These two workshops are meant to give participants an understanding of Rewriting Distance which will be performed at Mile Zero Dance; August 21, 22, 23 at 8 pm and 24 matinée at 2 pm. We will work to create polyphony by simultaneously combining speaking, moving, listening, and writing into another way to tell a story.

With Rewriting Distance, the Canadian choreographer Lin Snelling and the Belgian dance dramaturg Guy Cools have developed together a performance practice, which through moving, spoken word and writing on stage, researches and recreates the ‘oral history’ of the particular places and communities they perform and work within.  Rewriting Distance links, the thought process of individual artists, to writing, moving and speaking from the locus of the body. These two workshops address both memory and place in a live re-telling of personal and collective history in community, moving it into the present: the here and now of performance. It is a way of creating “live history” in as a way to remember together through performing Rewriting Distance. What are the narratives of a group of people that come together? What are we telling each other now? What does our past have to do with the present and the future?  (see website) http://rewritingdistance.com

Lin Snelling’s performance, writing and teaching is based in the qualities improvisation can offer as it applies to dance, theatre, visual art and somatic practice. She toured the world extensively as a performer with Carbone 14 and worked with many improvisation ensembles. As an Associate Professor at the University of Alberta she is presently teaching dance, experiential anatomy and composition and is Coordinator of the MFA in Theatre Practice program.  Her most recent dance collaboration is “eva” as part of StageLab and she works often with Montreal choreographer Tedi Tafel (Crying in Public, Life World, Calendar and Everyday) Her collaboration Performing Book with visual artist Shelagh Keeley happened at the Edmonton Art Gallery/Brian Webb Dance Season, MoMA, the Power Plant/Toronto, and the VAG/Vancouver. She continues with Rewriting Distance; a workshop and performance with the dance dramaturge Guy Cools, coming to Edmonton this August in collaboration with Mile Zero Dance. www.rewritingdistance.com