22 minute read
A Conversation with Gabrielle Martin and Jeremiah Hughes
by Shanny Rann
Back when we could all still squeeze into a blue and yellow tent, attending a Cirque du Soleil show has always been the highlight of my year. Never have I imagined that one day I would have the opportunity to interview two lead artists of Cirque for Dance Central. In 2018, Gabrielle Martin and Jeremiah Hughes founded their aerial dance company, Corporeal Imago, and co-created its first show Limb(e)s with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, BC Arts Council, creative collaborators, and residencies at Cirkör LAB (SE), L’Espace Catastrophe (BE), and Le Centre de Création (FR). In 2019, they presented an initial version of Limb(e)s at Montréal Complètement Cirque (CA), La Chapelle Scènes Contemporaines (CA), and Assembly Festival at Edinburgh Festival Fringe (UK) where it was shortlisted for a Total Theatre Award. Limb(e)s premiered in 2021 at the Dancing on the Edge Festival (Vancouver, BC) and toured in digital form to Assembly Festival, Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Among the themes we talked about, those of surpassing human limitations and saying less stood out for me and I was left feeling inspired about the future of aerial dance in Vancouver after our conversation.
Limb(e)s Artists Gabrielle Martin and Jeremiah Hughes
© Jessica Han
Beginnings
SR: I was captivated by your contemporary aerial dance performance Limb(e)s at Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2021. What led you to this point in your career today?
GM: When I was young, I was involved in competitive sports, ice hockey specifically. In my mid to late teens, I was seeking more opportunities for individual expression than what sports were allowing me. That brought me into hockey, somatic dance practices and contact improvisation. From there, I grew an interest in contemporary dance technique. At the same time, my passion for circus was developing because I started performing through fire dancing. It was an immediate conduit to get me performing. I got a lot of experience in a short period of time, performing and choreographing my own, do-it-yourself fire dance projects.
Aerial dance drew me for a few reasons. The physicality and intensity, which drew me to sports originally. There's also something about circus and the dramaturgy of it, which surpasses human limitations. I didn't come from formal training in ballet or gymnastics. I came to aerial dance through street circus which seemed more open and accessible. Along the way, I did a Bachelor of Fine Arts in contemporary dance at Concordia University, and I studied aerial dance independently in Montreal for several years. I toured with Cavalia for four years and toured with Cirque du Soleil for four years. That's where I met Jeremiah. We both realized we were not able to express the range that we had as artists. That was what inspired Limb(e)s, it is about our journey from Cirque du Soleil into a rich, dystopian limbo. Limb(e)s is pronounced both ways. It's a play on limbs and the French limbes, which is limbo.
JH: I was also big into sports when I was young. When I was eleven years old, at my mother and my stepfather's wedding, I went onto the dance floor, and I started to have the time of my life. I convinced my parents to get me into dance classes as soon as possible. I grew up in Toronto, which has one of the top competitive studios in North America (I'm a little biased). I trained at The Canadian Dance Company, and I got well-versed in ballet, tap, jazz, hip hop and gymnastics. When I entered professional dance, I moved to New York for internships and worked on cruise ships that led me to the Mediterranean, Orlando, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas, where I stayed for seven years working with Cirque du Soleil and other large companies. I got the opportunity to be a lead character in a show for four and a half years, touring the world with Cirque du Soleil. I have always been trying to learn, adapt and grow, and that's probably why I was able to start dancing late.
Around 2018, Gabrielle and I became friends, and it was a meeting of minds. We thought how interesting it would be if we could makecreative projects together. Limb(e)s became a huge thing that would get us out of bed on the weekends because we were actually excited about it. We were physically exhausted by the end of the week from work, but we were emotionally uplifted to have this project of ourown to look forward to. After our shows at Montreal Complètement Cirque and Edinburgh Festival, we took a slight break from it while we figured out life matters. When we came back to it, we got a different vision, pacing and approach, and the work was richer for it.
Transition from Commercial to Contemporary Aerial Dance
SR: Even though you conceived Limb(e)s years before the pandemic, its theme fits in well with what we are going through on a daily basis, not just individually, but as a community, which leads me to my next question with regards to your transition.Perhaps in contemporary dance, we draw the line too clearly between what is commercial and artistic. Do you both feel that you have to make that transition consciously as an artist, when you're performing for Cirque du Soleil asopposed to in Limb(e)s?
