The Conditions
duration: 100 mins
world premiere: Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Eqpahak/Fredericton, May 29, 2024
video: ︎ interview (CKUT-Upstage, 2024 [40m28s — 59m50s])
︎ interview (Circuit-Est, 2021)
︎ teaser
annexes: ︎︎
world premiere: Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Eqpahak/Fredericton, May 29, 2024
video: ︎ interview (CKUT-Upstage, 2024 [40m28s — 59m50s])
︎ interview (Circuit-Est, 2021)
︎ teaser
annexes: ︎︎
Can feeling be a way of knowing?
Coming together in an art gallery, six improvisors from distinct practices reach into the sensory present. Together they unfold fields of speech, music, and movement. They spill across clean floors and walls as light swirls through inky shadows. Fabulations pry open channels between the bewildering envelope of the world and wild inner landscapes. Nostalgic and fraught topographies are mapped out on cover songs and microtonal drones. The air is whipped into weather. Knocking at the gallery’s white walls, The Conditions spreads the body across two inquiries: is the space a climate-controlled institution estranging us from nature and body? Or is it a temple for sensing and feeling?
Beneath concrete foundations, the bedrock shifts.
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©Fran Chudnoff
Coming together in an art gallery, six improvisors from distinct practices reach into the sensory present. Together they unfold fields of speech, music, and movement. They spill across clean floors and walls as light swirls through inky shadows. Fabulations pry open channels between the bewildering envelope of the world and wild inner landscapes. Nostalgic and fraught topographies are mapped out on cover songs and microtonal drones. The air is whipped into weather. Knocking at the gallery’s white walls, The Conditions spreads the body across two inquiries: is the space a climate-controlled institution estranging us from nature and body? Or is it a temple for sensing and feeling?
Beneath concrete foundations, the bedrock shifts.
©Fran Chudnoff
©Fran ChudnoffWeaving improvisation, the physicality of emotion, and felt-relationships to land, The Conditions unfurls from Lucy M. May’s uneasy search for a relationship with her homeland in Wolastokuk and the trouble of her settler origins. An exhibit of video, collage, sculpture, sound, and light made in collaboration with Fran Chudnoff, Jon Cleveland, Ja James Britton Johnson, and Maisie O’Brien, accompanies this long-form performance, featuring musicians Patrick Conan and Amy Macdonald, and costuming by Pax. In the intimacy of a contained space, the public is invited to listen, gaze, wander, and sink in—to engage with the substances of attention through our many somatic portals.
2025
February 2
Off-PuSh Showcase Excerpt (45 min) - Morrow, MST Territories/Vancouver
2024
November 12-16
Exhibition, Performances & Workshops - MAI | Montréal, arts interculturels, Tiohtiá:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal
May 26-31
Exhibition, Performances & Workshops - Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Eqpahak/Fredericton
May 11
Residency Showing - Musée d’art contemporain des Laurentides, Saint-Jérôme
2023-24
Circuit-Est, Maison de la culture Claude Léveillé & Patro Villeray, Montréal, creation residencies
Musée d'art contemporain des Laurentides, Saint-Jérôme, creation & technical residency
Porte Rouge, Montréal, creation residency
2021-22
Research & Creation (Phase II) - Montréal & New Brunswick
Décloisoner la multisensorialité with Danse-Cité & Émile Pineault, Montréal
Musée d'art contemporain des Laurentides, Saint Jérôme, creation residency
Centre culturel Georges-Vanier, Montréal, creation residency
Studio 303, Montreal, research residency
2019-20
Research & Creation (Phase I) - Montréal & New Brunswick
Maison de la culture Marie-Uguay / Charles Brecard, Montréal, research residency
Circuit-Est, Montreal, research residency
Gallery TPW, Toronto, research residency
The Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, research residency
February 2
Off-PuSh Showcase Excerpt (45 min) - Morrow, MST Territories/Vancouver
2024
November 12-16
Exhibition, Performances & Workshops - MAI | Montréal, arts interculturels, Tiohtiá:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal
May 26-31
Exhibition, Performances & Workshops - Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Eqpahak/Fredericton
May 11
Residency Showing - Musée d’art contemporain des Laurentides, Saint-Jérôme
2023-24
Circuit-Est, Maison de la culture Claude Léveillé & Patro Villeray, Montréal, creation residencies
Musée d'art contemporain des Laurentides, Saint-Jérôme, creation & technical residency
Porte Rouge, Montréal, creation residency
2021-22
