Home: Our Way workshops – Community Arts ( workshop / residency)

Home: Our Way workshops offer space for exploration on ideas of Home through creative writing and the moving body. We delve into questions of refuge, transition, identity, cultural norms, blood memory and explore what it means to be at Home in our lived experience, resilient, and free. Gathering The Fire is the collective creation performance that can come out of a multi-day workshop residency.

Gathering the Fire – Collective Creation (performance / residency)

Gathering the Fire is the performance activation created by participants of Home: Our Way circles that shares their storytelling and dance explorations on the theme of Home. This collective creation can be developed over a series of workshop sessions in a multi-day format. Participants are guided in improvisation experiments to develop their own writing and movement vocabularies that are woven together in a choreography of spoken word, solos, duets, and ensemble movement with input from the co-facilitators. Each participant contributes to the realization of the choreography. The performance is created to be shared as an opening into the collective creation process and meant for alternative spaces such as theatre lobbies, foyers, stairwells, or outside.

“Gathering the Fire” builds a platform for sharing community stories with dignity, respect, and collaborative artistic expression. In addition to the collective creation performance, we can share a site-adaptive trio performance that features Rosemary’s live storytelling with dances by Olivia and Emily.

These safe spaces for workshop and collective creation development are co-facilitated by Anishinaabe-Kwe dance artist Olivia C. Davies and Coast Salish storyteller Rosemary Georgeson (Sahtu-Dene) with Canadian interdisciplinary artist, Emily Long. This residency can be produced over various lengths of time ranging from 1-3 three-hour sessions or longer, depending on the desire of the community – contact Olivia. Together, these women are the founding members of the Crow’s Nest Collective and have over 20 years accumultated experience in community arts and trauma-informed creative practices.

Archives:

2020 —

April 16, 18, 20, 2020 – Home: Our Way digital workshop residency, hosted by Crimson Coast Dance Society for Indigenous Women in Nanaimo, BC

March 9, 2020 – Home: Our Way youth workshop, hosted by Vancouver Aboriginal Family and Child Services

2019 —

October 22, 2019 – Home: Our Way student workshop, hosted by SFU Office for Violence Prevention, Burnaby, BC

July 9, 2019 – Home: Our Way workshop | inFringing Dance Festival, presented by O.Dela Arts and Crimson Coast Dance, Nanaimo, BC

June 22, 2019 –  Home: Our Way workshop 3 week residency & Gathering the Fire performance | Matriarchs Uprising Festival, presented by O.Dela Arts and The Dance Centre, Vancouver, BC

2018 —

October 25, 2018 – Home: Our Way workshop | Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre, presented by The Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival  2018 (15th Edition), Vancouver, BC

October 19, 2018 – Home: Our Way workshop | Creekside Community Centre, Kapwa Festival 2018, Vancouver, BC

October 9-11, 2018 – Home: Our Way 3-day workshop, hosted by the Lester Centre for the Arts, Prince Rupert, BC as part of Made in BC – Dance on Tour community residency with performance of Crow’s Nest and Other Places She’s Gone

2017

October 9, 16, 23, 30 – Home: Our Way workshop 4 Week Residency, hosted by the Firehall Arts Centre, presented by The Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival 2017 (14th Edition), Vancouver, BC with performance of Crow’s Nest and Other Places She’s Gone* This residency produced the first iteration of Gathering the Fire

April 3, 10, 24 – Home: Our Way workshop 3 Week Residency, hosted by the Firehall Arts Centre, Vancouver, BC

2016

November 1, 2016 – Home: Our Way workshop, hosted by the Firehall Arts Centre, produced by the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival  2016 (13th Edition), Vancouver, BC