This year, we are introducing dance to The Arboretum! Vanguardia Dance Project’s Hybrid Women is the perfect piece to fill the serene space. Performers and choreographers Olga Barrios and Norma Araiza let us know about the inspiration behind the work and how it’s evolved over the years. Don’t miss this immersive, genre-defying on Sunday June 7 at 3:00PM!
What motivated the creation of Hybrid Women?
We (Norma and Olga) have collaborated together at different capacities for a long time, and created our own work for many years but never choreographed a piece together until this work. We thought it would be great to join forces and create a piece that spoke to both of us and that combined our different styles and artistic questions. We wanted to touch on how we saw the world at that particular time. We were very moved by nature but also looking at how as humans we leave a devastating imprint in this world.
When did you start creating this work? And how has it evolved since its inception?
The seed was an intervention at the Kultrun Festival in 2019, called monsters. A site specific, very clownish and intense work. Then we started working during the Pandemic 2020-21, and we started working in our backyard improvising with different elements. We wanted to have dance theatre, clown, and ritual with the theme of human decadency. It premiered in 2021 at a parking lot at Trent University in Peterborough, and it has moved to many different places such as the Museum of Memory in Bogotá Colombia, at King Street in Kitchener at the Impact Festival, at Saskatoon International Dance Week Festival or in a farm in Uxbridge for the Vanguardia Festival.
Because the piece is normally performed outdoors, it adapts to the particular space and it takes shape informed by the surroundings. Therefore, the piece changes in a subtle way every time we perform it. Also, the characters have evolved very much since its inception and they are deep, more playful and specific. We also have live music compositions that transform very subtly depending on the little changes in each place.
What role has collaboration played in the creation and performance of Hybrid Women?
Collaboration is everything in this piece. Because of the nature of the characters and the live sound/music performance, we have to be very present and very connected to be able to transmit our message to the audience.
We realized that we are a very good fit working together even though we have different approaches and styles towards creation. Our relationship as co-artistic director, as producers, as artists and as friends has deepened, and we know more of each other through the language of dance and the arts.
Is there anything you hope the audience will take away from the performance in Guelph?
We hope the people can travel with us in the journey-ritual, but also that people go out of the journey with questions about the work and questions about the context of our imprint as species on this planet.