work cultivates a peaceful immersive space where one could get lost in the micro- and macrocosm of human form as it generates and harnesses mysterious internal force.
Just a month later, in collaboration with Ricochet’s Laura Stokes, Anandam debuted new work Seismology exploring the body and landscape through glacial imagery, creating seismic relationships that consider “states of density, collaboration, falling, collapsing, overpopulation, environmental disaster, mass graves, icebergs, and melting ice caps in an immersive theater environment.” (From Anandam's Website). One gets the sense that Anandam’s work reaches far beyond movement, using performance to transcribe human drives and universal phenomena. We are invited into the mythic, the spiritual and esoteric, led by shamanic emissaries crossing divides of discipline and culture.
One of the strongest threads in the company’s work is its enhanced, often participatory viewer experience. Beginning with Seismology and continuing through several new projects, Anandam has chosen to engage a unique “Audience in Residence” program supported by the Metcalf Foundation. This allows the company to evaluate audience relationship through continual in-process feedback, which in turn changes and shapes the piece. This should prove vital for the show Weather, to be installed at the Bata Shoe Museum in 2015. In this piece, new-media collaborator Jacob Niedzwiecki developed augmented reality applications, adding images and sound to live performance through the use of mobile devices. It’s a playful artistic hijack, welcoming the pervasiveness of modern hand-held technology and the attention-drift that accompanies it. The Bata Shoe Museum installation continues Anandam’s expanded dialogue between architecture, the body, and public space. Here Leary speaks of the fluidity of working with site that initiates a change in expectation, an opportunity for intimate moments, and a different audience that ultimately gains access to the work. In relation to theater, she comments on the challenges and opportunities of re-visioning a space, that performance in “museums, streets, and warehouses have a different life or edge to them. There’s not this over-riding context that holds it in one place and time.” Careful not to “put practices into silos,” Leary emphasizes the importance of cross-genre training and artistic viewpoint. Her education received in India was invested in the “experience of your body in the work”, rather than “viewing the body-as-machine, as a form to be exercised,“ says Leary. "This comes from a place of “ritual, myth, and spectacle, where the cosmology of the body is sacred.” Leary advocates around contemporary circus culture, while ultimately invested in the concept of a “post-disciplinary” environment. This orientation sets Anandam apart, allowing the company to occupy a unique space and presence. Adopting the tools of circus, yet going beyond perceived limits, Anandam creates work that reveres tradition while contributing to its evolution. --Sarah Muehlbauer
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I was invited back this year to the Contemporary Circus Arts Festival of Toronto as Festival Dramaturge. Here's a link to a piece I wrote on the festival's intelligent growth, design, and evolution.
CCAFT V4: ANCHORED IN THE PAST, I COMMIT FULLY TO THE PRESENT, MAINTAINING A VISION OF THE FUTURE WE WILL IMAGINE published by Anandam Dancetheatre and the Contemporary Circus Arts Festival of Toronto "CCAFT has taken an active role in supporting the cultivation of unique voices and the development of practice, which serves a different responsibility than what artists are often called to put forth in the economic spectrum. This choice is not to suggest a hierarchy, but to present a broad continuum of style and function instilled with a sense of awareness, purpose, and dedication to an audience in whatever context we present. It is less to define “what is circus?” but “what are we doing with it?” Here we find the space that allows for work to be “embodied, political, and full of failure”, fundamentals of socially conscious art." Visual Art Performance hero Janine Antoni is in residence/ performing at theThe Fabric Workshop and Museum through the end of July, in collaboration with choreographers Anna Halprin and Stephen Petronio. Here's what I took from it, in a piece published by Title Magazine.
Wrapped in the Interstitial: Janine Antoni, Anna Halprin, and Stephen Petronio at FWM. BORDER CROSSING.
