COMPASS: to re-orient our practice of being together

Artist-led embodied research project by lo bil
Hosted by FADO Performance Art Centre

While this is performance-artist-based invitation, there is no imperative to perform for others. Through presence and attending to what you wish to do, you are potentially helping others attend to doing something they wish to do. Artists can use the time and space in any way they wish, however it is important to note that this project makes space for different forms of movement to occur.

COMPASS is a cross between a studio, a gym, a playground, a library and something unknown that welcomes all kinds of action and participation from both artists and visitors.

PART 1: September 6–9, 2022
We are seeking artists who wish to spend 2–3 hours from 11:30am–2:30pm daily, in a process of navigating shared space while engaging in their own performance practice. Each session will be very open for experimental approaches, varying levels of public interaction, and is intended as real-time embodied research. Each artist will discover for themselves the benefits and challenges of working in this way. Artists may choose to attend one or more sessions.

PART 2: September 13–16. 2022
In this time frame, a smaller group of artists from the first week will continue to develop the discoveries they have encountered, working towards a public showing on the afternoon of September 17. Artists involved in this second week of COMPASS will be paid a small honorarium for their participation.

PLUS: Join us for an open showing on September 17, 2022 from 1:00pm–4:00pm.

We welcome proposals from artists who cannot be physically present at COMPASS sessions to connect via video call or to offer provocations for public to engage in. All contributions, whether in-person or remote, will be credited. Everyone from emerging to established artists are welcome to join. Artists are also welcome to drop by during the first week or the final showing to see what’s up and/or to participate in unexpected ways.

Artist
lo bil

© lo bil, Constellations Of Critical Bodies. Photo Lorenza Cini.

Canada
www.lo-bil.tumblr.com

lo bil is a Toronto-based performance artist who experiments with making unrepeatable risky-heart performances involving spontaneous utterance, impulse-based scores and inter-relational proposals with audience. 

lo has performed at 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art, AGO First Thursdays, Luminato online, Rhubarb!, Summerworks, Fringe, Nuit Blanche, Duration & Dialogue, p.s. We Are All Here, Pi*llOry, LADA DIY (UK), and at academic conferences in Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, Chicago, Mexico City, Vienna and Amsterdam. lo is a Kathy Acker award recipient, a winner of FADO Live Art Award at Summerworks Performance Festival and has received Ontario Arts Council and Chalmers funding. lo is also an educator in performance and movement across disciplines. lo also hosts SCRAPE – a performance art relay, a regularly occuring performance art event in Toronto.

Performance
Pi*llOry Part 3 and Part 4, curated by Holly Timpener

ARTISTS
Amber Helene Müller St. Thomas
[ field ] (Brian Smith & Coman Poon)
Holly Timpener
Johannes Zits
lo bil
Madeleine Lychek
Nicole Lynn Deschaine
Randa Reda
Sadie Berlin
Sheri Osden Nault
Simla Civelek
Tess Martens

Curated by Holly Timpener

Pi*llOry is an event for Queer, BIPOC and Feminist performers to show case their work, focusing on trauma. Pi*llOrists are examining how we personally and politically dismantle heteronormative hegemony and engage in healing that puts an end to the repetition of communal trauma. Pi*llOry’s performers are liberating queer bodies as a primary agency that can harness the transformative power of presence, space, politics, shame and (dis)/ability while refracting their infinite incarnations. Pi*llOry’s artists renounce the binary and traditional gender roles, they not only create new ones for themselves, but give space for others to create their own as well. Through oral, visual and visceral mediums, Pi*llOry explores the depths of fragmented gender/queer identity, pushing beyond labels and classifications. On the edge of complete uncertainty, with only the already structural, limited and bound ways of description and discrimination of queerness, Pi*llOrists arm themselves with the unknown to disrupt inherited historical trauma invoking a lasting communal cultural healing.

Pi*llOry would like to thank FADO for their sponsorship and support of Pi*llOry Part 3 and 4.

Pi*llOry on Instagram
Pi*llOry on Facebook

Read Holly Timpener’s publication on the full Pi*llOry series, below!
Publication includes thesis dissertation, plus interviews with artists from the series:

Featuring interviews with Aisha Lesley Bentham, Amber Helene Müller St. Thomas, B Wijshijer, Brian Smith, Claudia Edwards, Coman Poon, David Frankovich, Enok Ripley, Holly Timpener, Johannes Zits, Leena Raudvee, lo bil, lwrds, Madeleine Lychek, Matthew Moir, Nicole Nigro, Racquel Rowe, Raki Malhotra, Randa Reda, Sadie Berlin, Santiago Tamayo Soler, Sheri Osden Nault, Simla Civelek, Sophie Traub, Speranza Spir and Tess Martens.

Performance Yellow

This fragrance opens us to the question, has the show started? It's winter, the theatre is colder than the street and the room is filled with people and all their winter smells: wet faux leather, down, too much shampoo, and beer breath. The atmosphere is a trickster. Am I late, am I early?

Top Notes

yellow mandarin, mimosa

Middle Notes

honey, chamomile, salt

Base Notes

narcissus, guaiac wood, piss, beer