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Art & Books

Belmore on Bay

REBECCA BELMORE on streets throughout the financial district, stationed intermittently at Royal Bank Plaza, 200 Bay. scotiabanknuitblanche.ca.


For Vigil, she chewed up roses and ripped her dress after nailing it to a pole in rage and grief for the missing aboriginal women of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. For her Venice Biennale installation, Fountain, she floundered in the ocean to retrieve a bucket of water that turns to blood as she throws it at the camera.

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Now Rebecca Belmore, one of Canada’s premiere performance/installation artists, comes to the financial district on a rez-style pickup truck to shake up Zone B with aboriginal energy.

The Ontario-born Anishinabe artist shares some of her process for Gone Indian, the piece she’s created for Nuit Blanche.

“I’m very much aware of the site, and I happened to do a pre-visit a few weeks ago,” she says on the phone from her Vancouver home. “It’s at the corner of Wellington and Bay. There’s one bank on each corner, which I find very interesting. So I think as far as a place to make a performance, it’s definitely loaded with meaning.”

Though Belmore’s work has usually been something of a solo act, Gone Indian is a collaboration with choreographer/dancer Michael Greyeyes.

“I’ve collaborated before,” she says, “but it’s not high on my list. Because I don’t dance, I had to enlist the expertise of someone who’s a trained dancer, a traditional dancer. But I’ll be there doing things, doing stuff, doing my thing.”

Much of her work comes across as a passionate, sometimes disturbing expression of righteous anger. Will this piece have some Nuit Blanche party feel, or perhaps contain elements of both rage and celebration?

“I was at Nuit Blanche in 2006, and I think the audience has swelled over the years, and I’ve heard that the party atmosphere has increased. So we’re going in aware that we may have to deal with it in some way.

“I hope to be able to generate enough energy to occupy the space and keep the audience at a safe distance so we can do our thing. Really, what I’m interested in is the site itself and the fact that it’s surrounded by a fortress of power, meaning all that money.”

I ask how she prepares for performances that achieve such a high degree of intensity.

“Our approach is open-ended, and that’s generally how I work. I have an idea of what I want to do, something worked out in my head, and then I usually just arrive at the site and get to work in that place and create what I hope is interesting imagery that people can resonate with.”

Like many Nuit Blanche entries this year, sound it a key element.

“I think, through the voices of others, we’ll be able to gather some steam, some energy, and focus what it is we want to do. In this situation, the power is coming from the music of our people – our aboriginal music, powwow music, our rap music – and we’ll just work with that energy.

“I’m excited about bringing powwow music to the financial district, driving it around for the evening, in some way spreading the sound onto the buildings and the people, bringing another place to that site.”

In November, Belmore will take part in another city-based, night-focused festival, Glow, in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, examining the relationship of light and architecture. And in the spring, she’ll participate in a group show inaugurating the Woodward’s Building redevelopment on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

I wonder if she sees the person in her performances as a persona of some kind.

“No, I think of it as myself. Michael is a trained actor, but I’m a performance artist, and I think there’s a big difference between the two. I never rehearse anything. I am myself and I just do things. That’s my approach.”

art@nowtoronto.com

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