Arts Company Brings Contemporary Dance REMEMBRANCES to Birmingham 2022 Festival
The piece is part of the company's ORIGINS Festival, which is a space for Indigenous people to share their cultures.
By: Marissa Tomeo May. 28, 2022
Intercultural theatre and arts company Border Crossings will present REMEMBRANCES, a collaborative new dance performance, to the Birmingham 2022 Festival - the biggest celebration of creativity ever in the region and one of the largest ever Commonwealth Games cultural programmes. This mesmerising dance piece forms part of the company's ORIGINS Festival, which has been offering a space for Indigenous people to share their cultures in Britain since 2009. In line with the Commonwealth Games, Border Crossings are partnering with contemporary Indigenous dancer b.solomon//ELECTRIC MOOSE and independent dance company AVA DANCE COMPANY, to ask how we can welcome Indigenous people as visitors to the city, country and land. Who are we now to welcome you?
As Birmingham prepares to host the long-awaited 2022 Commonwealth Games, REMEMBRANCES reflects on the challenging history of colonial injustices. In the time of #BlackLivesMatter, how can we offer a genuine welcome to First Nations people from Commonwealth countries? This dance performance will explore how contemporary Britain has moved from being a former imperial centre to a multicultural space, and how the nation can open itself up to a proper, equal exchange with people whose lands it colonised.
Supported by DanceXchange and presented as part of Birmingham International Dance Festival 2022, REMEMBRANCES brings together diverse artists from the Midlands and First Nations Canada in dialogue. The beautiful and poignant dance showcases the amazing ability of this artform to move audiences and drive essential conversations about welcoming, protocol and acknowledgment in relation to Indigenous people travelling to the UK. This collaboration sees leading creative thinkers and experts in their field generate an astounding piece of dance performance that is both an exploration of shared histories and an emerging ceremony of welcome for the Commonwealth Games.
Commissioned as part of the Birmingham 2022 Festival and generously supported by the Canada Council of Arts and the High Commission of Canada in the United Kingdom.
Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
The event runs from Friday 24th June - Sunday 26th June 2022 at City Centre Gardens, Cambridge Street, Birmingham. It is free and recommended for ages 14+.
www.bidf.co.uk/shows/remembrances
Border Crossings
Border Crossings is a unique intercultural theatre company that has been working across the borders between cultures and art forms, and between nations and peoples, since 1995. Over 26 years, the company have worked with artists, audiences and communities from Chinese to Maori, refugee to Roma. No other arts organisation works with and champions such a broad range of peoples, practices and ideas, collaborating with some of the most important artists in the world today. Border Crossings' ORIGINS Festival is the UK's only large-scale multidisciplinary Festival of Indigenous arts and culture.
AVA DANCE COMPANY
AVA DANCE COMPANY creates high-quality contemporary dance works, with a cast of female dancers and collaborators from a range of cultures and artistic disciplines. The independent Midlands-based dance company was created in 2008 as a dance laboratory to fulfil the artistic vision of choreographer Avatâra Ayuso.
b.solomon//ELECTRIC MOOSE
ELECTRIC MOOSE is the creative umbrella for the work of Brian Solomon, b.solomon. b.solomon//ELECTRIC MOOSE is a First Nations contemporary dance artist of Anishinaabe and Irish heritage, from Ontario Canada.
Matthew James Weigel
Matthew James Weigel is an award winning Dënësųłinë́ &Métis writer creating in Edmonton, Alberta Canada.
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