Working Title: Normate I Mein

Here's some information about an interesting ongoing project by the SCA's Peter Dickinson and Rob Kitsos and SCA alumni Nancy Tam and Milton Lim.

Working under the title "Normate I Mei" and capturing and articulating the values and priorities of the SCA, the project "seeks to develop new modes of interdisciplinary artistic collaboration and research/creation by investigating how aesthetic strategies related to the creation and performance of gesture, language, and sound can challenge preconceived notions of normal self-expression in everyday life." The project developed out of a series of intensives in 2017 and an artistic residency by Kitsos and Tam in Belgium. Peter and Milton eventually joined the project, which is relocating temporarily to Montreal for another intensive, where the group plan to share their research with Senselab, a Montreal-based "international network of artists and academics, writers and makers, from a wide diversity of fields, working together at the crossroads of philosophy, art, and activism."

Bios

Peter Dickinson is a Professor at Simon Fraser University, with a joint appointment in the School for the Contemporary Arts and the Department of English. He is also Director of SFU’s Institute for Performance Studies. Peter has published extensively on theatre, dance, film, and performance art, and he is the author, editor, or co-editor of ten books and special journal issues. Peter’s own plays include The Objecthood of Chairs (SFU Woodward’s, 2010), Positive ID (Berkeley Theatre, Toronto, 2012), Long Division (Pi Theatre, 2016/17), and The Bathers (excerpt,  Zee Zee Theatre, 2017). As a writer, researcher, facilitator, outside eye, collaborator, and occasional mover, Peter has worked with several Vancouver-based dance artists  and  companies, including Justine A. Chambers and Alexa Mardon, plastic orchid factory, Ziyian Kwan/dumb instrument Dance, Tara Cheyenne Performance, Kokoro Dance, Vanessa Goodman/action at a distance, Lesley Telford/Inverso Dance, and Rob Kitsos. Peter blogs about Vancouver performance at performanceplacepolitics.blogspot.com.

Rob Kitsos is a dance artist, dance instructor, performer and choreographer who has appeared with dance companies and produced his own works across the United States, South America, Canada, Asia and Europe.       He has been on Faculty of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and University of Washington. He is a Professor in the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University and teaches Contemporary Technique, Composition, Interdisciplinary Collaboration, Repertory and Dance Aesthetics.   Rob received his BA in Theater/Dance from Bard College and MFA from the University of Washington. robkitsos.com

Nancy Tam is a sound artist who uses sound and performance as primary mediums to making interdisciplinary performances. She composes with the Toronto based Toy Piano Composers collective since its inception in 2008. Her compositions and performances have toured in Germany, Denmark, the U.S. and throughout Canada. As a performance maker, Nancy works closely with Fight With A Stick performance company with whom she devised and collaborated on the Critic’s Choice Award winning show Revolutions in 2017. At present, Nancy is focused on creating work with her performance collective A Wake of Vultures in Vancouver. www.nantam.ca

Milton Lim is a Vancouver-based artist whose output spans performance, new media, dance, installation, and video art. His work is engaged with global politics, the cataloguing/archiving/indexing of public data, and resource allocation. These thematic interests are bolstered by a continued interest in game mechanics, typography architecture, and high- frequency content. He holds a BFA (Hons.) in theatre performance from Simon Fraser University. He is Co-Artistic Director of Hong Kong Exile, an Artistic Associate with Theatre Conspiracy, the recipient of the 2016 Ray Michal Prize for Outstanding Body of Work, and the recent Artist- in-Residence with PuSh International Performing Arts Festival (2016 - 2018). miltonlim.com