A New Normal: Digital Arts Media Symposium

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Henry Daniel, "PPE Waves A New Normal," 2021

still photo from dance performance

Surrey Art Gallery is convening a symposium titled A New Normal as part of its annual digital media arts series on Saturday, November 6 from 1 to 4 p.m. at Surrey Art Gallery. This event will include a dance performance, talkback, and panel discussion involving Henry Daniel, Diane Sowter, Charlie Cooper, and Alan Storey. Limited in-person seating; admission is free. The symposium will be livestreamed on YouTube.

Since 2008, Surrey Art Gallery has convened symposia on media art practice, history, and theory. While the last decade has focused on sound art, aural experience, and audio cultures, this symposium provides an equal focus on both sound and visual media art, centering on dance and media technologies. As always, the symposium features leading artists, scholars, and researchers in the field of media arts who experiment with the limits of sound and visual experience.

The afternoon will start with a solo dance performance at 1:30 p.m. titled PPE Waves: A New Normal? choreographed by Henry Daniel and danced by Diane Sowter. Charlie Cooper composed the music and Alan Storey designed the set. Daniel’s excerpt from a work-in-progress considers the hyper-digital, framed, and mediated stasis that characterizes online communication in the context of a global pandemic. Sifting through geological and planetary scales and time, Daniel notes, “We are entering a new phase of humanity. It is as if we are awakening to a new reality. Imagine yourself as a body frozen in a cube of ice, a glacier slowing melting after millions of years in a state of suspension.”

Inspired by the performance (which involves nudity), the project collaborators will discuss the foundational technology of the body and the simple mechanics of corporeal systems as they combine with digital forms of creation and expression. The panel discussion will also include a Q & A session with live and in-person audiences.

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS

Currently an SFU Distinguished Professor, Henry Daniel began his career as an actor with James Lee Wah's San Fernando Drama Guild and continued in Port-of-Spain with Derek Walcott's Trinidad Theatre Workshop. He was a founding member of Astor Johnson's groundbreaking Repertory Dance Theatre of Trinidad and Tobago. In the USA, he was a member of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Centre Workshop and Pearl Primus African American Dance Company among other groups. In Germany, he founded and directed Henry Daniel and Dancers while continuing to work as a member of TanzProject München and Tanztheater Freiburg. In the UK, he founded and directed the performance group Full Performing Bodies, which he still maintains. henrydaniel.ca

Diane Sowter studied classical dance at the Hammond School in Chester and went on to work with the Stadttheater Krefeld/Mönchengladbach in Germany, the Arcadia Dance Company in London, and the Israeli Ballet in Tel Aviv. When she returned to Germany, her career continued with Tanztheater Heidelberg, Tanztheater Freiburg, Tanztheater Münster, and Henry Daniel and Dancers. She is a Gyrotonic Pre-Trainer and a Pilates instructor with her own studio in Vancouver, having trained in London with Alan Herdman.

Charlie Cooper is a media artist and composer. His work spans electroacoustic composition, chamber music composition, performance, installation, scores for film, and video. He draws heavily from field recording, found sounds, and homemade electronics. His work has been featured in performance festivals, galleries, and film festivals, as well as in ArtPrize 10 Grand Rapids, Traverse City Film Festival, videosoundarchive.com, withintensions vol. 18, and Science Gallery Lab Detroit’s exhibit DEPTH. charliecooper.ca

Alan Storey has a significant history of site-specific installation and public art making. Based in Vancouver, he has received several awards for his work, including the Americans for the Arts “Public Art Award” for Compass at the Belleview City Hall in Washington State. Storey’s practice also includes gallery installations of site responsive, interactive works, including a series of circumstantial drawing machines. As a set designer, Storey has worked with Ballet BC, Mascall Dance, SFU,  Turning Point Ensemble, and Electric Company Theatre. alanstorey.com

CONVENER

Cecily Nicholson is the Interpretive Programmer at Surrey Art Gallery. She is the author of Triage; From the Poplars, winner of the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize; and Wayside Sang, which won the Governor General's award for English-language poetry. Nicholson collaborates extensively with artists and educators. She was the 2021 Writer-in-Residence for the University of Windsor.

About Surrey Art Gallery

Internationally recognized for its award-winning programs, Surrey Art Gallery, located at 13750 88 Avenue in Surrey on the unceded territories of the Salish Peoples, including the q̓ic̓əy̓ (Katzie), q̓ʷɑ:n̓ƛ̓ən̓ (Kwantlen), and Semiahma (Semiahmoo) nations, is the second largest public art museum in Metro Vancouver. Founded in 1975, the Gallery presents contemporary art by local, national, and international artists, including digital and audio art. Its extensive public programs for children through to adults aim to engage the public in an ongoing conversation about issues and ideas that affect our communities and to provide opportunities to interact with artists and the artistic process. Admission is free. Surrey Art Gallery gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the City of Surrey, Province of BC through BC Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, and the Surrey Art Gallery Association.

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Media Contact

Charlene Back, Communications Coordinator

charlene.back@surrey.ca or 604-591-4205

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