The Choreography Project

Project - 2020-2023

In the first few months of the pandemic, I saw a lot of dancers lose their work opportunities, be unable to join their fellow company members in studio (& experience emotional & physical exhaustion – enough so that they were unable to train, even) If you were used to a studio environment & suddenly forced into your kitchen or backyard to work, it’s wasn’t going to be the same.

I was impressed with how artists were able to take these circumstances & improvise around them to create outstanding moments of beauty & meaning. And I’ve always appreciated those who are able to create such things outside of a studio or stage environment.

This project was designed to provide employment to artists who lost work opportunities due to our collective shutdown. This project was for those individuals who were able to exist & create such moments of beauty, regardless of their working environment.

Each week (after I sent payment - above CADA rates/industry standards) I provided each artist a narrative/piece of choreography that I had created the day before the working week (it was presented as paragraph/stanza/prose or specific instruction) I like the immediacy & the idea of using something new (& putting a little pressure on myself by waiting until the last possible moment) They took that piece, and during the working week, they interpreted & workshopped what I sent to them (knowing they had free reign to do whatever they saw fit with the narrative provided) & when they were ready, they sent video documentation of the process to me.

We selected a segment of their process (or they created their own mini-dancefilm) and we published it on this site (There are dozens of videos we have in the archives that are offline for now)

What’s Ahead for 2025?

We’re entering quite a challenging period in the arts. Companies have shut down or scaled back but more, the long-term impact of Covid has disabled many dancers I know & do not know. I want us to do something more with what we were able to do in the first few years. I’ve pulled all the video documentation and will spotlight each artist going forward with a recap of what we’ve accomplished (What you see on this page is a tiny sample of what we were able to do)

In turn, I will publish new text that was a response to the incredible work that the artists produced in our first few years & see if any of them wish to continue to do the work we’ve started.

One of the reasons I haven’t re-uploaded all the videos yet is I want to give special attention to each process video by sharing what I’ve written about the labour/performances of our incredible dancers (& this will take time)

I do not have the funding to run this project yet. One of the reasons I paid people before they started their working week is I wanted them to know that they had not just creative support, but financial support as well.

I will endeavor to get to that point again, so that I can work with dancers who are still recovering from the long-term affects of Covid (or any other disabling illness) and we will provide working opportunities to these dancers (& take their disabilities into account in the process) And they will know that even if they can’t return to the stage just yet, they still will have opportunities to create beauty (& be supported in the pursuit) That is the goal of the Choreography Project in 2025.

If you have any questions about The Choreography Project or wish to possibly collaborate, send me a message at rahim@viciousminuteshour.com with ‘The Choreography Project’ in the subject header.

And if you wish to support the work that I’ll be doing on this project in 2025, any support you can provide in the Tip Jar will be appreciated. You can donate to it here.