It’s not all about changing policies for City of Victoria indigenous artist in residence Lindsay Delaronde, who’s currently putting the final touches on ACHoRd, her multi-medium art piece that takes stories and transforms them into what she hopes is a meaningful and communal spiritual experience through dance.
“This ACHoRd piece was inspired by really looking at this city and how I’d activate space in sight-specific performance art, looking at the city’s landscape and the different histories and buildings, and formulating ideas and concepts based on sight-specific work,” says Delaronde.
Delaronde, who has a master’s degree in Indigenous Communities Counselling Psychology from the University of Victoria, says the performance piece at the legislature building is her first attempt at doing dance-inspired performance art. The performance involves 13 women whose chorographical themes are loosely based off A Recognition of Being, a book about indigenous womanhood by photographer and author Kim Anderson.
“She interviewed about 34 indigenous women across Canada wanting to get information around womanhood or identity. She used a framework about resistancy, claiming, constructing, and acting,” says Delaronde, adding that all of the stories told through the movements of dance are coming from those four themes. “All of our stories are being interpreted—not verbally, but through the body—our narratives and our personal stories, our origins, and where we’re from, and the land that we’re on, even past traumas. It’s really about reconciliation of the self.”
The three-month training process for the performance took place every Saturday and Sunday for two hours. (Audience members can show support at the event by wearing a gray top and black pants, shorts, or skirt.)
“It’s an interesting process that way, because the cohesion is always changing,” she says, “and now we’re going to execute the piece on June 25.”
Delaronde says there are some changes she would welcome within government, specifically around the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 “calls to action.” She welcomes those changes through performance.
“When I talk about reconciliation it’s really about integration and inclusivity of other narratives and different histories,” she says.
ACHoRd
7 pm Sunday, June 25
Free, Legislature steps
victoria.ca