It’s approximately 2:00 pm EST on Sunday January 17th, and I’m approaching the Canada/ US border at Port Huron after my last visit to Xiaolan Health Center, where I am being treated for the management of Crohn’s disease. It’s an epic trek to make regularly, but worth it for the quality of care I receive and the successes that we are slowly carving out. I pull up to the station and hand over my passport. I’ve learned well to have minimal luggage and an orderly car, to answer agents directly and with extra oomph because my voice never seems to project well over the noise. Whenever I’m asked to repeat myself, agents' inexorable suspicion always grows. I am confident that nothing I'm doing is illegal, yet filled with anxiety as I’ve experienced more than once that truth alone is not enough to satisfy agents coming or going from the boundary. Once again my anxieties are about to be fulfilled, and from the moment I am asked to repeat where I live by this gruff, older agent, I can tell that he is seeking to cause a problem. He asks why I’ve come to Canada, to which I respond, “For a doctor’s appointment”—the same answer I’ve given in passage for the last 3 months. I’ve had wildly different handling each time, which reveals to me no “standard” and the sense that my experience is determined by subjective whims of powerful agents. He glares, and the accusation in his voice increases as he demands to know if I am on any medication, for me to hand it over, and to put on my flashers. With anger in his voice and a sincere lack of compassion for my revelation of chronic illness, he demands to know why the pills I have (Prednisone) are in a pill sorter rather than the original prescription bottle. I tell him it’s because I’m traveling and have to take them multiple times a day, and carry them with me in my purse. It wouldn’t make sense to carry containers for the over-the-counter sleep aid I take, as well as Tylenol and Vitamin D, and the steroid that I truly wish I weren’t on, all in separate containers for a weekend of travel. He asks if I’m on anything else, and snatches the tea I have from Xiaolan. I have a sinking feeling that this misunderstanding will only get worse. Clearly my answers don’t satisfy; he leads me to park my car, demanding I leave my phone and purse in it, muttering kids come across the border and sell their friends the “good stuff", clearly indicating that I am being suspected of drug trafficking. Upset, but holding my own, I respond, “Nobody wants to be on Prednisone”, and “If I have to leave my phone in my car, I can’t pull up my prescription information for you,” as I hand over my keys to have my car searched. I enter a cold office full of uniformed agents where I’m escorted to a desk and hand over the orange paper given to me, which is check-marked “fruit and vegetable”. When asked by this next agent about the pill box that is in my hand, I say, “Well I don’t know, but this is the Prednisone I take for Crohn’s disease and is apparently why that agent seemed to be freaking out”. He looked unconcerned about it himself, and with an air of kindness asks me to sit down. Perhaps ten minutes later, another officer travels through the room, catching my gaze and holding up a plastic bag found in my car. And what is this? I give a bit of a laugh and say, “It’s rosin. I’m an aerialist. I use it for performing rope and trapeze. I bought it at a ballet store”. Clearly none of these officers have ever met an aerialist before. I’m informed that they will be testing my tea and the "mystery bag" until they find out “what’s in it”. Since they have no frame of reference for anything I’m telling them, and my own words hold no weight, I know my day has just gotten indefinitely longer. I still have over 300 miles to drive to Chicago to get my friend’s couch, and in the end, I will not make it that far and will end my day in a hotel room in Elkhart, Indiana. I’m escorted to a side room, where I begin the “101 more-and-more personal questions” round of the investigation— which I have been through before on the opposite side of the border-cross. On my first trip to Xiaolan in November I’d been stopped late at night after driving the 450 miles from Wisconsin to the border at Detroit. The longest of the three rounds that instance happened while standing outside in the cold, so I suppose in this case I was thankful to be indoors; though it was quite cold in the office, and after two hours I had a deep chill, and was sick by the end of the day. The interrogation is frustrating. The highly personal and complicated conversation surrounding my health is to be exposed to many unnecessary ears, and has to be projected some distance across a room. I am quizzed by a male agent behind a counter as I'm seated perhaps 20 feet from him, in a room with 4-5 agents coming and going, and