At the heart of this work is Cootes Paradise, a marshy nature preserve located in Hamilton ON*. Beginning in 2014, a 4 year 24 billion litre sewage leak threatened the already battered wetlands, leaving communities that care for the marsh frustrated with faulty and dated methods for sewage management and stormwater runoff. These methods create incessant fractures between human life and the life of water. The work From one realm to another shares a felt reality that water and human life is analogous and interconnected. While respecting the resiliency of the marsh, koekkoek welcomes us into an imagined post-anthropogenic world where the emotional weight and power of water is honoured from one realm to another.
Sound by Matthew Cardinal.
*The City of Hamilton is situated upon the traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Mississaugas.
sarah koekkoek is an independent dance artist, choreographer and trauma informed educator based in Toronto/Tkarón:to. Her research examines movement as a language that can help cultivate greater understanding and compassion with our relationship to self, others and the earth. Often, her choreography is generated by nurturing the reciprocal relationships of human-human and human-nonhuman through embodied offerings such as dance, text, soft contact and breath. Sarah's practice explores our punctured relationship and existence within the abused and exploited natural world, developing an environment of (physical) emotions surrounding climate change and the anthropocene. sarah acknowledges that at the core of this practice is the recognition that she is an uninvited guest on the territory lands of the Wendat, The Haudenosaunee and The Mississaugas of The Credit First Nations. This informs how she moves through the creation process as well as daily life. It is imperative that we do all we can to be respectful to indigenous communities, uphold treaties and remain open to learning and evolving together.