2021 Choreographers

Lydia Zimmer

Lydia Zimmer

Photo by Cooked Photography

Lydia Zimmer is a graduate of Walnut Hill School for the Arts (’07) and The Boston Conservatory (B.F.A. ‘11). Since returning to her home city of Halifax, Lydia has created several works supported by Canada Council for the Arts and Arts NS. These include Bonne Nuit (2016), presented through Live Art Dance; Embankment, commissioned (2017) and remounted (2021) by Votive Dance; Sonderlings (2018), commissioned by Nostos Dance Collectives, and Sondering (2019), a solo presented by FODAR. Lydia completed a dance residency at Nes Artist Residency in Skagastrond, Iceland, and a choreographic residency in Sofia, Bulgaria at the Derida Dance Centre. Lydia has been commissioned by Mocean Dance to create a new work that will premiere in the Spring of 2021 … she is grateful to be able to rehearse with Votive and Mocean during this pandemic! She currently works for Mocean Dance, Votive Dance, and Kinetic Studio.

Research Goals & Questions - We will be experimenting with sound effects paired with corresponding types of movement, ie. Doors closing = bodies folding rapidly in succession. We will also create the inverse effect where a splat sound may cause us to jump! Creating our own individual sound scores, group collaboration sounds, and audience/viewer initiated sounds will be part of this process. I love working with dancers that are comfortable with improvisation and not afraid to make ’sound effects’. This process will be fun, engaging, and hopefully we can all take away something new and exciting from this practice!

Jacinte Armstrong

Jacinte Armstrong

Jacinte Armstrong. Photo by Kevin MacCormack

Jacinte Armstrong is an artist based in Halifax/K’jipuktuk, NS. Her work explores embodied practice through performance, choreography, collaboration, and curation, communicating the experience of the body in relation to objects, materials, sounds and people. She performs regularly with SiNS (Sometimes in Nova Scotia) Dance, Mocean Dance and was Artistic Director of Kinetic Studio from 2014-18. Since 2015, Jacinte has been part of 8DAYS8JOURS, an annual gathering of Canadian choreographers. In 2020 she completed her MFA at NSCAD University.

Research Goals & Questions - During Clear Forum I will be researching creation, improvisation and performance of scores (multiple forms) through movement and object-based work, both in-studio and outdoors. While placing value on embodied knowledge, I would like to explore this work with dancers and non-dancers interested in collaboration and performance. We will work from the idea that audience members could eventually participate in the performance scores that we create/research during this period. A sense of humour and good memory will be beneficial to the process.