one unfortunate young man who’s been snagged for marijuana (he apparently tried to check out the “duty free” shop, without meaning to cross the border at all). The agent asks detailed questions about my treatment, unsatisfied with my answers and the fact that I would drive all this way for an un-finite outcome. Having spent the last 11 years under diagnosis with a disease with no cure, and having to live with this uncertainty and continual questioning and research myself, I am direct with my answers and frustrated with his in-acceptance of these variables. As questioning continues, I describe to him that my illness and the Prednisone I am on affect my ability to handle the stresses that I am now under, and he tells me to “calm down”, which is perhaps the largest insult I received of the day—though to this, I only internally roll my eyes... at the niave insensitivity he must have towards illness in general. In this moment, I conjure an image of his family, his wife and kids, or whomever he may care for, who would not appreciate this attitude, either. I make it through questioning. I sit some more, and eventually lie down across several seats. Some time passes, and a female federal agent who’d been in the room for my questioning comes over and asks me to let them know if I need anything to care for my illness. She also tells me that in the future I can ask to be taken to a separate room, to be spoken to one-on-one, and to request a specific gendered agent if that makes me more comfortable. I thank her. I ask how long I will be there, and no-one can tell me, but it's indicated that a supervisor is involved. More time passes. A few agents exit and re-enter. They are all rubbing their hands, one remarking “this stuff is all over”, and I jokingly ask if they are all covered in rosin now. They laugh, having just passed around a bottle of hand lotion, but appreciating the humor I am finding in my situation. It’s been two hours since I first arrived at border, and yet another officer asks me what I use the rosin for. "I use it to perform trapeze and rope, and for hanging exercises at the gym. You can keep it if you want.” He says, “Yes, we were going to. But we determined that’s what it is. Here you go, I’ll put it in this bag with your other things” (these things being my phone, which they must've taken from my car and searched through, and the teas from Xiaolan, with one open tea bag). I received no apology... but with an air and directness that seems to carry it, I am led out of the security office and given my keys back. I drive on, hitting my physical limit two-hours short of my friend’s house and taking a hotel in Elkhart, IN—another act of surrender that is a commitment to maintaining my health, an oath not to back-slide. As it has been from the start, the journey is challenging—but in a comforting way, though it may seem without a guide, to borrow a line from Paulo Coehlo, the road is “walking me”. Developing Natural Guidelines for Care: Navigating diet, medicine, body work, and strength training1/8/2016 Hello lovely listeners, and greetings from the midway point of this transition from Western to Eastern treatment, from sick to healthy, from short-term solutions to long-term perspective on the care and maintenance of Crohn’s disease from a holistic perspective.
I am not here to tell you I have all the answers, but I AM here to tell you what I’ve learned and experienced. At this point I’m feeling much more grounded, and I’m starting to discern what bits of practical advice are most useful to pass on to anyone dealing with Crohn’s (and I believe much of this is broadly applicable to IBS/D). So here’s a "cheat-sheet"—less of a “why” and more of a “how” to manage the practical aspects of how I (and possibly you) can facilitate an overall transition for optimizing strength and health through natural methods. First off, let’s talk… DIET Ladies and gentleman, it is not a secret. Crohn’s is a disease of the GI system, and so naturally it is affected by food. Inflammation = malnourishment, and so it’s both important to pay attention to what foods cause the inflammation spiral, as well as those that can boost our health and well-being. Nobody’s a saint, and it's a highly individual and variable disease and set of symptoms. After having my long-term doctors repeatedly dismiss the topic of nutrition as it relates to Crohn's, I began to study this on my own with the help of a holistic nutritionist in Toronto (who also suffers from Crohn's). Jackie McCaffrey is a good resource on this topic. Things like food timing and organic are really importance, since pesticides just aggravate symptoms and certain foods don't process well together. Dairy and caffeine are commonly problematic for IBD sufferers and totally unnecessary in modern diet (at least in the amounts