Loss, Great Grief, and Preservation: Brandy Leary’s Suspended
In 2017, Toronto-based physical theatre artist Brandy Leary performed choreographic research as part of the Arctic Circle’s Summer Solstice Expedition, a multidisciplinary voyage of invited scientists and artists who developed work during their travels in and around the Svalbard archipelago, located...
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University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress)
2022
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/ctr.189.005 https://ctr.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/ctr.189.005 |
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crunivtoronpr:10.3138/ctr.189.005 2023-12-31T10:03:32+01:00 Loss, Great Grief, and Preservation: Brandy Leary’s Suspended Batchelor, Brian 2022 http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/ctr.189.005 https://ctr.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/ctr.189.005 en eng University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) Canadian Theatre Review volume 189, page 21-26 ISSN 0315-0836 1920-941X Visual Arts and Performing Arts journal-article 2022 crunivtoronpr https://doi.org/10.3138/ctr.189.005 2023-12-01T08:18:01Z In 2017, Toronto-based physical theatre artist Brandy Leary performed choreographic research as part of the Arctic Circle’s Summer Solstice Expedition, a multidisciplinary voyage of invited scientists and artists who developed work during their travels in and around the Svalbard archipelago, located in the Arctic Ocean. I focus on one such performance, entitled Suspended, in which Leary hangs precariously off the side of a boat and above a (melting) ice floe. Leary’s explorations were influenced by the Norwegian eco-scientist Per Espen Stoknes’s concept of “Great Grief,” a public grief based on ecological loss due to climate change, as well as the loss of her husband before she embarked on the residency. I read Suspended as a performance that sutures public and private processes of grief. Because Svalbard is home to the Global Seed Vault, a repository of seeds intended to preserve the world’s plant biodiversity, Suspended also connects forms of self-preservation in the face of ecological loss with larger cooperative efforts toward ecological preservation via the saving of seeds. Both Suspended and the vault as endeavours compel us to collectively care about and act toward futures where our relationships—to ice, to the environment, and to each other—are radically changed. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Arctic Ocean Climate change Svalbard University of Toronto Press (U Toronto Press - via Crossref) Canadian Theatre Review 189 21 26 |
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Open Polar |
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University of Toronto Press (U Toronto Press - via Crossref) |
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crunivtoronpr |
language |
English |
topic |
Visual Arts and Performing Arts |
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Visual Arts and Performing Arts Batchelor, Brian Loss, Great Grief, and Preservation: Brandy Leary’s Suspended |
topic_facet |
Visual Arts and Performing Arts |
description |
In 2017, Toronto-based physical theatre artist Brandy Leary performed choreographic research as part of the Arctic Circle’s Summer Solstice Expedition, a multidisciplinary voyage of invited scientists and artists who developed work during their travels in and around the Svalbard archipelago, located in the Arctic Ocean. I focus on one such performance, entitled Suspended, in which Leary hangs precariously off the side of a boat and above a (melting) ice floe. Leary’s explorations were influenced by the Norwegian eco-scientist Per Espen Stoknes’s concept of “Great Grief,” a public grief based on ecological loss due to climate change, as well as the loss of her husband before she embarked on the residency. I read Suspended as a performance that sutures public and private processes of grief. Because Svalbard is home to the Global Seed Vault, a repository of seeds intended to preserve the world’s plant biodiversity, Suspended also connects forms of self-preservation in the face of ecological loss with larger cooperative efforts toward ecological preservation via the saving of seeds. Both Suspended and the vault as endeavours compel us to collectively care about and act toward futures where our relationships—to ice, to the environment, and to each other—are radically changed. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Batchelor, Brian |
author_facet |
Batchelor, Brian |
author_sort |
Batchelor, Brian |
title |
Loss, Great Grief, and Preservation: Brandy Leary’s Suspended |
title_short |
Loss, Great Grief, and Preservation: Brandy Leary’s Suspended |
title_full |
Loss, Great Grief, and Preservation: Brandy Leary’s Suspended |
title_fullStr |
Loss, Great Grief, and Preservation: Brandy Leary’s Suspended |
title_full_unstemmed |
Loss, Great Grief, and Preservation: Brandy Leary’s Suspended |
title_sort |
loss, great grief, and preservation: brandy leary’s suspended |
publisher |
University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/ctr.189.005 https://ctr.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/ctr.189.005 |
genre |
Arctic Arctic Ocean Climate change Svalbard |
genre_facet |
Arctic Arctic Ocean Climate change Svalbard |
op_source |
Canadian Theatre Review volume 189, page 21-26 ISSN 0315-0836 1920-941X |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3138/ctr.189.005 |
container_title |
Canadian Theatre Review |
container_volume |
189 |
container_start_page |
21 |
op_container_end_page |
26 |
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1786822878663016448 |