Discover Dance, Digging Deeper: Victoria Mata

In May, we had the opportunity to share the space with Venezuelan-Canadian artist Victoria Mata at our monthly gathering of Discover Dance. Company Member, Rachana Joshi has written about her experience of the May edition.

Rachana’s experience

Victoria Mata invited us to share glimpses of her creative process for her film Suspended. In the original film, Mata dances while hanging by bungee cord from a bridge. The work emerged out of Mata’s grief following a drastic event in her life. She described being unable to find the ground and how she felt as if she was left suspended. Through this suspension, and through dance, she was able to find her own grounding.  

“It was inspiring hearing Victoria’s journey as an artist and her connection to her ancestry. She describes her work as an ‘embodied cultural expression’.”

Victoria was also joined by her collaborator, musician Nano Valverde. He brought a variety of instruments and technology to create a soundscape to Victoria’s movement in real-time. They created a duet, with Nano’s varying musical choices mirroring Victoria’s movements. For Discover Dance, she tied the bungee cord to a pillar in the space and created a vertical suspension. She also distributed pieces of paper and markers, encouraging the audience to just transfer what we were feeling based on what we were seeing onto the page. This exercise was really beautiful to participate in. Grief is such a universal emotion that we all cross at one point or another in our lifetimes. Even just simply doodling alongside Victoria’s movement served as a healing release of those emotions out of the body and into the universe.  

It was inspiring hearing Victoria’s journey as an artist and her connection to her ancestry. She describes her work as an “embodied cultural expression”.  Mata brings her stories to life through a vocabulary and aesthetics rooted in her cultural identity with a clarity that was beautiful to witness as an audience member. 

Don’t miss Victoria’s upcoming presentation,  Cacao | A Venezuelan Lament, at Mel Lastman Square from Sept 22-25th, 2022.