that they are typically included). Gluten is an obvious "no" as well for its inflammatory response and how it causes backflow from the Ileocecal valve. There is also a link in many (myself included) between Crohn's and yeast which trigger GI symptoms and can act in combination with hormonal fluctuations—so probiotics, natural anti-fungals like garlic and coconut oil, and apple cider vinegar are all helpful in reversing symptoms. I will also add that CBD oil is wonderful, and helps with anxiety (which is common with Crohn's) as well as calms the digestive tract. CHINESE MEDICINE The herbs I take twice daily in the form of tea from my Chinese medicine doctors at Xiaolan cleanse and reset my GI system. I will not provide the full ingredient list since this is measured carefully by prescription and is not intended to substitute for supervision from an experienced care practitioner, but the teas combine ingredients like ginger root, licorice root, kudzu, skullcap root, coptis root, pinellia rhizome, and magnolia bark, I will likely come and go from needing them as part of routine maintenance when symptoms pop up. I am also undergoing acupuncture, which works through the meridian system affecting various immune channels and hormonal balances. Each practitioner likely has their own concept of treatment strategy, and you’re going to want to find one to stick with, as they will get to know you and your evolving health. YOGA & BODYWORK I’ve been an athlete my whole life, and I pursue efficiency with every movement and in those treatments I seek to help my body feel and move better. The training experience and bodywork I’ve received through more than a decade’s worth of chronic inflammation, scar tissue, and heavy training have given me a lot of hard work to do... and an equal abundance of tools to draw from and compare. I’ve been practicing yoga ever since my Crohn's surgery 15 years ago, and I believe it's one of the key factors that has kept my health functioning at a higher level than perhaps my “severe” diagnosis would suggest. Yoga mindset helps me manage stress, and its physical forms have kept me continually striving for a more perfect sense of “center”, working from a system that transforms both inside and out. For receiving healing work at the hands of skilled practitioners, which is at times quite necessary, I believe Thai bodywork is one of the best systems out there for unraveling the physical and energetic effects of chronic illness, as well as cranio-sacral therapy and myofascial release. I have recently had a significant amount of belly work done focusing on a sort of "infinity" pattern, a wavelike motion to encourage fluidity and the acceptance of pressure directly to the intestines themselves. More recently, I've decided to dive into deep breathing techniques ala the Wim Hoff method, which has totally exciting evidence to suggest its positive effects on autoimmune illnesses. STRENGTH TRAINING The Caterpillar Response: Combatting General Collapse and Divide of the Midsection: Over the years my core was divided by intermittent inflammation, which I continually fought by increasing focus and working “harder” than I should’ve had to, to achieve results in practice. All this occurred largely unnoticed until misalignment transferred significantly outward, and unexplained joint problems started to add up. It is funny, and with an appropriate sense of irony, that after all this time and effort, the solution is an act of “letting go” and simplifying—teaching my body to do "less work", to sustain the effects of alternative healing. Since my trained neurological patterns gave me strength but not coherence, I knew this was a mind challenge as much as a physical one. What follows is a distilled regimen that I follow for time and effect, and it’s my goal to introduce short videos to this list. As a yogi and acrobat, I prefer to use my body as my main tool—but I also favor the use of BOSU because it forces midline grounding and stops my body from trying to re-engineer a sense of balancing using strength over natural alignment. If you want to dig into everything BOSU (which I totally recommend!) check out 40 Bosu Ball Circuit Training Exercises on Jen Reviews, which will give you lots of fun videos and tips. The series is specifically designed to rehab uneven core and reground the hips, working outward into the grounding of the hands and feet. In addition to “core” focus, the hips are highlighted due to the relationship between the SI joint and its direct connection to the small intestine which, when inflamed, is a significant driver of uneven centering and chronic back pain. A strong and centered core is truly to the benefit of everyone, but in the case of the IBS/D affected, it’s even more crucial to support and house the organs—preventing the midsection twist