JH: When you are singing, there is a cadence, a timing with the presentation. Typically, in the more performative or commercial side of circus or dance, there are accents on shorter sequences allowing space for applause, or the wow effect, whereas I would find that in contemporary or artistic performance, one would take the time for nuances so that when the audience leaves the theatre, there would be more of an impact. There could be moments of excellence and applause in art, but I think that more importance is placed on the whole experience and what you walk away with, versus any individual moment and any individual being deified or having an apotheosis.
GM: We were working in entertainment, which is also needed in the world, but the range of emotions explored in the context of commercial entertainment is usually narrower, it's often the wow factor or the laugh, not necessarily the emotional impact that stays with you and haunts you for days to come. That is the work we were interested in both experiencing as audience members and creating as artists.
One thing I would say that has been a struggle is that we do come from years of needing to have that show energy and to sell to big audiences. Working within the circus (it happens in dance a lot too), we were seeing shows where performers were doing so much but saying so little. This sounds judgmental, but we know it is not easy to create impactful work. It is hard, even in our process, to move away from having to do do do physically, thinking that just by doing a lot of impressive things, that somehow it is more meaningful, when often it is not the case.
JH: We both have skill sets that would allow us to be far more impressive in the moment. I do not display any of my ability to do ground tumbling throughout the show. Gabrielle does not display her ability to do a straight vertical apparatus. Still, both of our skill sets interlace into the work; she is able to do a beautiful aerial solo and my awareness in the air has been elevated due to that training. We are not trying to insert more noise than what would be beneficial to the work. There is a very sobering moment in our piece which I do not think has much of a space in commercial work.
Performing for Big Audiences and the Camera
SR: Does it feel different to go from performing before big audiences to just the two of you in front of a camera at Scotiabank Dance Centre?
GM: I know a lot of artists speak to the challenge of not having a live audience, but it was not challenging for me, maybe because I am also a co-creator of the work. When we went into filming, we were excited about how the medium of film could convey the dramaturgy of the work. We had a lot of buy-in doing it that way and we have been thoughtful about it. I have done 800 performances of Toruk with Cirque du Soleil at arenas. They were not one of those performances where you see the person in front of you, and you have this beautiful exchange. The spotlights were blinding, and it was just a mass out there, still there was that energy. I do not need the public to tap into that commitment, maybe because I am too inside myself as a performer, but to me, it was not really a challenge.
JH: As I was saying about timing, we were previously doing work that would have an element of twenty seconds of burst or two minutes of burst, then turn and face the audience. As actors, we had many things that we had to do internally, but then we were definitely doing it for an audience. Limb(e)s didn't even have a downstage or a front that we could cheat to have a better camera angle, many of the elements were quite insular and honest between Gabrielle and me. Had we been able to have an audience, it would have been wonderful but just as well, we were able to be very honest with each other. It was just Gabrielle and me moving in space together and an amazing technical team that was supporting us.
GM: And trusting the camerawork too! We knew we could also let the camerawork enhance the performance as it should. We don't have to sell it all the time because the camera is right there and doing its job. It is that balance. It is interesting that in dance, it is rare that we perform for the camera, so it can be destabilizing; but in theatre, there is the film industry and so many actors who love performing for film. It is not a problem and often, they just have to change how they are delivering the work to be in balance with the camera.
JH: When you have the camera up next to you, you are not trying to project as you would to fill the environment or exerting the energy to hit the back wall. We were able to be more natural while putting ourselves through this unnatural environment. We had a lot of communication, planning and storyboarding in our pre-production stage. We used many angles that we would not be able to do with a live audience in the film version. One of the things was taking aerial camera work from above. It is very beautiful, we do not have an audience up there, so why not just embrace the element and do something unique that the audience can appreciate in video?
Doing Less and Saying More
SR: Gabrielle, what you said earlier about performance doing so much, but saying so little stuck with me. Is this something that you want to strive towards—saying more—and what exactly is it that you would like to say more of?
GM: Part of the process of becoming a circus artist was also proving to myself that things that did not seem possible were possible. Surpassing human limitations is quite inspiring and a mandate that I live by. What the aerial apparatus does for me, is look at the agency of the individual against external forces, which is gravity in the literal sense. It is a real struggle to stay up there. It is hard to sustain staying up there for a long time, that will it takes against external forces is something that is very honest when you are up in the air. I am interested in how much agency we have, or are we as humans, victims to the cosmos?
