Everyday Choreographies

In “Everyday Choreographies,” Alana Gerecke and Justine A. Chambers examined the city as a choreographic force. We took seriously the notion that precisely how bodies are moved, organized, coordinated, and composed has direct bearing on the possibilities and limitations of spatial as well as social engagements and orientations. As such, we explored how the city—this city— directs everyday trajectories, shapes movement vocabularies, disciplines bodies, and choreographs the social along specifically classed, racial, gendered, ableist, and other lines. We experimented with how the emplaced and embodied gaze functions to expose and create patterns and constellations of bodies in motion, generating a set of gentle choreographies. We also paused over some recent moments of choreographic reorientation as articulated by professional dance artists in and around Vancouver.

Choreography Walk
We asked, how does the city orchestrate a set of quiet, everyday choreographies? How are dance artists refiguring these mobile arrangements? How does the project of choreography — of directing bodies — resonate with broader ethical concerns about moving and being moved? Experimenting with a practice-based approach that will get us all moving, we sought to reorient understandings of the role of social choreography in “place-making” initiatives, community creation, and the formation of temporary publics.