SPANE_YYZImage from Please Feed the Animals by Stefan St-Laurent 2014

SPANE: Threshold
Saturday, September 10th, 2016
DOORS: 5:00PM REMARKS: 5:30PM SCREENING: 6:00PM-7:30PM
Reception to follow.

YYZ is please to present the screening program SPANE: Threshold in partnership with the Mountain Standard Time Performative Art Festival Society (M:ST), Alberta.

This fourth iteration of the Screening of Performance Art in the Natural Environment (SPANE) features a diverse mix of performance-based videos. Curated by Tomas Jonsson.

Please Feed the Animals, 2012 Stefan St. Laurent 8:26
For this project, filmed in the Hindu island of Bali, Indonesia, I covered my body in different foods for wild animals to eat, as if I myself were a religious offering. Is it possible to intervene in the animal kingdom in a way that is ethically correct, to give something to animals without taking anything from them in return?

Crab Park Performance, 2011, Robin Brass 2:50
Documentation of performance at Live Biennial, Vancouver.

Float, 2013 Jake Klein-Waller 3:34
Inspired by ideas of western archetypes, the Canadian landscape, and mystery, I attempt to perform stillness. I want to be a bystander while I orchestrate the river to perform with me.

Private Perimeter, 2013 Rebecca Belmore 22:50
Somewhere between a town, a mine, and a reserve is a line.

Mutopia 7: Coal Mound, 2012 4:21
Scored performance action during MUTOPIA 7 held in Banff.

Gravitational Pull of My Head, 2011 Didier Morelli 7:03
Initially intrigued by an incident whereby a stone he had thrown up in the air fell from the sky hitting him directly in the face, Morelli decided to understand this natural phenomenon.

Tuck, 2012 D’arcy Wilson (Halifax) 14:29
Tuck occurs at the Banff Park Museum, beginning as the artist composed lullabies for the museum’s collection of century old taxidermy. Visiting the site at dusk, she attempted to sing the animals to sleep

Dancing with Dad 2008 Jaan Toomik (Tallinn) 3:49
Toomik dancing on his Father’s grave.

TOMAS JONSSON is an artist, curator, and writer interested in issues of social agency in processes of urban growth and transformation. Tomas has produced several projects in Calgary addressing the city’s urban transformation, including sites such as The East Village and Hillhurst Sunnyside. He has also curated, presented, and performed work in Canada and internationally, including Artscape Gibraltar Point (Toronto), Suvilahti (Helsinki), and MoKS (Mooste, Estonia). He is currently the Artistic Director of the Mountain Standard Time Performative Art Festival (Southern Alberta), and is completing an MFA through the University of British Columbia Okanagan.

JOHANNES ZITS works across many disciplines with a focus on the body and the many meanings it engenders. Since graduating with a BFA from York University in 1984, he has presented work both nationally and internationally. This year, he cofounded the performance art collective No Object and has performed with them in a series of durational works. In November, they will be performing at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Zits will also be presenting solo works in September at Visualeyez in Edmonton and in October at the festival 7A*11D in Toronto. From 2011 to 2013 he curated SPANE and is currently co-curating Duration and Dialogue.

M:ST is committed to presenting performative works from a variety of disciplines that reflect current issues and practices in contemporary art. Through exhibitions, performances, and events, M:ST fosters the development of performative art practices among local, national, and international artistic communities.