Research & Creation (Phase II) - Montréal & New Brunswick
Décloisoner la multisensorialité with Danse-Cité & Émile Pineault, Montréal
Musée d'art contemporain des Laurentides, Saint Jérôme, creation residency
Centre culturel Georges-Vanier, Montréal, creation residency
Studio 303, Montreal, research residency
2019-20
Research & Creation (Phase I) - Montréal & New Brunswick
Maison de la culture Marie-Uguay / Charles Brecard, Montréal, research residency
Circuit-Est, Montreal, research residency
Gallery TPW, Toronto, research residency
The Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, research residency
credits
creation & direction Lucy M. May
dance & voice Fran Chudnoff, Ja James Britton Johnson, Lucy M. May
live projections Maisie O’Brien (substitute Camille Huang)
music Patrick Conan, Amy Macdonald
composition Patrick Conan
visual art, filmmaking Ja James Britton Johnson, Fran Chudnoff, Lucy M. May, Maisie O'Brien
lights Jon Cleveland
costumes Pax
set and exhibition design Lucy M. May
artistic advice, dramaturgy Pax, Hanako Hoshimi-Caines
technical direction Jon Cleveland
sound design Paul Scriver
consult, coaching Eroca Nicols, Judith Koltai, Susanna Hood, Katrin Heimann, Ola Maciejewska
outside eye Helen Simard, Marie-Reine Kabasha, Sasha Kleinplatz, Nindy Banks, Angie Cheng, Eroca Nicols
participants in the research and creation Peter Jasko, Marie-Reine Kabasha, Vicky Mettler, Sovann Rochon-Prom Tep, Camille Huang
writing Patrick Leonard, Erin Hill
photography Fran Chudnoff, Kinga Michalska, Antea Chintoh, Anna Semenova Kozak
video Ja James Britton Johnson, Giordano D'Alonzo, Fran Chudnoff, Do Phan Hoi, F. Chris Giles
video editing Lucy M. May, Fran Chudnoff, Ja James Britton Johnson
administrative assistance: Margarita Herrera-Dominguez
communications & touring assistance: Éléonore Emond-Fontaine
production Lucy M. May | Looumms
creation residencies The Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Studio 303, Circuit-Est, Gallery TPW, Maison de la Culture Marie-Uguay/Le Sud-ouest, Musée d'art contemporain des Laurentides, Maison de la culture Claude-Léveillée
with the support of Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Conseil des arts de Montréal, Festival Transamériques, Studio 303, Circuit-Est, Stephen May
sincere thanks Danse-Cité, Catherine Lavoie Marcus, Charles Brécard, Émile Pineault, iele paloumpis, La Serre arts vivants, Le Patro Villeray, La Porte Rouge, Eastern Bloc, Siwar Soria, Julie Scriver
creation & direction Lucy M. May
dance & voice Fran Chudnoff, Ja James Britton Johnson, Lucy M. May
live projections Maisie O’Brien (substitute Camille Huang)
music Patrick Conan, Amy Macdonald
composition Patrick Conan
visual art, filmmaking Ja James Britton Johnson, Fran Chudnoff, Lucy M. May, Maisie O'Brien
lights Jon Cleveland
costumes Pax
set and exhibition design Lucy M. May
artistic advice, dramaturgy Pax, Hanako Hoshimi-Caines
technical direction Jon Cleveland
sound design Paul Scriver
consult, coaching Eroca Nicols, Judith Koltai, Susanna Hood, Katrin Heimann, Ola Maciejewska
outside eye Helen Simard, Marie-Reine Kabasha, Sasha Kleinplatz, Nindy Banks, Angie Cheng, Eroca Nicols
participants in the research and creation Peter Jasko, Marie-Reine Kabasha, Vicky Mettler, Sovann Rochon-Prom Tep, Camille Huang
writing Patrick Leonard, Erin Hill
photography Fran Chudnoff, Kinga Michalska, Antea Chintoh, Anna Semenova Kozak
video Ja James Britton Johnson, Giordano D'Alonzo, Fran Chudnoff, Do Phan Hoi, F. Chris Giles
video editing Lucy M. May, Fran Chudnoff, Ja James Britton Johnson
administrative assistance: Margarita Herrera-Dominguez
communications & touring assistance: Éléonore Emond-Fontaine
production Lucy M. May | Looumms
creation residencies The Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Studio 303, Circuit-Est, Gallery TPW, Maison de la Culture Marie-Uguay/Le Sud-ouest, Musée d'art contemporain des Laurentides, Maison de la culture Claude-Léveillée
with the support of Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Conseil des arts de Montréal, Festival Transamériques, Studio 303, Circuit-Est, Stephen May
sincere thanks Danse-Cité, Catherine Lavoie Marcus, Charles Brécard, Émile Pineault, iele paloumpis, La Serre arts vivants, Le Patro Villeray, La Porte Rouge, Eastern Bloc, Siwar Soria, Julie Scriver
We would like to express our respect and gratitude to the traditional stewards of the stolen lands upon which these works were created: the Anishinaabeg, Chippewa, Haudenosaunee, Kanien’kehá:ka, Mi’kmaq, Mississaugas of the Credit, Peskotomuhkati, Sámi, Wabanaki, and Wolastoqey Nations and Confederacies. Creating dance and art relies on funding and resources, and all wealth comes from the earth. Land back.