There is a lot that does not make sense, and there's a lot of pain and suffering in the world. There's a lot of why that's still unanswered. We are both people who feel very deeply and have a need for a space to express that. Our work is a way for us to process some of our existential questions, whether or not the individual has agency over fate. In Greek tragedies, we are at the mercy of the gods. That is a belief I resonate with, even though I do not necessarily or consciously want to believe that, but innately, there is some belief there. That is the bigger existential theme that aerial dance has allowed me to explore.
What I realized after obsessing fifteen years on becoming as technically proficient as I could in aerial performance is there is always one more trick that you can get, you can always make it that much more dangerous or impressive. In that environment, you are never at the top. There is a new generation that is always coming up with more difficult and impressive skills. In some ways, the circus is very sport-like, as well as in commercial dance or classical dance, where it is all about the technique. It detracts us from what speaks. At least for me, as an audience member, what speaks to me is not seeing the most incredible technique. One of the greatest powers of theatre and dance is to provoke catharsis amongst the audience, that ability for the audience member to see, to resonate with the emotional process that's happening on stage or to have some sort of emotional transformation that is facilitated by watching a human on stage going through these experiences.
For our upcoming project we are working on, which is premiering as part of the Global Dance Connections series in the fall of 2022, we would rather have less happening in the air with the right quality, than a whole lot happening in the air without much subtle nuances. That is definitely something that we are continuing to pursue. This is the first work I will be outside of and that will probably help because it is hard after so many years to not think that you need to do more in that moment. So maybe from the outside, it will be a little easier to just stay honest to what is important.
Limb(e)s Artists Gabrielle Martin and Jeremiah Hughes
© Jessica Han
Training for Aerial Dancers
SR: Virtuosity can be trained, but the subtle quality of saying more and staying honest that you are both working towards, how do you cultivate that? How do you communicate that to the dancers you're working with?
GM: That is why we have chosen to work with dancers. We have been lucky in who has agreed to work with us. What we share with them is actually the boring technique, the propositions we have for creative exploration, but they bring that awareness. It is rare to find communities melding dance and aerial, even in Montreal, where you have an amazing, very strong dance scene and a very strong circus scene. I think it is because the philosophies behind the training are so different with circus and dance, that they are not necessarily cohesive. In my early training, I did Body-Mind Centering with Jennifer Mascall. That awareness is almost in complete contrast with circus and aerial training, because it can actually be unsafe. You have to execute things in a machine-like way sometimes, because you are working with speed, where there is not a lot of time to think or feel to the same extent, and also the only way to do it safely is to be as tight as possible.
JH: In circus training, if I wanted to do any aerial, I would already have to have a certain level of physical capacity. There is no space for processing “How does this make me feel?”, “How can we embody this sense of being?”. There is not a lot of space for sensitizing as much as now we do this. When I teach gymnastics, I am very conscious not to say “Do it one last time”, because if it is the last time, you approach it differently. It can actually affect how you are in the air, and people get hurt that way. I am very careful to say, “Let's do it again”. I want to end on a good one to get the mentality right. I do not want to inform the subconscious that this is to be treated differently. I don't want them to think. I want them to keep their feet together, keep their abs tight and jump backwards and we will get there. I'm not asking them to think about what it feels like because as soon as you start adding those elements, it detracts from that dynamic safety that has to happen.
What we did, especially in this new project, is prioritize people who are very aware of their bodies. We want good movers, who are very connected to their bodies and in connection with the aesthetic that we are going for. We teach them how to do aerial because we do not need people to go up and show off some of the most dynamic, impressive skills that circus has to offer. What we would love to see is for somebody to go up and have a moment of flight, just to be able to do that. It does not have to be a feat of strength for it to be impressive. We have been very fortunate with the people whom we are working with, and that we are able to have a very human experience in the air.
Why Vancouver?
SR: What is the aerial dance scene like in Vancouver, and why Vancouver?
GM: I grew up here. I left in 2006 to study at Concordia University in Montreal. It was not in my plan to come back. Both Jeremiah and I are passionate artists who want to be working as artists. Vancouver was not on my radar; we saw ourselves in a bigger city. Of course, the pandemic happened and for a few reasons we moved here, but it has actually been wonderful, because it is not oversaturated like the bigger cities are. We felt there is a lot of support here and a lot of room for growth. We are one of the two aerial dance companies in Vancouver.