and collapse, like the reaction of a caterpillar in distress curling in on itself to protect its vital organs. **Asterisks for advanced levels only PART ONE: STANDING BALANCING This series begins in simple, natural positions, triggering a wake-up of subtle core and pelvic floor muscles, and standing leg stabilizers, to encourage grounding throughout the practice. Standing leg lifts: Front, back, and side. 15-20 each leg/ each exercise, repeated twice per workout Beginning on floor if new to this. Leveling up to flat side of BOSU. Resistance bands added as strength increases. Between leg lift sets: BOSU sits (squishy side): Pilates 100 variation, bent knee/ parallel to floor. Hold backs of thighs for assistance. Bug walks (10 x 2-3) on or off BOSU for lower ab isolation Tree Pose: Level progression: Floor, flat side, squishy side of Bosu BOSU Pushups: 5-10 x 2 (can be alternated with your Tree Pose) Butterfly wings and “W” arm extensions on Balance Ball: 15-20 x 2/ exercise BOSU Squats with weights: 8-10 x 2-3 rounds with 5-15 lb hand weights Take a few minutes to explore down dog, walk forward to standing forward fold, widen feet for low squat, and roll up. Take simple bicep, tricep, and pec stretches at the wall. PART TWO: SIMPLE HANDSTANDS AND HANGING Balancing push with pull, I believe in the importance of grounding the body through both the hands and feet first before hanging exercises, so the order of this is quite intentional and designed to best support the foundations of your frame. If you have not attempted a handstand before, I recommend in-person instruction. Same goes for hanging inversions, which are only to be practiced if you have aerial training or an instructor. As you can see from the description of the “Simple Hang” below—with all the dimensions that aerial movement contains, there are quite a lot of forces to consider. Handstands at the wall: Belly in toward wall, held for alignment, strength, and time **Handstands on Bosu: Split leg, with wall assist or spot Simple hang from hands: I begin any aerial activity with simple hanging for at least a minute or two, focused on opening up the hand, even grip through all the fingers, relaxation/ elongation of the spine and widening of the low back. Hanging from parallel, shoulder-width bars allows for the most neutral alignment and is ideal for this training, but it can be adapted on straps, rings or other aerial apparatus with care. There is always an active hugging inward, a pressure created by pulling the hands towards each other, lengthening the neck, wrapping the shoulders, and pressing shoulder blades down the back. Core and pelvic floor engagement is cued from previous exercises, so you should be good to go for healthy inversion. Shoulder circles from parallel bars: 5-10 full circles, maximum range each direction x 2. Increase repetitions incrementally Weight-loading single arm through full range of motion **Hanging inversions: Split through (croc variation), unthread, controlled straddle descent, increased incrementally. **Single Locked Knee Hangs: Held for time & hamstring/ calf release **Single Locked Knee Hang Sit-ups: 5-10 each side **Skin the Cat **Meathooks PART THREE: FLOOR SERIES This last set is a simple sequence derived from yoga and designed to target hip, belly, and shoulder tension, and to work off of the previous series of exercises. If you are new to yoga, I recommend taking class. There are many good tutorials on these poses available with a quick google search, though this can’t replace a good teacher. It's also extra important if you have had any surgical intervention, as I have, to practice in proper alignment or risk damage to your joints over time. In my case, I've had to be quite careful with splits and backbends due to the scar tissue in my lower core. This is not to deter you from practicing, quite the opposite in fact—but to advise you to work within your body's constraints, and to continue bodywork and scar rehabilitation to achieve your optimal alignment and range of motion. Start with a simple vinyasa to balance your body and feel free to return to it between sides, positions, or any time your body seems to be cooling off. There are many forms this could take, but I suggest starting in downward dog, rolling forward into plank, lowering slowly to the floor, moving through cobra (or upward dog), pressing back to child's pose with knees wide, and returning to downward dog. Bridge **Wheel (with block and/or wall grounding) Half Pigeon King Arthur at Wall Half Split **Full Split Tortoise **Middle Split Plow & Fish Simple bent-knee twist (lying) Child’s Pose |
Sarah MuehlbauerArtist, writer, seer, circus. Search topics through the Table of Contents to the left, or chronologically through the Archive below.
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