Weight We Carry • Kristy Janvier
This is an interdisciplinary work made during Kristy’s Rural Arts Mentorship with Lita Fontaine (2022) from ideas she has carried since 2018.
Kristy chose rocks for her performance’s artifact. Images of being weighed down by the rock, balancing the weight, carrying the rock(s) becomes the symbolic representation of motherhood. We carry our babies on our breast, our backs. Balancing it all in our day-to-day existence.
The landscape of her hometown of Flin Flon, MB is where the Canadian Shield and Boreal Forest meet. As she continues to contemplate the healing aspect as in her previous work, she is exploring how we carry so much while gracefully dancing through the transition to motherhood.
Items in the exhibit: “healing dress” (2 willow hoops (17×15.5 and 19×16.5), 100 birch bark cones, stones, ribbon, Imitation sinew, fabric, small stone;
“moss bag”, Secondary item is the weighted moss bag. The moss bag is made of paper, a fragile material which will hold the sturdy rocks placed inside.
“flower rock”: beadwork on a photograph of rocks.
“Weight we Carry” Lastly, an iPad or projector with video of my movement exploration on a loop or if space does not accommodate this, photograph series images. If I am physically able to be at a location, I would like to offer a live performance.
Biography: Kristy Janvier was born and raised in Flin Flon and is of Dene (English River First Nation) and of mixed European descent. At the age of 18 she began working overseas as a professional actress/dancer. After 15 years of working in the entertainment industry with Disney, Kristy returned to Canada relying on her presence/meditation practice to guide her work. Performances are influenced by improvisation yet structured from personal story incorporating images, installation, sound recording, and/or video.
In addition to her performance work, Kristy has been sewing beadwork since 2018. Sales from her beadwork, Secret_Life_of_Beads, goes towards funding her family’s bush cabin started in 1934 for future generations.
Past Highlights:
She had an opportunity to explore her research on water, the rivers, bloodlines and healing with the support of Young Lungs Dance Exchange in Winnipeg (winter 2016-17). Her first solo work “Forest Floor” showed with Free Flow/Saskatoon (Sept ’17), Weesageechak Begins to Dance/Toronto (Nov ’17), Nocturne/Halifax (Oct ’18), and Nextfest/Edmonton (June ’19). The video work from the E|MERGE artist residency at Earthdance, Massachusetts (Feb ’18) has screened at 5 film festivals in Canada. Her current solo work, Hide, has been supported by the Made in BC Re-Centering/Margins Creative Residency (2019) and shared in Edmonton (Feb ’20) at the Expanse Festival.
She has toured as an invited guest with Dancers of Damelahamid with Flicker (Oct-Nov ’17) and the national and international premier of Mînowin (Sept-Nov ’19). She has also worked with Raven Spirit Dance in The Gift (2019), presented solo work at IndigDIV (2019) and Confluence (2020).