JH: While there is not much of an aerial dance scene compared to other larger cities, it has been very exciting for us to start from the ground level where we can have conversations and share with others. We arrived in Vancouver during the pandemic so we have not been able to network as deeply as we would with the community. We have been inviting artists to do a little bit of aerial with us, not only for us to meet each other, but also for them to meet this entire other realm of movement. Not only do we have a set of dancers whom we have already been able to connect to and whom we are excited to work with, but we also have an expanded list of dancers whom we have met and whom we are excited to work with on future projects.
Diversity & Inclusion and the Role of Teaching in Aerial Dance
SR: Would you like to talk about the diversity and inclusion in Vancouver’s aerial dance scene as compared to what you have experienced elsewhere?
GM: Yes, it is so important for us to create with people of colour and to show them onstage. That is actually part of why we have been reaching out, not just to meet people, but also to meet more diverse dance artists as well. There are a lot of ways dance can be inclusive and we are not going to pretend that we are making work that is accessible and representative of everybody, but we would like to start with the diversity of racialized artists, both behind the scenes and onstage. For our upcoming project, a third of the artists on stage will be of colour and our goal is 50%, but we need to support the infrastructure of that within the city. It is going to be a long-term process and that is why we are committed to teaching.
JH: What we are doing is taking our opportunity and trying to get as much diversity as possible within the support we currently have to present. As we gain more traction and funding, we would be able to go into more environments and create roles for all people, in particular people of colour. That is something to work towards. What we are trying to do is prioritize, because there has been such a history of not everyone having an equal opportunity or being supported to get the right training, we do not have as many professionals. What we have to do is to make training available. The teenagers I am teaching now could potentially be our performers in a couple years. That is our end goal: to have this entire community brought up.
GM: Even in bigger cities, when you get into the professional level of dance or circus, you do not see that much more diversity than here. Vancouver is really diverse in terms of its demographics, that is why there has been more discourse around racism and the intersections of race and class, how that relates to creating elite level physical performers, who have been able to dedicate much of their life towards something that usually pays so little.
JH: Among the performers in Las Vegas, there was typically a smaller number of people of colour, that is disproportionate to the actual population. A lot of the training I received has been in professional environments. If I never had that first opportunity that led to the second and the third, I would not be having this conversation with you today. Recognizing that, trying to make opportunities available is a larger endgame that we have a lot more interest in. In our team, both on stage and off stage, we are honoured that it has been a very fortunate meeting of priorities.
Limb(e)s Artists Gabrielle Martin and Jeremiah Hughes
© Jessica Han
Audience Engagement and The Future of Aerial Dance
SR: Having talked about the potential of aerial dance in Vancouver, how are you planning to engage with our audience here? How is The Dance Centre supporting your vision?
GM: The Dance Centre has been incredibly supportive. We are artists in residence now and they have been very generous with us. We are excited about teaching and sharing our unique skill set because we both trained as dancers and worked in the circus.
JH: I am not worried about finding our audience in Vancouver because the work is merited, and it is interesting. It is more about finding the right people to come, hang out and enjoy the work. It is also about meeting the times. If we were to look back thirty years ago at contemporary dance, there would not be elements of acrobatic floor movement. What The Dance Centre is putting on now would have not belonged with the programming then, because it would not fit with what we saw as contemporary dance. There is a future to aerial dance—how we went from a linear modality to this acrobatic, vertical modality. We are just opening up another pathway, we are getting off the x-axis, and going for the y-axis and bringing dance along.
Gabrielle Martin is an aerial and contemporary dance artist, choreographer and artistic producer who has performed over 1,400 shows internationally. She studied somatic movement and contact improvisation and performed fire manipulation and stilt walking before obtaining her Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Contemporary Dance from Concordia University (Montreal, 2009). In 2015, she began working with Cirque du Soleil as part of the creation of TORUK - The First Flight. She toured with this show until it closed in 2019, during which time she was the principal female character, Tsyal, and performed a solo aerial silks number.
Jeremiah Hughes began his training in Toronto at the prestigious Canadian Dance Company. After a decade of competing internationally and representing Canada on the world stage he enrolled at the interdisciplinary Randolph College for the Performing Arts in Toronto. Apart from being a featured Soloist on So You Think You Can Dance and performing with artists such as Bruno Mars, Meat Loaf and Taylor Swift, he was also in the Lead Male Role of Ralu in Cirque Du Soleil’s TORUK - The First Flight where he was the show’s Dance Captain.
