WATCHING WOMAN AND WATER

• Published in: Theatre Survey
• Main Author: Foster, Susan Leigh
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 2010
• Subjects: Visual Arts and Performing Arts; Todd; Royce; alutiiq
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0040557410000256; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0040557410000256

I am being haunted by a dance I saw more than a year ago. Ever since it was performed as part of the Actions of Transfer: Women's Performance in the Americas conference at UCLA in November 2008, I have been reviewing it in my mind every few weeks. I am unsettled by its seeming simplicity and by the integrity and power that this simplicity conveys. Therefore I am writing not about a work I have just seen, but rather one I have been rewatching for several months. The dance, titled Woman and Water , was created and performed by Alutiiq artist Tanya Lukin Linklater. It premiered on 22 May at Visualeyez 2006, Canada's seventh annual festival of performance art, produced by Latitude 53 Contemporary Visual Culture; the festival's theme was “Domesticity,” and it was curated by founder Todd Janes in Edmonton, Alberta. When she was invited to UCLA, Lukin Linklater inquired about the availability of water near the conference where the piece might be performed, and, upon seeing the site, determined to stage the work in the plaza in front of Royce Hall, which is adjacent to a large fountain. This is what I remember watching: