Mother The Verb

by Ivy Monteiro and Javier Stell-Frésquez
presented as part of EcoFutures Festival

Friday 5 April 2019
Chisenhale Dance Space
64-84 Chisenhale Road, London, E3 5QZ
7:30pm (60mins)
£12/£14

BOOK

“Because our nursing infants are at the top of the food chain, they inherit a body burden of industrial contaminants from our blood by way of our milk; thus are we part of the landfill, colonized.”

– Katsi Cook, Mohawk Native American Scholar and Midwife

Fusing dance, storytelling and audiovisual projections, Mother The Verb is a performance with an air of ritual enacted from queer, trans and indigenous/of colour perspectives. Exploring motherhood and its redemptive potential through a tender, physical language, this piece is a bold and complex study of the toxic effects produced by colonialism and ecological violence on human and planetary relations.

The artists will conduct a workshop at Chisenhale Dance Space on Sunday 7 April 1-5pm.

Bios

Ivan “Ivy” Monteiro (Brasil) is a performance artist working across dance, music and visual arts. Their work contests gender, social and racial expectations through processes of (dis)identification and draws from ancestral and spiritual knowledges to enact futuristic scenes of redemption, reparation and healing. Ivan also goes by the name “Tropikahl Pussy”, producing “draglesque” and live music performances.

Javier Stell-Frésquez (Piru & Tigua Native American from El Paso, Texas) is a performance artist and choreographer working with a variety of dance forms including ballroom voguing. She produces Two-Spirit performance festivals and community events in SF Bay Area and holds a B.S. in Environmental Science from Stanford University. Javier also facilitates discussions and workshops on decolonial equity frameworks and Indigenous Land Acknowledgments.

Mother The Verb premiered in San Francisco as part of Counterpulse Artist Residency Commissioning Program.